How Long Does It Really Take to Write Content For Your New Website?

If you’re planning on redesigning your website, you’ve probably already considered many of the pieces you need to start building, like key functions, design ideas, and CMS platforms, but one of the biggest overlooked components is the content. Your website should be viewed as your primary content delivery channel, so your content should not be treated as an afterthought.

We’ve seen it time and time again; A client that wants to provide their own content for their website will be given the timeline of the project with a clear content deadline, but they don’t begin writing until a week or two prior. More often than not, the time it takes to produce quality content with solid SEO framework is severely underestimated and, as a result, sets back the website launch date. Since most organizations put a lot of planning into the announcement of their new website, such as social media posts, press releases, and scheduled emails, the delay of a launch date can have you retracing your steps and creating more work.

To avoid rushed content and project delays, truly consider the time and effort it takes to produce the content for your new website. You’ll first want to answer the question: Who will be writing all the content for your new site? If you have someone on staff who can take on this task, great! How will you assess their skill level to ensure that quality content is being produced for your website? A new website is a large investment, and the success or failure of the site starts with the content. An experienced writer will of course take less time than others, but high-quality content is never a quick process, no matter how experienced a writer may be. To give you a ballpark estimate of the time it will take, start by mapping out a basic timeline.

A simple formula for a single page of content might look like this:

Now, let’s take the total time estimated for a single page and multiply it by the number of pages you expect your website to have. Of course these numbers will change based on your business, but let’s take, as one example, that your writer will need an average 6 hours to produce one page of content, and your business has 25 pages:

6 Hours x 25 Pages = 150 Hours

That’s almost 19 working days of uninterrupted writing. Keep in mind that most marketers will have additional responsibilities they will also need to maintain during this process. Is too much of the responsibility and workload falling on one person? If you’re like many organizations that have a marketing team of only one, will this conflict with their other duties?

You’ll also want to consider how many people will want to be a part of approving the content. Included in the formula above is time for Management to review, edit, and approve your content. If you have several Managers that will want to offer input, this could add to your timeline. What will that turnaround time look like? Is it one day or one week? Remember, these managers will have other responsibilities on their plate and probably won’t have this task at the top of their priority list. Factor in the time it will take for them to review and respond to each page.

One final number to consider: How many hours per week will be dedicated to maintaining content on the new site? The launch of your new website is just the beginning. Keeping up with content creation feeds to the success of the site and should still be seen as a priority, whether that’s updating web pages, writing blogs, or posting videos.

What’s the good news?

The responsibility and time of creating the content for your website doesn’t have to all fall on you! Through a tool we use called Gather Content, our clients can easily organize, edit, finalize, and approve content for their web pages. Rather than trying to keep track of every page of your website in a Word or Excel document, this tool allows your team to visualize where you are in each stage of the process, and keeps all of your content in one place – From your product page all the way down to your purchasing policy.

We know things come up and you can’t always get to every page. That’s why our retainer of copy writing services act as a safety net – So when you find yourself in a jam, our team jumps on the task. We have experienced writers at Top Floor that know a thing or two about creating content for websites. Give us a shout, and let’s talk about how we can take this workload off of your plate.