Planning and Gathering Your Website Content Before the Build

By Shane Snyman, JWD Website Design Updated 25 September 2026

Welcome to Part 3 of our Website Planning Guide series. In Part 1 you worked out the “why” and “who” behind your website, and in Part 2 you planned its structure and features. Part 3 is about the practical job that decides how smoothly your build goes: planning and gathering your content before the designer starts.

The single most common reason a website project stalls is not design or code. It is waiting for content. The text for the About page is “nearly done”, the logo is on someone’s old laptop, and the testimonials are still in a WhatsApp chat. This guide helps you get everything listed, collected and organised up front, so nothing holds your site back.

With JWD, you supply the text for your pages, so this is your part of the project. If you want help with how to actually write the words once you know what you need, read our website content writing tips for South African businesses. This article is about the planning and collecting that comes first.

Step 1: Decide Which Pages You Actually Need

Start with a simple list of pages. You planned the structure in Part 2 of the series, so pull that list across. For most small businesses it looks something like this:

Home: who you are, what you do, who you do it for, and what to do next
About: your story, your team and why people should trust you
Services or Products: one section or page per offering
Contact: how to reach you, where you are and when you are open
Legal pages: a privacy policy, and terms if you sell online

Optional pages, only if you will genuinely keep them up to date:

Portfolio or gallery: examples of your work
Testimonials: what clients say about you
FAQs: answers to questions customers actually ask
Blog: available on WordPress and custom CMS sites

A useful test for each page: can you name what a visitor should do after reading it? If not, it may not need to be its own page. Fewer, complete pages beat many half-empty ones. The number of pages also decides which package fits, so settle this list before you ask for a quote.

Step 2: Build a Content Inventory

A content inventory is a simple table of every piece of content the site needs, where it will come from, and whether you have it yet. It turns a vague “we need to do the content” into a checklist you can tick off.

Set it up in a spreadsheet or a Google Doc with these columns:

Page	Content item	Who supplies it	Status
Home	Headline and intro paragraph	You	Drafting
Home	Three short service summaries	You	Not started
About	Company story, 2 to 4 paragraphs	You	Done
About	Team photos and names	You	Need new photos
Services	One section per service	You	Drafting
Contact	Phone, email, address, hours	You	Done
Everywhere	Logo files	You	Find the original files
Everywhere	Photos	You, or free stock / AI images	Choosing
Testimonials	3 to 6 client quotes with permission	You	Asking clients

If you already have a website, start by copying across everything that is still accurate. Then mark each item as keep, update or delete. You will often find more usable material than you expected.

Step 3: Agree Who Does What

Before the build starts, be clear about who is responsible for each type of content. With JWD it works like this:

Content	Who provides it
Page text (the copy)	You
Logo and brand colours	You. Logo design is quoted separately if you need one
Photos	You, where you have your own. We use free stock or AI-generated images where you do not
Testimonials	You, with each client’s permission
Contact details and business hours	You
Legal pages (privacy policy, terms)	You. We recommend getting legal advice for these
Page titles and meta descriptions	We set these up on every page
Layout, design and how it all fits together	We do

If writing is not your strength, you can hire a copywriter. Just make sure they have your content inventory, so they know exactly which pages and sections to write.

Step 4: Gather Your Visuals

Photos and logos take longer to track down than most people expect, so start early.

Logo: find the original files from whoever designed it. A high-quality version with a transparent background is far more useful than a screenshot.
Photos: your own photos of your team, premises and real work build more trust than stock images. Collect the best ones into a single folder.
Gaps: where you do not have a suitable photo, note it in your inventory. We fill those gaps with free stock or AI-generated images.

For file types, logo variations and photography advice, see Part 4: the Website Visuals Guide.

Step 5: Collect Testimonials and Proof

Testimonials are some of the most persuasive content on a small business site, but they take time to collect because you are waiting on other people.

Ask happy clients now, not the week before launch.
Make it easy: send two or three short prompts, such as “What problem did we solve?” and “What was working with us like?”
Ask permission to use their name, business name and, if they are happy to, a photo.
Use their real words. Do not polish a testimonial until it no longer sounds like them, and never write one on a client’s behalf.

Other proof worth gathering: industry memberships, qualifications, awards and examples of real projects.

Step 6: Gather the Business Details

These small items are easy to forget and hold up the final stages of a build:

Your registered business name and trading name
Phone numbers, email addresses and physical address (or service area)
Business hours, including public holiday hours if they differ
Social media links
Registration numbers you are required to or want to display
Prices, if you plan to show them

Step 7: Organise It So Your Designer Can Use It

How you hand content over matters almost as much as the content itself. A tidy handover means fewer questions and fewer mistakes.

One document per page, or one document with a clear heading for each page and section, matching your content inventory.
Label your images with the page they belong to, for example “about-team-photo.jpg”, rather than “IMG_4821.jpg”.
Write out every button and call to action you want, such as “Request a Quote” or “Book a Consultation”.
Send it all together in one shared folder, rather than a trickle of emails and WhatsApp messages.

Once your content is gathered, let your JWD contact know. The sooner complete content arrives, the sooner your site can go live. Next in the series, Part 4 goes deeper into your visuals, and Part 5: the Website Technical Guide covers domains, hosting and going live.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need all my content ready before the build starts?

The closer you are to complete, the smoother the build. You can start with the main pages ready and add extras later, but a page with placeholder text cannot go live. Your content inventory shows you exactly what is still outstanding.

Does JWD write the text for my website?

No. You supply the page copy. We set up the page titles and meta descriptions, and we lay the content out on the page. If you would rather not write it yourself, you can hire a copywriter and give them your content inventory to work from.

What if I do not have professional photos?

You do not need them to get started. Where you do not have your own photos, we use free stock or AI-generated images. Real photos of your own team and work usually build more trust, so it is worth replacing them over time.

What is a content inventory?

A list of every piece of content your website needs, page by page, with who is supplying it and whether it is done. It is the simplest way to see what is holding up a website project and to make sure nothing is forgotten.

Can I reuse the content from my old website?

Yes, where it is still accurate. Copy everything across into your content inventory, then mark each item as keep, update or delete. Check prices, services, staff names and contact details carefully, as these go out of date most often.

Ready When Your Content Is

Once you know which pages you need and have your content gathered, the build itself gets a lot simpler. Browse our website packages to see which one fits the number of pages on your list, or request a free quote and we will talk it through.