Almost every website project that runs late runs late for the same reason: the work could not start because something was not ready. Not design disagreements, not technical problems — waiting on a staff list, or a logo file nobody can find, or a decision about who signs off.
This checklist covers what to have in place before a project begins. Working through it will not take long, and it is the difference between a project that moves and one that stalls in week two.
1. Decide who owns the project
One person needs to be the point of contact, and that person needs the authority to make decisions or the access to get them made quickly.
- Who is the day-to-day contact for the agency?
- Who has final sign-off on design, and on content?
- How quickly can that person realistically respond?
- Who covers when they are away during term time?
Approval chains, not design work, are usually the longest part of a project. Agreeing them at the start is the single cheapest thing you can do.
2. Work out who the site is actually for
A school website typically serves four audiences at once, and they want different things. Ranking them honestly changes how the homepage should be built.
- Prospective parents researching admissions
- Current families checking dates, closures, and newsletters
- Students looking for timetables and resources
- Prospective staff reading job postings
If you had to put one of those first on the homepage, which would it be? There is no wrong answer, but there is a wrong outcome — trying to serve all four equally and serving none of them well.
3. Gather your content
This is the item that delays projects most often. Content takes longer to produce than people expect, and it cannot be written by the agency for you — nobody else knows your school.
- Current, accurate text for every main page
- A staff list with correct names, roles, and spellings
- Photographs you have permission to publish — particularly of students
- Term dates for the coming year
- Current policy documents in their final versions
- The prospectus, in a file size that will actually download on mobile data
On photographs specifically: check your consent records before handing over images of students. It is far easier to confirm this at the start than to remove a photo after launch.
4. Find your brand assets
- The logo as a vector file (.svg, .ai, or .eps) — not a screenshot from a document
- Exact brand colours, if they have ever been written down
- Any existing guidelines about how the crest or logo may be used
If the only logo anyone can find is a low-resolution image pulled from an old letterhead, say so early. It is a solvable problem, but not one to discover the week before launch.
5. Locate your accounts
Institutions frequently discover mid-project that the domain is registered to a former staff member or a contractor nobody has spoken to in years. Check now.
- Who is the registered owner of the domain, and can you access it?
- Where is the current site hosted, and who pays for it?
- Who controls the school email accounts?
- Are there analytics or social accounts that should carry over?
You should own your domain, your hosting, and your content. If you cannot access any of them today, resolving that is more urgent than the website itself.
6. Decide who will maintain it
A school website needs regular updating — newsletters, dates, announcements. Decide now who will do that, and make sure the site is built so they can.
- Who publishes routine updates after launch?
- How much time can they actually give it in a normal week?
- What do they need to be able to change without help?
- Who handles software updates, backups, and monitoring?
7. Be realistic about timing
Work backwards from the date that actually matters — usually the start of admissions season — and add margin. Then check the plan against your own calendar.
- Is there a date the site genuinely must be live by?
- Do exam periods or holidays fall in the middle of the project?
- Will the people who need to approve things be available throughout?
Before you start
If you can answer everything above, you are ready to brief an agency properly and you will get a more accurate quote for it. If several items are unresolved, that is useful too — it tells you what to sort out first, and it is better known now than in week three.