Custom-designed, CMS-based websites typically take 9 - 18 months, with strategy averaging 8 - 12 weeks.
Clients can speed timelines by consolidating feedback, empowering a single decision-maker, and prioritizing essential features.
Factors like content migration, integrations, security requirements, and phased launches (MVP approach) significantly impact development time.
Planning ahead and staying engaged throughout the process helps keep the project moving toward a successful launch.
How to plan your website redesign timeline
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Our website projects begin with a strategy phase, which typically takes about 12 weeks. This may sound like a long time, but it’s during this stage that we conduct research and discovery, develop creative concepts, build wireframes, and outline functional requirements. That level of thoroughness saves time and stress later in development, because everyone is aligned on exactly what’s being built.
Speeding up your redesign timeline
As a client, there are things you can do to help speed up this process, like scheduling internal review meetings with the right teams in advance to align with deliverables, so you’re ready to give feedback as quickly as possible. Quick feedback turnarounds can shave weeks off a website strategy. Other ways to influence your timeline include:
Consolidate feedback. To keep your project moving as quickly as possible, you’ll want to consolidate each round of feedback into one document, which minimizes conflicting feedback, so we can focus on what’s actionable.
Establish a decision maker. Set your team up to make decisions quickly by empowering one decision maker who is accessible for quick turnaround on time-sensitive decision-making.
Assign a daily POC. Assign one project manager on the client side to coordinate with your agency PM. Make sure this person has adequate time available to be highly engaged day to day.
Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Your site can and should evolve post-launch, so don’t get bogged down in wordsmithing wireframes or finding the perfect image.
Keep it simple. Almost anything is possible with enough development time, so avoid asking for unlimited flexibility if speed is the priority.
Key factors that influence development timelines
Once the development phase of the project begins, the technical complexity of the website will dictate the timeline. The more interactive the functionality, the longer the timeline. The key factors that impact development timelines include:
MVP (Minimum Viable Product). If you’re crunched for time, you may want to consider developing your site in phases. Launching with a minimum viable product lets you add functionality to the site in future phases while getting your new site launched as quickly as possible.
Content. If the data on your existing site is well-structured, automated content migration may be an option. It requires added development budget, but manual migration usually requires more timeline.
Integrations. The time it takes to connect your website to your existing tech stack depends on the complexity of your infrastructure. For example, integrating your homegrown CRM into your new site’s lead gen workflow will increase your timeline, whereas an out-of-the-box solution could save you development time. Here are some other integrations to consider:
Third-party APIs
Chatbots
eCommerce
Search
Advanced analytics (i.e., Hotjar or Mouseflow)
Forms/Lead gen
Multilingual support
Scheduling
Security and data privacy. Sites that need to comply with regulations with HIPAA or manage private information require additional time to ensure they are secure and data remains private.
Ultimately, a client’s participation is pivotal to a swift website redesign. By planning ahead to provide feedback, empowering your team, and prioritizing the essential features, your site will be moving as quickly as possible towards a successful launch.
Insights
Insight
From blueprint to build: Making sense of website costs
Redesigning a website is a major undertaking, and one of the first questions most organizations ask is how long it will take. The truth is, timelines vary based on goals, scope, and complexity, but for a custom-designed and developed CMS, a good rule of thumb is to plan for about a year. At Interactive Strategies, most of our website development projects take between nine and 18 months from contract signature to launch. The good news? With careful planning and a focus on the most important features for launch, you can set yourself up for a faster, smoother process.
