The single most common reason a website project runs late is not design and it is not development. It is waiting for content.
The build is booked, the deposit is paid, and then three weeks pass while somebody hunts for product photos that are good enough to use.
This is the checklist we send clients after the deposit. It works for any builder, not just us — if you are hiring someone else, send it to yourself and have everything ready before you start. A project where the content is ready finishes in a week. The same project without it takes a month.
Before anything else: who owns this?
Name one person. Not a department, not "the team".
Website content needs decisions — which photo, which price, whose testimonial — and decisions made by committee arrive late or not at all. One person with authority to say "use this one" is worth more than any tool.
1. Photography
The part that determines whether your site looks like a $300 build or a $900 one. Nothing a designer does can rescue bad photos.
What we need per product:
Technical requirements:
- At least 1500px on the long edge. Bigger is fine, we compress it properly. Smaller cannot be fixed.
- Original files. Not a screenshot, not a photo re-downloaded from Facebook. Facebook compresses hard, and once quality is gone it is gone.
- JPG or PNG. Not PDF, not a Word document with images pasted in.
- Consistent — same background and lighting across a product family. This is what makes a catalogue look designed rather than assembled.
Do not send:
- Screenshots of your own Facebook posts
- Photos with a competitor's or supplier's logo visible
- Images with text, prices or promotions burned into them — those go stale, and they collide with the text we lay over them
- Anything you do not have the right to use
A phone camera is fine. A recent phone in good light beats a DSLR in a dark shop. If your photos are not working, it is almost always the light, not the camera — we wrote about that here.
2. Product information
For each product:
- Name — exactly as you want it printed
- Price — and whether it includes delivery, tax, or installation
- Short description — one or two sentences. What it is, who it is for
- Full description — a paragraph or three. Why it costs what it costs
- Specifications — dimensions, materials, weight, capacity, warranty, what is in the box
- Variants — sizes, colours, models, with the price of each
- Availability — in stock, made to order, lead time
Specifications feel tedious. They are the highest-value content on the whole site. Every specification you publish is a question you stop answering by message, and every one you omit is a customer who messages a competitor instead because they answered it.
A useful test: open your Messenger and read the last twenty questions customers asked. That is your specification list, written by the people who actually needed it.
3. The words
Split this honestly, because "we will write it" and "you will write it" are different prices.
Only you can supply:
- What the business does and who it is for
- What makes your product different from the cheaper one
- Your story — when you started, why, what you insist on
- Delivery, payment, returns and warranty terms
- Anything with a number or a promise in it
A writer can turn that into: headlines, section copy, product descriptions, FAQ answers.
If copywriting is part of the project, you still need to supply the raw material. Nobody can invent why your sofa frame is better; they can only make it sound good once you have explained it.
Send it as plain text. A document, an email, a Telegram message. Not a PDF of a scanned page, not text inside images.
4. Trust material
The section most clients skip and then wonder why the site feels flat.
Testimonials. Three to five. Real ones, with a first name and ideally the business or district. Screenshots of Messenger praise are fine as a source — we will typeset them.
We will not invent these. A site with fabricated reviews is a liability, and in a market this small it gets noticed.
Numbers you can defend. Years in business, customers served, units made, warranty length. Only if true and only if you would say them to a customer's face.
Credentials. Certifications, association memberships, awards. Skip if none — absence is better than padding.
About and address. A real location, opening hours, and one photo of the workshop, shop or team. This does more for a Cambodian buyer's confidence than any design choice.
5. Logistics and terms
Boring, and the source of most post-launch support messages:
- Delivery — areas covered, cost, timeframe, free above what value
- Payment — cash, ABA, Wing, KHQR, card, bank transfer
- Returns — window, condition, who pays return shipping
- Warranty — length, what it covers, what voids it
- Lead time — for made-to-order items
Write these down once, properly. They go on the site, and they settle arguments later.
6. Brand assets
- Logo — vector if possible (
.ai,.svg,.eps), otherwise the largest PNG you have, ideally with a transparent background - Brand colours — hex codes if you know them, or point at something using them correctly
- Fonts — if you have licensed ones
- Existing materials — packaging, signage, business cards. These tell a designer more about your brand than a brief does
No logo? Say so early. It is a separate small job and it blocks everything visual.
7. Domain and access
- Domain — do you have one? Do you have the login? It should be registered in your name, not your previous designer's.
- If your business is registered in Cambodia you are also required to hold a
.com.khaddress, and approval takes one to two months — start it early. This single item strands more finished websites than anything else on this list. - Existing accounts — analytics, old hosting, social profiles to link
The realistic timeline
The build is predictable. The first row is not, and it is entirely within your control.
The short version
If you do nothing else on this list, do these three:
- Photograph your products properly, in daylight, on a clean background
- Write down the answers to your twenty most-asked questions
- Find your logo file and your domain login
With those three, a builder can produce something good. Without them, the best designer in Phnom Penh produces a nice-looking page with nothing in it.
We send this checklist to every client after the deposit. If you are planning a build, message us — or use it with whoever you hire.
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