Why the shape matters
A kennel website is not a brochure with a phone number. It has to carry photography of a working building, a routine written down for the first time, a requirements list that matches what your software enforces, and a booking platform that will not sell a day to a dog it has never met. That is more moving parts than most small business sites, and it is why the process below has stages that a restaurant build does not.
Here is how it actually runs.
Stage one: the first conversation
An hour, usually on a call. We are working out the shape of the business rather than the design. How many dogs a day. Daycare, boarding, home boarding, or all three. Whether you run grooming or training alongside. What software you use now, or whether you are choosing one. Where bookings come from today and how many of them are phone calls you would rather not take. What you are licensed for and what your rating is. And what owners ask on the phone that the site should have answered.
You leave with a page list and a price.
Stage two: page list and platform decision
The page list for this kind of business runs past eight pages, which is why the recommended tier is the larger one. Home, daycare, boarding, the assessment, requirements, the daily routine, facilities, prices and packages, about and the team, reviews, contact, plus booking and registration pages for the platform.
At the same time we settle the booking platform. Gingr, PetExec, Revelation Pets and Kennel Connection are the four we work with most, and the choice depends on whether you need grooming in the same system, how you sell packages, how you handle multi-site, and how the owner portal feels on a phone. If you already have one, we build to it. If you do not, trial two with your own price list before the design starts, because the platform shapes the booking pages.
Stage three: content and the routine
This is the stage that decides the project, and it is the stage owners underestimate.
We need your requirements written down: vaccinations, the kennel cough interval, neutering, parasite treatment, health on the day. We need your prices, including peak rates, part-day rules and package terms. We need the daily routine as it actually runs, hour by hour, both daycare and a boarding night. We need your licence number, rating, inspection date and insurance details. And we need the awkward answers: what happens when a dog does not settle, whether anyone is on site overnight, when you ring the owner.
Most of this exists only in your head and in the heads of two staff. Getting it out is the work. We interview rather than send a blank document, because a blank document is where kennel projects stall for a month.
Stage four: photography and video
Booked for a normal working day, not a Sunday. Every area a dog passes through, with dogs in them: drop-off, play areas, rest areas, sleeping runs with bedding in, isolation, food prep, outdoor space from a height if we can get one. Then three or four short clips: a walk from the front door to the sleeping area, a play session with sound, and a piece to camera from whoever will be looking after the dog.
Photo permission for the dogs in shot needs to be in place, which is one reason it is a consent your platform should already be collecting. Book the shoot early. It is the longest lead time in the project and the thing most likely to push a launch date.
Stage five: design
One home page design shown first, then the inside pages once the direction is agreed. Two rounds each. Consolidated feedback, everyone with a veto looking at round one, because a partner seeing it first at round two is the commonest cause of a third round.
For a kennel the design decisions are narrow and specific: how the licence and rating appear on every page, how the two front doors work on the service pages, one button for assessed dogs and one for new ones, and how heavy the gallery can be before a phone on mobile data gives up.
Stage six: build and platform wiring
Pages built, then the booking platform wired in. Registration on its own page, booking on its own page, deep links from each service page, nothing loading until an owner taps through. Prices on the site reconciled line by line against prices in the platform. Requirements on the page reconciled against required fields in the profile. Agreements attached to the registration flow. Expiry reminders switched on.
Then we test it as a stranger from a phone: register a fictional dog, upload a certificate, sign the agreements, book an assessment, and confirm that the same dog cannot book a boarding date.
Stage seven: launch and handover
Redirects from the old site, analytics with tracking on every booking and assessment tap, search console, and the schema that lets the FAQ and the business details read properly. Then a recorded walkthrough, fifteen to twenty minutes on your own admin, covering the things you will actually do: change a price, swap a photo, update the requirements page after a policy change, add a team member.
After launch we watch the first month: which pages get read, which get abandoned, how many assessments book, and whether the phone traffic has moved. Peak season is where the return shows, so a kennel launched in spring gets reviewed again in September.
Where it usually stalls
Content and photography, every time. Not design, not build. The routine that nobody has written down and the shoot that needs a dry Tuesday. Both are bookable in week one, and projects that book them in week one launch on time.
Where this sits
That is the process behind every dog daycare and boarding website we build, and the stages are the same across pet businesses generally. What is specific here is the weight of stages three and four: a kennel is bought on the routine and the sleeping areas, and no amount of design covers for their absence.