The honest timeline for a first website — not the fantasy version. Two hours a day, seven days, live URL by Friday.
Day 1: decisions (the expensive hour) Name + domain check + plan chosen. Write down: what the site sells, to whom, the ONE action visitors should take. Every later decision references this.
Day 2: words before pixels Write ALL the text in a document first: homepage hero, three services/products with prices, about story, contact details. (Formulas in our content-writing guide.) Text-first prevents the beautiful-but-empty site disease.
Day 3: the skeleton Trial started, WordPress installed OR theme chosen. Pages created with headings only — the structure. Ugly is fine today.
Day 4: content in Text into the pages. Photos compressed to WebP and uploaded. This is the longest day — that is normal.
Day 5: design pass Colors (60-30-10), fonts (two), logo placed, spacing evened. The nine professional-details checklist from our blog runs here.
Day 6: the harsh test Phone walkthrough (budget Android, mobile data). Every link clicked, every form sent, every WhatsApp button pressed by someone who is not you. PageSpeed checked, images fixed.
Day 7: launch Domain connected, SSL confirmed, Search Console verified, sitemap submitted, Google Business Profile linked. Tell ten customers. Sleep.
The honest variables WordPress themes tempt day-3 tinkering (resist — content first). Photos take longer than expected (shoot once, batch-edit). Support questions arise (WhatsApp them — that is what it is for).
Total: 14 hours of your life for a business asset that works for years. Start tonight — the trial is free and the plan is written.