Why the process matters to a cattery
Most catteries have been through a website build that went quiet for six weeks and came back looking like a template with a stock kitten on it. So the useful thing is not a promise about quality. It is a description of what happens, in what order, and what is needed from you at each point, because a cattery build stalls in the same two places every time: the photography and the price table.
Here is how it runs.
Stage one: the conversation
Half an hour, on the phone or in the building. What we are trying to establish: how many pens you have and of what types, whether cats from one household share, how you charge, what your peak season looks like and when it books, what you use for the diary today, whether you are licensed and what your rating is, and what the phone rings about most.
That last question shapes the whole site. If the phone rings about heating, heating gets its own paragraph. If it rings about tablets, medication gets a section rather than a line.
You should come away knowing what it would cost and how long it would take. Nothing is committed.
Stage two: the plan
We write down the pages and what each has to do. For a cattery that is usually a home page, a pen page for each type, a routine and medication page, a requirements page, prices, book, about with the licence, reviews and contact.
At this stage we also decide the booking platform, or work with the one you have. Revelation Pets, Gingr, PetExec and Kennel Connection all book stays properly, and the site is designed around the flow of whichever you use, so this cannot be left until the end.
You approve the plan before anything is designed.
Stage three: content and photography
This is the stage that decides whether the site works, and it is the stage that needs you.
Photography. Every pen type, inside and out, in daylight, empty and clean. The sleeping area with the bedding and the heating visible. The run from both directions. The building and the entrance. You, and anyone else who handles the cats. A short walk-through video of one pen is worth more than any copy on the site. Either a photographer for a morning, or a good phone by the window on a bright day and someone patient.
The routine. Describe your day the way you would to a nervous owner in the doorway. We turn it into a timeline.
Requirements. Vaccinations with the timing, flea and worm treatment, what to bring. Exactly as you enforce them, not as you wish you did.
Prices. Nightly rates by pen type, sharing rates, peak rates and dates, extras. This is where builds stall, because a lot of catteries have never written the full grid down. Set it up in the booking platform first and the page is written from that.
Credentials. Licence number and rating, insurer, any qualifications, your emergency vet arrangement.
We will chase this. It is normal for it to take a fortnight, and it is the only part we cannot do without you.
Stage four: design and build
You see the home page and one pen page first, as a design, and we change them before anything else is built. Once you are happy, the rest is built to match.
Everything editable is set up as content you can change yourself: the price table as records with a field per pen type and occupancy, the routine as a normal page, the requirements page with a last-updated date. Nothing that changes annually should need a developer.
Stage five: booking, tracking and the checks
The booking platform is configured against the site: pen types as distinct capacity, rates matching the table exactly, vaccination fields required for a first stay with expiry reminders on, medication and feeding notes in the flow, deposit and cancellation terms in the same words as the price page, confirmation emails in your voice linking back to the requirements page.
Then a test booking as a stranger, from a phone, on mobile data, including inside the Facebook and Instagram in-app browsers. Speed checked on mobile. Accessibility checked. Tracking added for booking taps, call taps and enquiries, by page.
Stage six: launch and after
Launch is the same day the domain points across, usually in the morning, with the old site kept until we are certain. Redirects from the old URLs so nothing already ranking is lost. Then a walk-through recording showing you how to edit the price table, the routine and the requirements page, so you have it when you need it in six months.
Afterwards, the care plan keeps it patched, backed up and monitored, and the price and peak dates get updated when yours change.
How long, and where it slips
Four to eight weeks is typical, and the variable is almost always stage three. A cattery that books a photographer in week one and writes its price grid in week two goes live in four. A cattery that sends photos in the sixth week goes live in nine. Nothing else on the list is under your control, and that part entirely is.
Aim to be live well before your peak booking window opens, not during it.
Where this sits
That is the process behind every cattery website we build, and the same six stages run across our pet business websites with the content stage changed for the business. What each package includes is on pricing. Book the photographer first. Everything else follows it.