What you need before ordering a website.

One sentence on why the site exists

Not "so the company has a website", but what should happen: a phone call, a quote request, a booking, an order, a job application. The entire structure follows from that — a site aimed at phone calls looks different from one aimed at detailed enquiries.

Who should be landing on it

Specifically: consumer or business, from which area, how technical, what they already know and what needs explaining. This shapes the language of the site more than any design decision.

Worth having gathered

• Company details for the footer and profiles: full name, address or service area, tax ID, phone, email, hours.
• Photos — your own, not stock. Even phone photos, as long as they are real: the team, the place, the work, the products.
• A vector logo, if one exists. If it does not, say so early.
• A list of services or products in your order of importance.
• Three competitor sites: what you like and what you think is weak.
• Domain access if you already have one — who registered it and where.

What you do NOT need

Finished copy. Many clients postpone the conversation for months because they "still need to write the text". Copy can be written together from a conversation — and usually comes out better than text written alone at 11pm.