Redesign timelines are one of the biggest surprises in municipal website projects. Some vendors quote many months; others promise days. The honest answer depends on a few specific factors — and knowing them helps you hold any vendor (including us) to a realistic schedule.
What actually takes time
- Content migration. Moving and reorganizing pages, documents, and archives is usually the largest single task — especially cleaning up years of accumulated material.
- Decisions. Waiting for reviews, approvals, and board meetings adds more calendar time than any technical step.
- Custom design and development. A fully custom build measures in months. A well-designed platform configured for your town measures in weeks.
- Training and review. Staff need time to get comfortable before launch — a small investment that pays off immediately.
Reasonable expectations
For a small or midsize municipality on a modern platform, a range of several weeks to a few months is realistic — driven mostly by how much content needs migrating and how quickly decisions get made on your side. Timelines quoted in many months usually reflect the vendor’s process, not your website’s needs. Timelines quoted in days usually mean your content is being dumped in, not organized.
How to keep your project on schedule
- Name one decision-maker (or a very small committee) for day-to-day questions.
- Purge before you move: retire outdated pages and documents rather than migrating them.
- Agree on the launch checklist up front — what must be perfect at launch versus improved after.
- Schedule staff training before launch week, not after.
A good vendor will give you a schedule with named milestones and tell you which parts depend on you. If a proposal can’t say what happens in week one, that’s worth asking about.