Quick answer
- Secure a short, memorable domain name and set up business email on it before anything else.
- Plan five to seven core pages: home, about, one page per service or product, contact and the legal pages.
- Write a clear headline that says what you do, for whom, and what to do next. Write the content before the design starts.
- Get the technical foundations right: mobile-first, fast, secure (https), working forms and reliable hosting.
- Set up Google Search Console, Google Business Profile and analytics on launch day.
- Include the legal pages and company details UK law requires, plus any reviews or credentials you already have.
- Build on a foundation that can grow: bookings, member areas, a blog or an admin dashboard can come later without starting again.
A startup's first website has one job: to make a new business look established, trustworthy and easy to contact. It does not need to do everything. It does need to get the fundamentals right, because those fundamentals are surprisingly hard to bolt on afterwards.
We have built first websites for a wide range of startups, from solo consultants to funded companies, and the same gaps come up again and again: a domain bought in a hurry, no real content, a design that looks like a template, no analytics, and no legal pages. This checklist covers everything your first website needs, in the order you should tackle it.
Before You Start: What Your First Website Needs to Do
Decide on the single most important thing the website should achieve. For most startups that is generating enquiries, but it might be taking bookings, collecting sign-ups for a launch, selling a product or simply proving you exist to investors and partners. Everything else on this list is easier once that is clear.
Then settle three practical questions: who the website is for (your ideal customer, described in a sentence), when you need it live, and what you can spend. If you are unsure about the last one, our guide to how much a website costs in the UK explains what different budgets buy.
1. Domain Name and Business Email
- Choose a domain that is short, easy to spell and matches your business name as closely as possible. For a UK business a .co.uk is ideal; register the .com as well if it is available.
- Buy the domain in your own name or the company's name, through a reputable registrar, so you always control it. Do not let a designer or agency own your domain.
- Set up business email on the domain (hello@yourbusiness.co.uk looks far more credible than a Gmail address). Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 both cost a few pounds per user per month.
- Secure matching social media handles while you are at it, even if you will not use them straight away.
Our guide to choosing a domain name for your startup covers the .co.uk versus .com question, trade mark checks and what domains cost.
2. The Pages Your Startup Website Needs
Keep the first version focused. A typical startup website needs:
- Home: who you are, what you do, who it is for, proof you can be trusted and a clear next step.
- About: the people behind the business and why you started it. New businesses are bought on the strength of their founders.
- Services or products: one page for each main thing you sell. Separate pages rank better on Google and are easier to link to.
- Contact: a form, an email address, a phone number if you want calls, and your location if it matters.
- Legal pages: privacy policy, cookie information and terms where relevant (see section 8).
Pricing, FAQs, testimonials and a blog are all worth adding when you have the content for them. Our guide to what pages a startup website should have goes through each one in detail.
3. Your Message and Content
Content is the part of a website project that startups most often underestimate, and the most common reason launches slip. Write it before the design begins; good design follows the content, not the other way round.
- Write a headline for the home page that a stranger could understand in five seconds: what you do, for whom, and the benefit.
- Lead with the customer's problem and the outcome you deliver, not with your features.
- Give every page a clear call to action: get a quote, book a call, start a trial.
- Avoid placeholder text and "coming soon" sections. If a page is not ready, leave it out.
- Gather real photographs where you can. A few decent photos of you, your team or your work beat stock imagery.
If you are stuck on the words, our guide to writing website copy for a startup gives you a formula for the home page and every page after it.
4. Design and Branding
A new business has no track record, so the website has to do the work of looking established. That means a proper logo, a consistent colour palette and typography, and a layout designed around your content rather than a template everyone has seen before. Consistency matters more than flair: the same brand across your website, email signature, social profiles and documents builds trust quickly.
If you are weighing up a DIY builder against a designer, our comparison of custom websites and website builders sets out the trade-offs. At DigitalPod we design startup websites from scratch around the brand, with startup website design from £2,400, and we can design a logo and brand identity alongside the site if you do not have them yet. Our guide to startup branding explains exactly what to have in place before the design starts.
5. Technical Foundations
These are the things visitors never notice when they are right and always notice when they are wrong:
- Mobile first. More than half of your visitors will be on a phone. Check every page on a real phone before launch.
- Speed. Slow sites lose visitors and rank lower. Hand-coded sites built with modern technology such as Next.js are typically far faster than template or plugin-based sites.
- Security. The site must run on https with a valid certificate. Browsers warn visitors away from sites that do not.
- Forms that work. Test that contact form submissions actually arrive, and that you get notified.
- Reliable hosting. Cheap shared hosting is a false economy for a business site. Managed cloud hosting costs from around £20 per month and means someone is looking after the server for you. Our guide to website hosting for startups explains the options.
- Ownership. Make sure you own the domain, the hosting account and the website files, and that you have the logins.
6. Search Engine Basics
You do not need a full search engine optimisation campaign on day one, but you do need the foundations in place so Google can find and understand the site:
- A unique, descriptive page title and meta description for every page, including the words customers actually search for.
- One clear heading per page and sensible, readable URLs.
- A sitemap submitted to Google Search Console, and Search Console set up so you can see how the site is performing.
- A Google Business Profile if you serve a local area, with the same name, address and phone number as the website.
- Service pages that genuinely answer the questions customers have, rather than a single page that lists everything.
For what to do in the first weeks after launch, see our guide to getting a startup website found on Google.
7. Analytics and Tracking
Set up analytics before launch so you have data from day one. Google Analytics is free; privacy-focused alternatives are available if you prefer. Define what counts as a success (a form submission, a booking, a call) and track it as a conversion, so you can see which pages and sources are producing enquiries rather than just visits.
8. Legal Pages and Trust Signals
UK businesses have a few legal obligations that are easy to overlook on a first website:
- Company details. A limited company must show its registered name, company number, place of registration and registered office address on the website. Any business must give a geographic address and an email address, and a VAT number if registered.
- Privacy policy. Required under UK GDPR whenever you collect personal data, which a contact form does.
- Cookies. If the site uses non-essential cookies (analytics, marketing), visitors need to be told and given a choice.
- Terms. Terms of business or terms of sale if you take orders or payments online.
Alongside the legal pages, add whatever trust signals you already have: early customer testimonials, reviews, professional accreditations, memberships, press mentions or the logos of companies you have worked with. For a new business, even two or three genuine quotes make a difference.
9. Launch Checklist
- Proofread every page and check every link.
- Test all forms and confirm the notifications arrive.
- Check every page on a phone, a tablet and a desktop browser.
- Confirm https is working and the old "coming soon" page is gone.
- Set up analytics, Search Console and your Google Business Profile.
- Submit the sitemap and request indexing of the home page.
- Add the website address to your email signature, social profiles and business documents.
- Keep the logins for the domain, hosting and website somewhere safe.
10. Plan for Growth
The best first websites are built so the second version is an extension, not a replacement. If you think you will need online booking, a members' area, a blog or an admin dashboard to update content yourself, tell your designer now. Building on a modern, scalable foundation means those features can be added when the business is ready for them.
That is how we approach startup web design: a focused first version, designed and built in-house, on a foundation that grows with you. If you are ready to get started, our guide on writing a website design brief will help you put your requirements together, or you can simply contact us and tell us about your business.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much should a startup spend on its first website?
Most startups that want to look credible from day one spend £2,000 to £5,000 on a custom-designed website of five to ten pages. If the budget genuinely is not there yet, a simple professionally built site is better than an elaborate DIY one, and it can be extended later. Spending more than £10,000 on a first website is rarely sensible unless the website is the product.
Should a startup just use Wix or Squarespace to begin with?
A website builder is fine for testing an idea or holding a domain, but if you are launching a business you expect to grow, a custom website usually works out better. Builder sites tend to look like templates, are slower, give you less control over search rankings and have to be rebuilt from scratch when you outgrow them.
How many pages does a startup website need?
Five to seven pages is typical: a home page, an about page, one page per main service or product, a contact page and the legal pages. Add more as the business grows rather than launching with pages you do not yet have content for.
Does a startup website need a blog?
Not at launch. A blog only helps if you will publish useful articles consistently, and an empty or abandoned blog looks worse than none. Build the website so a blog or guides section can be added later, and start one when you have the time and something worth saying.
How long does it take to build a startup website?
A custom-designed startup website of five to ten pages typically takes three to six weeks from brief to launch, provided the content is ready. The most common cause of delay is waiting for text and images, so start on those as early as you can.