It depends. I know. I know. You know this.
The answer is actually 9-12 months. Seriously, that’s the answer! This isn’t like an online recipe where you need to scroll past the author’s favorite banana story before you get to the banana muffin recipe.
But … It still depends on a host of factors. In 25 years of LISI creating hundreds of websites, we have seen the outliers, and we can confidently tell you that most custom design and development WordPress websites take us around 9-12 months to launch. Here’s what you need to know.
What happens before the 9-12 month build period?
In order for our clients to prepare for success, there are certain things they should do before the website project kicks off. I’m a fan of checklists, so I’ll lay it out.
Determine that your firm needs a new website. This might seem obvious, but I have been on website kickoff calls where a firm leader asks if they even need a new website. This is after the contract is signed! If your current site is dated, not performing, or no longer represents your brand, you need a new website.
Create the business case with as much data and detail about expected ROI as possible. You know your firm’s culture and how things work internally. Is there a defined process to budget for projects, or is it a more relaxed conversation? Find out how other departments have created a business case for big projects.
Get buy-in from leadership. Who needs to support the project? You may return to these folks for project milestone sign-offs later on or to help the internal communications engine if decisions stall internally. Give them the information they need to support you throughout the project.
Get budget approval for the website project. Does this only happen once a year? Or can budget approvals be approved as they arise?
Establish who is involved in the website project. Some firms establish a website committee with representatives from tenured and senior attorneys, newer attorneys with an interest in digital marketing, HR if the site will have a recruiting element, operations, and, of course, marketing/business development/communications. Lay out the expectations regarding roles. Too many cooks in the kitchen ruin the banana muffins.
Poll broadly what people want for the new website. What should be improved or fixed compared to your current site? It’s likely that folks can contribute with ideas or examples of design elements or functionality from other websites they have seen. Review and centralize the feedback for your website agency – ensuring comments don’t conflict. Great suggestions will spark where you least expect it, and people want to be heard, even if they will not be involved in the project.
Create an RFP to centralize the website requirements. Ensure consistent questions, so you can compare the answers from agencies. Being clear about website expectations at this point will ensure a smoother website project down the road.
Review the RFP answers and interview the top candidates. This is where you ensure the agency is aligned with your firm. And that you like the people you will be working with for the next year or so! Select a skilled website designer and developer who can bring your ideas to life. Take note of interesting questions or ideas raised by the RFP responses because you sometimes pluck a great comment from an agency you don’t select for the project. We can fast-track this part, just contact LISI!
What happens in the 9-12 month build period?
Every website agency is going to have a slightly different approach to creating your new website. They will have different visions for your design and may use different tools to build out the technical part of your new website. But most digital agencies roughly follow the same project phases. Again with the banana muffin analogy, they all start with ripe bananas. Another checklist ahead!
Kick-off. After the contracts are signed, you will be introduced to your project team, who may or may not have been involved in the sales or RFP process. This is where you lay out (hopefully not for the first time) the next phases of the project, the plan for communications and check-ins, and what to expect through website launch.
Discovery. This critical phase is where your agency reviews all the notes and website requirements from the RFP and sales calls, plus asks many more questions about your firm and goals for the website. This is where you share the results of your internal website poll, examples of other websites you like, and ideas on website features and functionality with your website agency, so they can understand your core differentiators and create a vision for the new site.
Design. Everyone likes the design phase because you get to see how the website will look, give feedback, and really collaborate on the tone and feel. Keep in mind that your designer is using a graphical design tool to show the website visuals, but some functionality may not be visible until the site is fully developed.
Development. This is the technical step where the developer uses code to create how the website will look and function. This includes the back-end component or content management system (CMS), where you will be able to update and manage the website content. This is often an afterthought for law firms, but I will say from experience in multiple law firm marketing teams: an easy-to-use CMS will save you time and headaches later on because you can quickly, effortlessly make website updates to keep your attorneys happy!
Content Migration. One necessary step is getting all the content (words, images, etc.) into the website, which may be through an import, manual migration, or AI-supported migration. Find out if your website agency will complete this step for you or expect your team to do it. Depending on the size of your website and how much existing news/blog/article content you want to bring over, this may be a sizable chunk of hours to complete, so it is important to consider your needs, your team’s capacity, and your budget.
Quality Assurance. The QA step ensures your website matches the approved designs and your agreed-upon expectations regarding functionality. Together with your website team, you should review each page of the website to ensure the development coding looks and works as expected, and make sure the content was carried over without errors. Find out if your agency will also proof the website to identify typos, bad links, and other errors that were on the original website – and fix them!
Launch. In this step, your agency will take the technical steps to put your new website online, ready to be found and used by your target audience!
What are the factors that could delay a law firm website project?
Nothing blows up a project timeline like adding new requirements and elements that were not considered at the start. In the RFP and kickoff, it’s critical to clearly communicate expectations for what is included in the scope of the project. Do not assume that because one agency will fly out a photographer to take bio photos, the rest will too. Adding elements will not always extend the 9-12 month range, but adding them in during the development or QA phase probably will!
These are the common things that hold up the schedule.
- Adding website requirements after the kickoff. Maybe it’s not too late, so you should ask if you have a great idea. Just understand that it may add time and cost to the project.
- New branding or brand refresh. Adding a new accent color to your existing brand is no biggie, but if you want a new logo, colors, and brand messaging, this can take 4-8 weeks and must be finalized and approved before the website design begins. When the brand look and feel is established, the 9-12 month countdown begins.
- Writing. Some firms carry all content from the current site to the new one. Some revise key pages, and others completely rewrite every bio, practice, and other pages of the website. Make a realistic plan for your content, whether committing to doing your own writing or relying on a third-party writer. Your designers need that content to create the layouts for the design. Some firms may design a whole site using placeholder “lorem ipsum” text, but at LISI, we believe that if you use template text, you end up with a template-looking site. It’s your crafted website content that inspires the look and feel of the site, and a skilled designer will zero in on that. Each page of the website’s writing should be completed before that page is designed.
- Photography. We know it may be hard to schedule photo shoots for your busy attorneys, but they need to stick to the schedule to help keep the project on schedule. Keep in mind that your photographer needs time for folks to make their selections and then review photo touch-ups.
- Design approvals or full website approvals. If your website team is large and can’t coordinate design approvals, it can hold up the project. This is why it’s so important to carefully consider who has the interest and bandwidth to participate. We recently completed a website project, and the managing partner was too busy to give his final review and approve the site for launch, so it sat – completely ready to launch – for almost six months.
How to set yourself up for a successful, on-time, on-budget website launch
Prepare! Use the above checklist to get all your ducks in a row before the project begins. Think you will begin a website project in the next year or so? Start now and be ahead of the game. When you are in that headspace, you will probably also be more mindful when looking at other websites (law firm websites and other industries) to gather ideas and elements you want for your own website. You can also start working on your website content, giving yourself extra time when you’re not under the pressure of the whole project.
Set expectations. A successful website project is all about setting and managing expectations for everyone involved. From the timeline to the cost to the level of involvement required from the firm, clearly conveying expectations is key. If you don’t know what to expect, ask LISI, and we can help guide you.
Make good decisions. Hiring the right agency from the beginning will help your project stay on time and on budget. We recently worked with several law firms that had started their new website builds with other agencies, and at some point, the projects stalled – for various reasons. Some level of ramp-up is required to pick up a half-baked project, understand what was working and what was not, fast-track the discovery phase to understand the firm and unique project goals, and then go to work to complete the project. And by this point, the firm is probably paying more than expected, and the timeline is already blown. We have heard many times: “I wish we just started with LISI in the first place!”
See the big picture. There are plenty of new AI tools that can help you build your new website in minutes. In fact, we leverage AI in various ways for our clients, but we have the technical skills, creativity, and experience to make an effective pairing. New technology or a cheap price tag may be enticing, but you might get what you pay for with a flash in the pan that doesn’t serve your firm.
What should you do if your website project has stalled?
Hindsight is 20/20. And sometimes, even with the best efforts and intentions, you may pick a service provider that is just a bad fit. Or maybe your star communicator and project manager at your website agency left, and no one really knows how to pick up and run with your project. Don’t beat yourself up, but look for the red flags so you can give your agency the feedback they need to get on track or make the decision to switch.
Ghosting. This is about expectations again. Your project manager should set clear expectations regarding how often you have check-in calls, how quickly you will turn around requests, and how fast you will even reply to emails. If your point of contact is not responsive, it will quickly break down your trust in them.
No progress and no explanation. Things come up, and that’s just a factor of life when you are working with other humans. We once had a key member from our team out unexpectedly with a medical emergency for weeks, and we didn’t know how long until they could return. As we evaluated how to redistribute their work, we let clients know this could impact production schedules. Ultimately, my colleague recovered, and our clients were happy.
Trust your gut. If you ask questions, but it feels like your agency is not on the same page, there could be a problem. If you can tell your agency just can’t understand your requirements, expectations, or vision, it could be a bad match. It happens. You may still be able to jump-start the website project with a provider you trust and get back on course.
Ask for help. If you can’t reconcile, call LISI for a no-pressure third-party opinion, and we can help figure out a way to get your project back on track. We will work with you to evaluate which elements of your project can be salvaged to minimize the damage to your project scope and budget. Trust me, I understand it’s rough to have to hire a new agency midway through the project, but your firm will remember the successful outcome, not the details that got you there.
In conclusion
A new website is an investment — in your brand, your reputation, your business development engine. It’s a process, yes. But with the right plan and the right partner, it’s a rewarding one that makes that banana muffin so much sweeter in the end.
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