Website Copywriting: What Your Designer Needs Before the Build
By Parker Gawryletz · Local Cochrane Web Design · Last updated: · 8 min read
A web designer needs your business facts and contact details, a list of services with the action you want visitors to take, notes on your ideal customers and their objections, proof such as reviews and past projects, photography and brand files, any required policies, and a named approver for each page.
The most common question before a build is some version of what content does a web designer need — and the most common mistake is answering it with a folder of old brochures. A designer does not need finished copy on day one. They need raw material and decisions.
This checklist covers both: the facts, language, proof, and images to gather, and who approves each page. It is the same package we request before every custom web design for Cochrane businesses project starts.
The short answer
- Designers need decisions and raw material, not polished copy on day one.
- Your customers' exact words are worth more than old brochures.
- Proof — reviews, projects, numbers — is the content that converts.
- Name one approver per page before the project starts.
- Content prepared early is the single biggest timeline saver.
Start with the customer decision, not a folder of old copy
Before gathering anything, answer one question per page: what should a visitor decide or do here? Call, book, request a quote, trust you enough to keep reading. Every piece of content you collect either supports that decision or it is clutter — and old copy written for print usually is.
- ☐ Business facts — legal name, phone, email, address, hours, service area
- ☐ Customer language — the exact words customers use for problems, services, and objections
- ☐ Offer — services, any prices or ranges you will publish, and the one priority action
- ☐ Proof — reviews, named projects, photos of finished work, measurable results, guarantees
- ☐ Imagery — real photos of your work, team, and premises, plus logo files
- ☐ Approvals — one named person who signs off each page, with a deadline
The rest of this guide walks through each group in turn, with what good looks like for a small business.
Business facts and contact details
Provide the boring facts first, verified: legal and trading name, phone, email, physical address, hours, service area, and any registration or licence numbers your trade requires. These details feed the contact page, the footer, and local search — and they must match your Google Business Profile exactly.
For a Cochrane business, one spelling of the name and one format of the address everywhere is a genuine local-search signal. Search engines cross-check your website against your Google Business Profile and directories, and mismatched details make every system that reads them hesitate.
Services, offers and priority actions
List every service you want the site to sell, in the order that matters to the business, with a sentence on who each one is for. Then pick the priority action for the whole site — usually a call or a quote request — so the designer can point every page at it.
Decide your price position too: exact numbers, ranges, or nothing published at all. A designer can work with any of the three. The answer that stalls a services page is "we will figure it out later."
Ideal customers, objections and exact language
Write down who your best customers are, what they worry about before hiring, and the exact words they use — from emails, reviews, and phone calls. Customer language beats marketing language on every page, because visitors trust copy that sounds like the question they just asked.
- The last five questions customers asked before saying yes
- The objection you answer most often — price, timing, trust, or risk
- The phrase customers use for your service, even when the industry term is different
Proof: reviews, projects, metrics and guarantees
Proof is the content that converts: Google reviews you can quote, named projects with photos, numbers you can stand behind, and any guarantee you offer in writing. Gather it before design starts, because a proof section designed around real material always beats one designed around placeholders.
For a local business, real proof of local work carries the most weight: photos of actual Cochrane projects, and a review with a first name attached reads as true in a way a logo wall never will. If your proof is thin, say so early — a designer can plan a small honest proof section instead of a hollow one.
Photography, logos and brand assets
Send original, full-size photo files — never screenshots or images saved from social media — plus your logo in a vector or high-resolution format, and any brand colours or fonts you already use. Real photos of your work and team almost always serve a local business better than stock photography.
Confirm you hold the rights to every image: photos a past marketer shot, supplier imagery, and anything downloaded may carry licence terms. When in doubt, note where each image came from and let the designer flag the risky ones.
Policies, compliance and required disclaimers
Gather anything the site must legally or professionally display: privacy policy, terms, industry disclaimers, certification logos with permission to use them, and accessibility requirements. Your designer can format these, but they cannot invent them — and discovering a required disclaimer at launch week is a preventable delay.
If your industry is regulated, ask your association what a website must and must not say — then bring the answer to kickoff in writing.
Who writes, reviews and approves each page
Decide three roles before kickoff: who writes each page, who reviews it, and who gives the final approval. One named approver per page keeps the project moving; approval by committee is the slowest step in most builds. Whatever you decide, get it reflected in the quote.
Writing responsibility varies: some designers write from your notes, some edit your drafts, some only place finished text. All three can work — but the arrangement belongs in writing, as covered in what a web design quote should include.
A practical file and naming system
Set up one shared folder with a subfolder per page, name files descriptively — service-deck-photo-01 beats IMG-4432 — and keep one master document listing what is final and what is draft. A tidy content package saves hours of back-and-forth and prevents the wrong version going live.
- One folder per page, matching the sitemap names
- Descriptive file names that say what the file is and where it goes
- A single status document: draft, in review, or approved
How early preparation shortens the timeline
Content is the most common cause of website delays — not design, not development. When the package above arrives before kickoff, the designer builds with real material from day one, approval rounds shrink, and the schedule holds. When it trickles in page by page, every stage waits on it.
The pattern is consistent enough that we ask for content before kickoff on every build. For where preparation fits in the schedule, see how long a small-business website takes — the content stage is the one owners control.
And if you are still deciding who gets the package, compare Cochrane web design companies on how they handle content. A provider with a clear content process is a provider who has shipped on time before.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need website copy before design starts?
Not finished copy, but you do need decisions and raw material: your facts, services, priority action, proof, and rough notes per page. Design shaped around real content fits it properly; design shaped around empty boxes gets rebuilt when the words arrive. Draft-level content before kickoff is the practical standard.
Will a web designer write my content?
It depends on the arrangement, so ask directly. Some designers write copy from your notes and interviews, some edit your drafts, and some only place text you supply. All three models work. The one that fails is the unspoken one — get writing responsibility named in the quote before you sign.
What photos should I provide?
Original, full-size files of your real work, your team, and your premises — not screenshots or images saved from social media. Include your logo in vector or high-resolution format. For a local business, genuine photos nearly always serve better than stock, and you must hold the rights to every image used.
What pages does a small business website need?
A typical launch site is five to seven pages: home, one page per core service, about, proof of work, and contact. Your list may differ — the useful exercise is naming each page and its purpose with your designer, then gathering content for exactly those pages and nothing more.
How much time does content preparation take?
Plan for a few focused hours spread over a week or two: one evening for facts and services, one for customer language and proof, one for photos and files. It goes faster with a checklist and a deadline. The time is not extra — it is timeline you are moving to the start.
Can design begin with placeholder text?
It can, and sometimes it must — but placeholder-first projects usually pay for it later, because layouts get rebuilt when real content arrives longer or shorter than the boxes. A better compromise is draft-level real content: rough but true words the designer can shape while you refine them.
Sources
Ask about guided copywriting support — custom builds for Cochrane businesses where content planning is part of the process, with an itemised proposal within one business day.