What should you prepare before working with a website project partner?

Before working with a partner on a website project, clarify the problems to solve, the scope of work, and the materials and internal resources you can provide, then outline the required features, launch date, and budget. Building a website from scratch, improving an existing site’s SEO, and increasing conversion rates require different preparation; providing a keyword list alone does not fully explain your requirements. Hosting and maintenance costs, each party’s responsibilities, and whether you can take the website with you when the partnership ends should also be discussed beforehand.

Clarify whom the website should serve and what it should accomplish

Requirements discussions should go beyond wanting a good-looking website. Start by outlining your main customer groups, the factors customers value, such as price or service, and their most common questions before buying. An agency owner on Warrior Forum shared that discovery questionnaires also ask about sales cycles and competitors; these are suggested discussion topics, not mandatory questions for every project.

• Describe your target market and the people you want to reach, rather than using keywords as a substitute for an audience description.
• If you want conversion rate optimization, first distinguish whether the goal is to generate leads, drive purchases, or increase product demo bookings.
• If you have worked with an agency before, summarize the results and why the partnership ended to provide context for the new discussions.

Take stock of materials and features, not just visual references

In its 2024 service overview, Tenten listed brand assets, copy, features, visual references, and information security requirements as items to prepare before an initial discussion. You can use this checklist to assess what you have and let the partner know what is ready and what still needs to be created:

• Branding and content: Your logo, visual identity, photos, videos, product copy, whether multilingual content is needed, and who will prepare any missing materials.
• Features and technology: Whether you need a shopping cart, payment integration, or GA4 tracking, and whether your internal IT team has specific information security requirements.
• Style and staffing: Provide reference websites and identify internal staff who can help with content, design, or development.

The article also recommends gathering copy early. If you plan to use stock images, confirm how licenses will be obtained; images used temporarily should not automatically be treated as cleared for final use.

Discuss the launch date alongside ongoing costs

Bring your planned launch date and production budget to the initial discussion, then assess the schedule based on the site’s content and features rather than assuming every website can follow the same timeline. The budget should cover more than design and development: hosting, annual maintenance, testing, and updates should all be part of the discussion about ongoing costs.

Confirm who can carry out the work and what happens when the partnership ends

If the scope includes conversion rate optimization, Seer Interactive recommends reviewing goals, existing data, and implementation capacity together. Having analytics or CRM data does not mean recommendations can be implemented; you still need to confirm that development, design, and other resources are available. For SEO partnerships, an article on Neil Patel’s website recommends establishing a single point of contact and clarifying contractual terms and questions about results before signing.

A PTT discussion also highlights the need to confirm website ownership and whether the site can be transferred when the partnership ends. One provider saying you can take the website with you does not mean other arrangements offer the same terms; each case still needs to be checked.