Planning a new website involves more than choosing a design, selecting a platform or finding someone to build it. Decisions made before development begins can affect how easy the website is to use, how effectively search engines understand it and how straightforward it is to expand in the future.
Whether you are creating your first website or replacing an existing one, spending time on the structure, content, functionality and technical requirements before design and development can help avoid unnecessary changes later.
This guide covers the main things to consider before building a new website.
1. Define what the website needs to achieve
Before thinking about pages, colours or layouts, establish what you actually need the website to do.
For some businesses, the primary objective may be generating enquiries. Others may need to sell products, provide information, attract visitors to physical locations, generate bookings or support an existing customer base.
Try to identify the actions that matter most. These could include:
- completing a contact or enquiry form;
- calling the business;
- purchasing a product;
- requesting a quotation;
- making a booking;
- visiting a physical location;
- downloading information; or
- subscribing to updates.
These objectives can influence almost every subsequent decision, including website structure, navigation, content, functionality and how performance should eventually be measured.
2. Understand who the website is for
A website should be planned around the people who will use it rather than solely around the internal structure of the organisation.
Consider who your main audiences are, what they are likely to be looking for and what information they may need before taking action.
A business serving several types of customer may need different sections or landing pages for each audience. An e-commerce website may instead need to organise products around the way customers search and browse.
Understanding this early can prevent the website structure from being based entirely on departments, internal terminology or assumptions that may not reflect how potential customers actually look for your products or services.
UK businesses and their websites
Websites remain an important part of the digital infrastructure used by UK businesses. The UK Government's UK Business Data Survey 2026 reported the following levels of website adoption:
The same research illustrates that responsibility for websites is often distributed between different people and suppliers. It reported that 29% of businesses used a mixture of in-house and external support for website management, while 27% managed websites entirely in-house, 24% used an external developer or platform, and 17% managed them in-house through a platform provider.
This does not tell us whether those websites were planned well or poorly. It does, however, demonstrate why clear requirements and responsibilities can matter: website projects frequently involve several parties, and structural, technical or content decisions may pass between business owners, marketers, designers, developers and external suppliers.
3. Research how people search for what you offer
Keyword research does not need to wait until the website has been built.
Understanding how people search can help determine which subjects deserve their own pages, how services or products should be grouped and what terminology should be used throughout the website.
This does not mean creating a separate page for every keyword variation. The purpose is to understand the different search intentions around your offering and ensure that the planned website provides suitable destinations for them.
Doing this before the structure is finalised is usually much easier than discovering after launch that important search topics do not have an appropriate page.
4. Plan the website structure
Once the purpose, audience and main subjects are understood, you can begin planning the website hierarchy.
A simple business website might include a homepage, service or product sections, information about the organisation, useful resources and a contact area. Larger websites may require categories, subcategories, locations, product groups or several levels of supporting content.
The objective is not necessarily to make the website as flat as possible. It is to create a logical hierarchy in which users and search engines can understand how pages relate to one another.
This planning stage can also identify pages that are missing, sections that overlap and areas where several proposed pages could compete for essentially the same purpose.
The page hierarchy and URL structure can follow the same logical path, helping make relationships between broader sections and more specific pages easier to understand.
5. Decide which pages you actually need
A list of required pages should ideally exist before the website is designed.
For each proposed page, consider: What is its purpose? Who is it for? What information should it contain? What action should someone take after reading it?
You should also consider whether the page has a genuinely distinct purpose from other pages on the website.
Creating several pages covering almost identical subjects can make navigation unnecessarily complicated and may create problems when search engines need to decide which page is most relevant. Conversely, trying to place every service or subject on a single page can make it difficult to provide sufficient detail.
The right balance depends on the business, its audience and the range of products or services offered.
6. Plan the content before development is finished
Content is often left until late in a website project, even though it can influence the design and structure.
Before development progresses too far, establish:
- which pages require new content;
- whether existing content can be retained;
- who will write and approve it;
- what images, videos or other assets are required;
- which pages require forms, tables or other special components; and
- whether legal or regulatory content is needed.
Having realistic content available early can also help designers create templates around the information users will actually see rather than designing around placeholder text.
7. Identify the functionality you need
Make a list of anything the website needs to do beyond displaying standard pages.
Depending on the organisation, this might include contact forms, appointment booking, e-commerce, account areas, site search, filtering, location search, downloads, newsletter subscriptions or connections with external systems.
It is useful to separate essential launch requirements from features that could be introduced later.
This can help keep the initial project manageable while ensuring that the website is built in a way that does not unnecessarily restrict future development.
8. Choose an appropriate platform or CMS
The platform used to build the website should suit the requirements of the project rather than simply being selected because it is familiar to the developer.
Consider who will maintain the website, how frequently content will change and whether the site needs e-commerce, integrations, multiple languages or other specialist functionality.
From an SEO perspective, you should also establish whether the platform allows appropriate control over elements such as:
- page titles and meta descriptions;
- headings;
- URLs;
- canonical tags;
- redirects;
- robots directives;
- XML sitemaps;
- structured data;
- image attributes; and
- internal linking.
The ability to manage these elements can become important long after the initial website has been launched.
9. Think about URLs before pages are created
A logical URL structure is easier to establish before hundreds or thousands of pages exist.
The exact structure will depend on the website, and shorter is not automatically better. What matters is that URLs are predictable, meaningful and capable of supporting the planned website architecture.
Changing URLs unnecessarily after launch can create additional work because redirects and other migration considerations may then be required.
10. Consider SEO before design and development begin
SEO is sometimes treated as something to add after a website has been built. By that stage, however, some important decisions may already have been made.
SEO considerations during planning can include:
- website and page structure;
- keyword and search-intent research;
- internal linking;
- navigation;
- URL structure;
- content requirements;
- crawlability;
- indexability;
- mobile usability;
- page performance;
- JavaScript rendering;
- structured data; and
- template requirements.
Addressing these requirements early does not mean designing the entire website around search engines. It means making sure that decisions affecting organic search are considered alongside design, development and user experience.
The potential cost of poor website planning
There is no reliable universal figure for how much poor website planning costs the average UK business. Website projects vary too widely in size, complexity, technology and commercial importance for a single figure to be meaningful.
The cost can nevertheless become very real when requirements that could have been identified before development are discovered after templates, content or functionality have already been completed.
For example, imagine a hypothetical £10,000 website project where late changes require additional development, content restructuring, SEO remediation and further testing:
- Original website investment: £10,000
- Additional development and template rework: £1,000
- Content restructuring: £600
- SEO remediation after development: £750
- Additional project management and testing: £400
Illustrative additional cost: £2,750.
This is an illustrative example created to demonstrate how rework can accumulate. It is not an industry average or a claim about typical website project costs.
The more useful principle is simple: identifying structural, content, technical and measurement requirements while a project is still flexible can reduce the amount of completed work that later needs to be revisited.
11. Plan navigation and internal linking
Navigation should help visitors understand where they are and reach important areas of the website without unnecessary difficulty.
The main navigation does not need to contain every page, but important sections should have clear routes from relevant parts of the site.
Internal links within page content are also useful. They help users discover related information and help search engines understand relationships between pages.
Planning these relationships alongside the website structure can produce a more coherent site than adding internal links randomly after launch.
12. Decide how enquiries and conversions will work
If the purpose of the website is to generate business, decide how visitors should contact you or complete important actions.
For example, will users be encouraged to call, email, complete a form, book an appointment or purchase directly?
Forms should collect the information genuinely required without creating unnecessary friction. You should also consider confirmation messages, email delivery, privacy requirements and what happens internally after an enquiry has been submitted.
This is also a good stage to identify which actions should eventually be measured through analytics.
13. Prepare measurement and tracking requirements
Do not wait until several weeks after launch to decide how website performance should be measured.
Before launch, identify the information that matters to the business. This might include:
- enquiries;
- phone interactions;
- purchases;
- bookings;
- downloads;
- form completions;
- organic search visits; and
- performance of important landing pages.
Analytics and search-performance tools can then be prepared and tested as part of the launch process.
14. Consider privacy, cookies and legal requirements
The exact requirements depend on the website and organisation, but privacy and data handling should be considered during planning rather than added as an afterthought.
You may need appropriate privacy information, cookie controls, terms, company information or other legal content.
If the website uses analytics, advertising technology, embedded services or third-party functionality, these may also affect how consent needs to be handled.
Where necessary, obtain appropriate legal or specialist advice for your circumstances.
15. Decide who is responsible for each part of the project
New website projects often involve several people: business owners, marketers, designers, developers, copywriters, SEO consultants and other specialists.
Before work begins, establish who is responsible for:
- approving the website structure;
- supplying and approving content;
- design;
- development;
- SEO requirements;
- analytics and tracking;
- domain and DNS management;
- hosting;
- testing; and
- final launch approval.
Clear responsibilities can prevent important tasks from falling between different suppliers.
16. Prepare a staging and testing process
Where possible, the website should be tested in a staging or development environment before it becomes publicly available.
Testing should cover more than appearance. Depending on the website, checks may include navigation, internal links, forms, responsive layouts, page templates, metadata, canonical tags, structured data, crawlability, redirects and other technical elements.
Staging websites also need appropriate controls to prevent unfinished versions being unintentionally indexed by search engines.
Any restrictions intended only for staging must then be reviewed carefully when the website goes live.
17. Plan the launch before launch day
Launching a website should not simply mean making the development version publicly accessible.
Prepare a launch checklist in advance. This might include confirming that:
- important pages are accessible;
- search-engine restrictions intended for staging have been removed;
- canonical tags reference the correct URLs;
- XML sitemaps contain the intended pages;
- analytics and tracking work correctly;
- forms have been tested;
- internal links work;
- HTTPS is functioning correctly; and
- search engines can crawl the website as intended.
If an existing website is being replaced, the process becomes more complex because existing URLs and organic search signals may need to be preserved through an SEO migration.
18. Monitor the website after it goes live
Testing should continue after launch. Some issues only become apparent once the website is operating in its live environment.
Early monitoring can help identify unexpected changes involving crawlability, indexation, redirects, canonicalisation, internal links, analytics or server behaviour.
For a completely new website, it is also important to recognise that search visibility usually develops over time. Launching a technically sound website provides the foundation, but it does not automatically produce immediate rankings.
A simple new website planning checklist
Before development begins, you should ideally be able to answer the following:
- What does the website need to achieve?
- Who are its main audiences?
- How do people search for your products or services?
- What will the website structure be?
- Which pages are required?
- Who will produce the content?
- What functionality is needed?
- Which platform or CMS is appropriate?
- What URL structure will be used?
- Have SEO requirements been considered?
- How will users navigate between important pages?
- How will enquiries or conversions work?
- What needs to be measured?
- Have privacy and legal requirements been considered?
- Who is responsible for each part of the project?
- How will the website be tested?
- What needs to happen at launch?
- Who will monitor the website afterwards?
You do not necessarily need every detail finalised before speaking to a designer or developer. However, answering these questions early gives everyone involved a clearer brief and can reduce avoidable changes later in the project.