The correct answer is annoying: before you announce, which is earlier than almost everyone starts thinking about it. Here is the timeline, worked backward the way campaigns plan everything else.
Announcement day: the site must already be live
Your announcement is the single biggest traffic spike your campaign may ever get. Local press coverage, social shares, and curious voters all land in the same 48 hours, and every one of them will Google your name. If the site is not live yet, that attention lands on your opponent's framing, old news results, or nothing. The website exists so announcement day converts curiosity into emails, volunteers, and first donations. Live before, not after.
Work the math backward
A professional custom build takes about three weeks from the moment the builder has everything they need: your copy or bullet points, photos, logo, and donation link. Add the time it takes you to gather those materials, typically one to two weeks of evenings, and the safe rule is:
Start the website conversation six to eight weeks before your planned announcement.
Filing deadline instead of a splashy announcement? Same math, applied to the date your name becomes public on the ballot list, because that is when the Googling starts whether you announced or not.
What to do even earlier
- Claim the domain now. Your name plus the office, dot com, the day you first seriously consider running. It costs about a dollar a month and removes the risk of someone else getting it, including someone unfriendly.
- Claim matching social handles at the same sitting.
- Get the headshot done. Photography is the material that most often delays a build, and a well-lit headshot carries more of a site than people expect.
The soft-launch trick
There is no rule that the site must debut with the announcement. Many smart campaigns put up the full site quietly a week early: it lets search engines index you before the traffic arrives, gives you time to catch typos, and means the link in your announcement post has already been tested by someone other than you at midnight.
Already behind? That's fixable
Announced last week with no site? You are not the first. Our standard turnaround is three weeks from complete intake, and when the calendar is cruel, sometimes we can beat it; we just will not promise what we cannot guarantee. The faster your intake comes back, the faster you are live. Tell us your date and we will tell you honestly whether we can hit it. And while the build runs, work the launch checklist so the site arrives to a campaign that is ready for it.