Website Design

A website has one job

Somebody has heard your name, or found you in a search, and wants to know whether you are worth contacting. Everything else a website is supposed to be — a brochure, a portfolio, a statement of who you are — is in service of that one moment.

Which is why we would rather build you something clear and quick than something award-winning. Plenty of beautiful websites take enquiries away from the business that paid for them.

What the first screen has to do

• Say what you do and where you do it — in words a customer would use, not a slogan. A visitor who has to scroll to work out whether they are in the right place often does not scroll.
• Make contact obvious. A phone number that dials when tapped, a form that is short enough to finish, and both reachable without hunting.
• Load fast on a phone, because that is where most of your visitors are, often on patchy signal.
• Look like a real business. Photographs of your actual work, real names, a real address. This does more for trust than any amount of styling.

Three honest things about a web design project

What holds projects up is content, not design. Almost every website that runs late is waiting on copy and photographs from the client. We can write the copy for you or work from what you have — but if you plan to write it yourself, that decision, not the design, sets the timeline.

A new website does not, by itself, bring visitors. It converts the visitors you get. If nobody is finding you today, a redesign will make the same small number of people better served rather than making more of them arrive. Getting found is separate work, and we will tell you which one you actually need first.

You should own it and be able to change it. The domain, the hosting and the accounts should be in your name, and you should be able to edit your own text without booking anyone. If a proposal you are comparing does not say that plainly, ask why.

The plans below are a starting point rather than a fixed menu. Tell us roughly how many pages you need and what you want the site to do, and we will come back with a recommendation and an exact price.