5 questions to answer before building your website
Before choosing colours or templates, five answers decide whether your website will work for your business or just sit there.
Patricia Lugo · October 12, 2026 · 5 min read
Almost every web project starts in the same place: “I want something modern”, “I like this competitor’s site”, “it has to look good on mobile”. All of that matters, but it’s the last thing to decide.
Websites that work start with business questions. These are the five I always ask in the first meeting, and I recommend answering them before you talk to any designer or agency.
1. What do you want the website for?
“To have a presence” isn’t a goal. A goal is something you can check: getting more viewing requests, selling online, taking bookings, attracting candidates or building trust with clients who already know you.
Choose one main goal and, at most, two secondary ones. Everything else (structure, copy, design) is organized around that goal.
2. Who will arrive, and from where?
Someone who finds you on Google while looking for a service in their neighbourhood is not the same as someone who arrives from your Instagram or from a card you handed them at an event. Each needs to see different things in the first few seconds.
- From Google: you need pages built around what people search for (SEO), with clear copy and your location easy to see.
- From social media: they already know you a little; they want to confirm you’re trustworthy and find out how to contact you.
- By referral: they’re looking for proof: projects, reviews and who’s behind it.
3. What do you want visitors to do?
Every page should have one main action: send a WhatsApp message, request a quote, book, buy or download something. If a page has five different buttons with equal weight, in practice it has none.
A website isn’t measured by how pretty it is, but by how easy it makes the next step.
4. Who will maintain it?
This question is almost always forgotten, and it’s the one that causes the most problems later. A website needs technical updates, backups, up-to-date copy and, often, new content.
Decide from the start who’s responsible and how often. If you’ll do it yourself, the site has to be built with a tool you can manage without relying on anyone to change your opening hours.
5. How will you know it’s working?
Before launch, define what you’ll measure: leads received, bookings, sales, calls or visits to key pages. Set up analytics from day one; otherwise, three months from now you won’t know if the investment paid off.
Your checklist before you start
Before asking for a quote, be clear on:
- The website’s main goal (and at most two secondary ones).
- Where most visitors will come from.
- The main action on each page.
- Who will maintain it and how often.
- What you’ll measure and where you’ll see it.
- Copy and photos: who prepares them and by when.
With these answers, any quote you request will be more accurate and the project will move much faster. And if you don’t know how to answer one of them, that’s exactly what we work on in the first meeting.
