If your agency has asked you for “all the content” and you have no idea where to begin, you’re not alone, and it’s rarely your fault.
Here’s how it usually plays out: you’ve been handed a website redesign project. The agency sends over a list of what they need, and suddenly you’re chasing your boss for brand guidelines that may not exist, digging through old hard drives for photos nobody can find, and trying to write copy for pages you didn’t even know were in scope.
This is one of the most common, and most avoidable reasons redesign projects stall.
The Real Problem Isn’t You, It’s the Process
Too many agencies treat content gathering as your problem to solve alone. They send a spreadsheet, set a deadline, and wait. When the content isn’t ready on time, the project stalls, timelines slip, and everyone ends up frustrated, including the client who was set up to fail from the start.
The truth is, content gathering shouldn’t be a one-way handoff. It should be a shared process, with clear ownership on both sides.
What You Should Own
As the client, there are things only you can provide:
- Sign-off from your boss on scope and budget, so the project doesn’t stall halfway through waiting for approval
- Access to existing brand assets — logo files, colour codes, fonts — the raw materials that already exist inside your business
- A single point of contact who can approve content and design decisions without triggering a three-week internal review cycle
These are things that live inside your organisation. No agency can chase them down for you — but a good one will tell you exactly what’s needed and why, upfront.
What a Good Agency Should Own
This is where the balance should shift back the other way. A good agency doesn’t just ask for content; it helps you produce it. That means:
- Structuring the sitemap based on your input, so you know exactly what pages need content and can plan around it
- Drafting first-pass copy from your existing materials — brochures, old website text, sales decks, so you’re editing and refining rather than staring at a blank page
- Guiding you on imagery — what’s needed, in what format, and when, instead of leaving you to guess
When an agency takes ownership of structure and drafting, clients move from writing from scratch to reacting and approving. That single shift is often the difference between a redesign that finishes on time and one that drags on for months.
A Process Failure, Not a Knowledge Gap
If your agency is dumping the entire content burden on you and then blaming you for delays, that’s not a gap in your knowledge or capability; it’s a gap in their process.
At Simpl by Rob&Paul, we treat content as a collaborative part of the website design process, not an afterthought we hand off and hope for the best. We structure the sitemap, draft first-pass copy from what already exists, and guide clients on exactly what’s needed and when so redesigns move forward instead of stalling in someone’s inbox.
If you’re staring down a content spreadsheet with no idea where to start, that’s usually a sign the process needs fixing, not you!
