// SMALL BUSINESS WEBSITES
Website design
Fast websites for small businesses, built to be found on Google and owned by you.
Your website is often the first contact a customer has with your business, usually on a phone and often on an unreliable connection. If the site is slow to load, many visitors return to the search results and choose another business. We design and build websites for small businesses that load quickly, read clearly on a small screen and give Google the information it needs to show your business to people searching for what you offer. Once the site is complete, it belongs to you.
What a small business website should do
A good small business website answers a customer's questions in the order they arise: what you do, where you are, why they can trust you, and how to contact you. Everything else on the site should support those answers.
We would rather build a small number of clear, useful pages than a large site that visitors do not read. Each page should have a clear purpose, and in most cases that purpose is to answer a question that customers type into Google.
For the same reason, we advise against features that add cost without helping customers, such as rotating banners, generic stock photography, pop-ups that appear before the page has loaded, and a blog that nobody has time to maintain.
Search engine visibility
Search engine visibility is the result of sound work rather than any secret technique, and nobody can honestly promise you the top position on Google. What we can do is build the site correctly, so that search engines understand what your business does and where it operates.
In practice that means fast pages that pass Google's speed checks, a separate page for each service you offer with clear headings, proper page titles and descriptions for the search results, and your business name, address and trading hours set out in the format search engines expect.
The content also has to be useful to the people reading it. For that reason we will ask you a number of questions about your customers and the questions they typically ask when they phone you.
Speed and performance
Most of a website's speed comes from what is left out. We do not use heavy page builders, large collections of plugins or video that plays automatically, and we size images for the screens on which they are displayed. The aim is that a customer using a mid-range phone on a weak signal can still load your pages quickly.
Fast websites are also generally cheaper to host and easier to keep secure, because they contain fewer components that can fail or become outdated. Less maintenance now means fewer unexpected problems later.
Ownership and handover
The domain is registered in your name, and the code and content belong to you. If you decide to move to another developer or a different host, you are free to do so, and we will assist with the transfer.
We take this seriously because it is more common than many people expect for a business to lose access to its own website, typically because someone else registered the domain years earlier and can no longer be reached.
// FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Can I update the website myself?
Yes, if you would like to. We can set up simple editing for the content that changes most often, such as your price list, opening hours or specials. If you prefer not to make changes yourself, we can make them for you as part of support.
Can you guarantee I'll be first on Google?
No, and we recommend caution with anyone who offers that guarantee. Nobody controls Google's rankings. We build the site so that it is well placed to rank, and we will explain what you can do over time to improve its position.
Do I own the website?
Yes. The domain, the code and the content are yours, and you can move the site whenever you choose.
I already have a website. Can you improve it instead of starting over?
Sometimes. We will review your current site first. If its structure is sound, a clean-up and some new pages may be sufficient. If it is slow and difficult to maintain, starting again is often quicker and less expensive than repairing it.
// RELATED SERVICES
Discovery Week
A short first engagement, usually about a week, that establishes what you are building, what it is likely to take, and whether we are the right team to build it.
Support and maintenance
Fixes, updates, monitoring and small changes that keep the software we built for you working as it should.