New websites
A website that earns its keep.
A small business website has one job: turn someone who is looking into someone who gets in touch. Most of the ways it fails are boring: too slow, too hard to read on a phone, no obvious way to contact anyone.
What I build
Hand-built sites, not a theme with your logo dropped in. That matters less for how it looks than for how it performs. A typical template site loads half a megabyte of code it never uses, and on a phone on mobile data that is the difference between a visitor and a bounce.
This site is the demonstration. Have a look at it on your phone, then run it through Google’s PageSpeed tool. That is the standard I would be building yours to, and you can check it rather than take my word.
How long it takes
Three to five weeks for a normal small business site, and the bottleneck is almost never the building. It is the words and the photographs.
Having them makes it quick. Starting without them is fine and I can help, though the honest version is that this is the single most common reason a site takes two months instead of three weeks. Knowing that up front tends to fix it.
What happens afterwards
Every build comes with a care plan, because a site nobody looks after is a site that quietly rots. It is included in the price for the first month and then it is the care plan you can stop whenever you like.
I am telling you that up front rather than mentioning it at the end. A website is a thing you keep, not a thing you buy once. Anyone selling one as a one-off is setting you up for the conversation you will have in three years, when it has to be replaced.
It’s yours
The domain is registered in your name. The files are yours. If you want to take it to someone else in a year, you take it, and I will help rather than obstruct.
That should not be worth saying. It is, which is why I say it.
What it costs
Four shapes, and what they come to.
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A simple website
£1,500 one-off
Around five or six pages. A café, a shop, a sole trader who needs to look real and be easy to contact.
With Essentials care, first year all in: £2,040.
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A proper website
£2,500 one-off
Ten or so pages, a page for each service, enquiry or booking flows, and your Google listing sorted.
With Standard care, first year all in: £3,640.
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An online shop
From £4,000 one-off
Taking payments, products, stock, delivery. Up to 25 products loaded, one payment provider and normal UK delivery rules. More than that, or anything that has to talk to your till or your accounts, and I will quote it.
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Something bigger
From £5,000 one-off
Booking systems, member areas, anything with real functionality behind it. Priced after we have talked about what it needs to do.
I’m not VAT registered, so the price you see is the price you pay. Selling online is its own thing – what a shop includes, and where it stops.
The questions people actually ask
Before you ring.
Can I update it myself?
Yes, for the things people want to change: text, photos, prices, opening hours. I set it up so those are easy and show you how. For anything structural it is usually faster to ask me, and that is what the monthly hour is for.
Will it be on Google?
It will be built so it can be found, and I will set up your Google Business Profile properly, which for a local business matters more than the website does. Page one for anything competitive is the one thing nobody can promise you, and anyone who does is guessing.
What happens if I want it changed?
You see it before it goes anywhere near live, and we change it. Everything that gets published is something you have looked at and agreed to.
Do I pay it all up front?
Half to start, half when it goes live. The deposit comes after we have agreed exactly what is being built and what it costs.
Getting started
Thinking about a new one?
Send me what you’ve got now, or just tell me what the business does. I’ll come back with what I’d suggest and what it would cost, and if what you have is fine, I’ll say that instead.
Or just ring me. That works too. 07891 492388