Planning around your customers
Before we design anything, we want to understand who's visiting your site and what they're trying to figure out. Someone booking a teeth cleaning is looking for different things than a property manager hiring a contractor. That affects what goes at the top of the page, how much detail you need and where the contact options go.
Two examples from our own projects: people visiting Delta24 Restoration often have water in their basement at that moment, so the phone number is the most visible thing on every page. Goats Landscaping sells to property managers who compare contractors carefully, so that site goes into much more detail about services, coverage areas and year-round contracts.
Why we write our own code
Page builders are quick to set up, but they load a lot of code that each page never uses. On a phone with a weak signal, that can add a few seconds to the load time. Slow pages lose visitors, and Google takes speed into account when ranking sites.
Writing the code ourselves keeps pages small. There are no plugins to keep updating and far fewer things that can break. We host sites on Cloudflare, which serves them from data centres close to whoever's visiting.
SEO from launch day
Every site we build goes live with the basic SEO work already done:
- A page structure based on keyword research
- Its own title and meta description on every page
- Schema markup for your business, services and service area
- An XML sitemap and clean, readable URLs
- Images that are properly sized and compressed
- Redirects from your old site's pages, if you're replacing one
If you'd like us to write the content as well, have a look at SEO writing.
How a project runs
We start with a call about your business and the kind of customers you'd like more of. Then we research your market and send you a suggested list of pages. You'll see the design before we start building, and you'll sign off on all the wording before launch. For the first few weeks after launch, we keep an eye on things to make sure Google is picking up your pages and the site is running well.
Included
What's included
Research and site plan
We look at your customers, your competitors and the searches that matter, and turn that into a list of pages.
Custom design
A design made for your business, starting with how it looks on a phone.
Development
The site is coded by us and tested in different browsers and on different devices.
On-page SEO
Titles, descriptions, headings, schema markup, a sitemap and internal links on every page.
Launch and hosting
We set up your domain, SSL and Cloudflare hosting, along with redirects from any old site.
Handover
At the end of the project, the code, content and accounts are all handed over to you.
FAQ
Questions about web design
How much does a website cost?
It mostly depends on how many pages you need and how much writing is involved. You'll get a fixed quote before we start, and that's the price you pay unless you ask for something extra.
Can I make changes to the site myself?
For small text changes, yes, we can set that up for you. Most clients find it easier to send changes to us under a maintenance plan, which also keeps the site running smoothly.
Can you redesign my current site?
Yes. We'll keep anything that's working, including pages that already rank, and set up redirects so you don't lose your search traffic when the new site goes live.
Do you use templates?
No. Each design is made for the business it's for. Some layouts come up a lot because they work well, but we don't start from a pre-made theme.
Related
Our other services
Our other two services cover the writing and the upkeep. You can add either one whenever you're ready.