Before building your website, gather three things: information about your business (story, services, price lists or menus, opening hours, strengths), visual materials (logo and real photos) and access to what you already have, such as your domain, current website and social media profiles. Add a few examples of websites you like and a clear goal, and whoever builds your site will understand right away what you need.
Who you are and what sets you apart.
You don’t need to be a good writer: you need to know what to say. Jot down a few notes, as if you were chatting with a customer at the counter.
- Your story: how the business started, who works there, what made you begin.
- Your customers: who they are, what they ask most often, what they like about you.
- Your strengths: what you do better, or differently, than others in your field.
- Qualifications, certifications, awards: only if real and verifiable.
Services, prices and practical details.
- A list of your services or products, with a couple of lines describing each one.
- Up-to-date price lists or menus: a clear photo of your printed menu is fine.
- Opening hours and closures, including public holidays and seasonal breaks.
- Contact details: address, phone, email, WhatsApp and the area you cover, if you go to your customers.
- The questions customers always ask, with your answers: they become the website’s FAQ, useful for visitors and for people searching on Google.
Logo and real photos.
- Your logo as the original file, ideally a vector format (SVG, PDF, AI or EPS): whoever designed it usually has it.
- The colours you already use, on your sign, business cards or social media.
- Real photos of your spaces, products, people and work, in natural light. We explain how to take good ones in our guide to website photos with your phone.
- No photos taken from the internet: they’re often protected by copyright, and using them without permission is a risk.
Access to what you already have.
Make a list of everything that already exists online under your business’s name, and who manages it:
- Your domain: where it’s registered, in whose name and when it expires. We cover this in our guide to domain, hosting and email.
- Your current website, if you have one: who built it and who has access.
- Your business email: which service it runs on and who manages it.
- Your social media profiles: the links and the account you manage them from.
Don’t send passwords by message: many platforms let you add a collaborator without sharing them.
Examples and goals.
- Two or three websites you like, even from other industries, with a line on why: the colours, the simplicity, the photos.
- What you don’t like: it helps just as much.
- A clear goal: more calls, more bookings, more quote requests, a more polished image.
With Aleryc, your part.
When we build a website with Aleryc, we gather the information about your business with a guided questionnaire: who you are, what you offer, opening hours, contact details, price lists or menus, strengths. We write the copy, you provide the photos: we tell you exactly which ones are needed and how to take them, or you can hire a photographer: for clients in Italy we act as the go-between with a professional photographer selected in your area. We book the appointment around your availability; you pay Aleryc, based on a quote, and Aleryc pays the photographer. For some businesses real photos aren’t even necessary and we create the graphics ourselves; if your photos aren’t of suitable quality, we can enhance or regenerate them in high quality with AI, keeping the real features of your spaces and products. If you already have a domain, we connect the new website to it; if you already have a website, we rebuild it while keeping your domain and setting up redirects, so your Google ranking isn’t lost. And the sooner the materials reach us, the sooner your website goes live. Write to us (in English, by email or WhatsApp) to get started.