Great question!
A small website can be designed and published within a couple of days, if the content is ready before we start.
In my experience, most of the time in publishing a website is getting the content together. Usually, this takes a couple of months and is really dependent on how long it takes the client to provide the content.
If budget permits, we can have a professional copywriter put the text together and we can use stock photography to add pictures to your site.