Who Writes the Website Copy? Plan Content Early
By CodexierPublished 7 min read
Ask any web studio why a site launched two months late and the answer is almost always the same: the client had not written the texts. Not because clients are lazy, but because nobody agreed at the start who would write what, and a blank page is easy to postpone. This guide gives you a content plan you can fill in during the first project week, so the words are ready when the design is.
Why content delays projects
The mechanism is simple. A designer cannot finish a page until the text exists, because headline length, image needs and layout all depend on it. When texts arrive late, every page is designed twice: once with placeholder text and once with the real thing. Meanwhile the studio has started the next project, and your site queues behind it. The delay compounds. A site that could have taken six weeks takes four months, and the contract usually says the studio is not responsible for that gap. If you are writing a brief right now, add a content plan to it. Our business website launch package assumes the plan below is agreed in the kick-off.
Page-by-page content plan
List every page the site will have, and for each one decide the owner, the source material and the due date. Here is a typical plan for a Swedish service company with eight pages; adapt the rows, keep the columns.
| Page | Best writer | Source material | Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home | Copywriter, with your input | Your three main services and what makes you the safe choice | Week 2 |
| Services (one per service) | You, edited by the studio | Existing quotes, price list, common customer questions | Week 2 |
| About | You | Company history, team, org number and F-tax status | Week 3 |
| Contact | Studio template | Address, hours, phone, form fields you actually need | Week 1 |
| Case studies or references | You, with client approval | Two or three real projects the client has agreed to show | Week 3 |
| FAQ | You | The questions you answer on the phone every week | Week 3 |
| Privacy and cookies | Studio template, checked by you | What you collect, which tools you run | Week 1 |
| Terms | You, or your lawyer | Existing terms of sale or engagement | Week 3 |
Week numbers assume a six-week project. Legal pages first because they are templates; sales pages second because they need the most iteration.
Writing yourself vs hiring a copywriter
Nobody knows your services better than you, and nobody is more likely to write a page that starts with the company's founding year. Both statements are true, which is why the best split is usually hybrid. You produce the raw material: what you do, for whom, at what price, and the objections you hear. A copywriter turns that into pages that lead to an enquiry. If budget only allows one professionally written page, make it the homepage; it carries the most traffic and sets the tone for everything else.
- Write yourself when: the page is factual (services, about, FAQ), you have a colleague who can edit, and the studio offers a light copy edit as part of the build.
- Hire a copywriter when: the page must convince (home, landing pages, a new offer), your industry has jargon that needs translating for buyers, or nobody in the company has written for the web before.
- Either way: give the writer the same brief the designer gets, including target customer and the one action each page should lead to.
AI drafts and their limits
Language models are genuinely useful for getting past the blank page. Give one your service list and a description of your customer, ask for a first draft of a services page, and you have structure and a tone to react to in minutes. Where they fail is exactly where a website can hurt you: they invent facts, generalise your specific offer into industry filler, and produce Swedish that reads like translated English. Treat every AI draft as a template to be corrected, and apply three rules without exception.
No facts without a source
Prices, delivery times, certifications, years in business and staff names come from you, typed in by you. Never let a model fill those in.
No legal text from a model
Privacy policies, terms and consumer-law wording must reflect what you actually do. Use the studio's templates or a lawyer, then adapt.
Read it aloud in Swedish
If a sentence sounds like nobody at your company would say it, rewrite it. Search engines increasingly reward pages that read like a person wrote them.
Deadlines that protect the launch date
A content deadline only works if it sits before the design deadline and has a consequence. Agree these three things with the studio in writing: the date all texts are marked final, what happens if a page is late (usually the site launches without that page, or with the previous version), and who has the authority to approve. One approver, not a committee. When a board or a marketing group must sign off, give them a fixed two-day review window and treat silence as approval.
When you do not need any of this: a one-page site with a headline, three services and a contact form can be written in an afternoon by the founder, and a copywriter would add cost without changing the outcome. And if your existing site's texts already convert well, keep them; a redesign is not a reason to rewrite every page. Where a content plan does matter, we set it up in the kick-off of every website project, and you can see the delivery windows on the pricing page or talk it through on a short call.
- Business website launchWhat the launch package includes, from structure to copy edit, and how the content plan fits the schedule.
- .se or .com domainThe other early decision that should not wait for the design phase.
- Book a free 15-minute callWe go through your page list and tell you which texts to write yourself.
Frequently asked questions
How many words should a service page have?
Enough to answer what the service is, who it is for, what it costs or how pricing works, what happens next, and the two or three questions customers always ask. For most services that is a few hundred words. Length for its own sake does not help; unanswered questions hurt.
Can the web studio write the texts for us?
Many can, either in-house or through a partner copywriter, and it is worth asking for a price at the quote stage. What the studio cannot do is know your services and prices without input from you, so plan a short interview per page even when someone else holds the pen.
Should we write in Swedish first or English first?
Write in the language your main customers use, which for most Swedish companies is Swedish. Translate only the pages that matter to the second audience, and have a native speaker review the result. A machine-translated Swedish site is easy to spot and quietly costs trust.
What if we miss the content deadline?
Agree the consequence in advance. The usual options are launching with the finished pages and adding the rest later, or delaying the whole launch, which typically pushes your slot behind the studio's next project. Launching partially is almost always better for the business.
Planning a new site and unsure who writes what?
Fifteen minutes with an engineer: we go through your page list, mark which texts you should write yourself and which need a copywriter, and give you a deadline plan that fits the build.
Book a free 15-minute call