Frequently Asked Questions

We offer all aspects of web design and supporting services. Our approach is designed to be a one-stop solution so that you can concentrate on doing what you best, which is running your business.

Broadly speaking we offer the following services:

• Website strategy & consultancy
• New website design & development
• E-commerce website design & development
• Re-design existing websites
• Updating content on an existing website
• Ongoing SEO
• Hosting and technical support

..and much more.

In addition to the core web design services listed above, we also offer the following:

• Branding and logo design
• Image sourcing
• Image manipulation
• Copywriting
• PPC advertising – inc. Google / Facebook
• Reputation recovery from bad online reviews
• GDPR compliance

We work for a wide variety of customers all with their own unique businesses, small and large, from start-ups to long-establilshed companies. We have experience in both B2B and B2C marketing at all levels.

No two clients are the same, so we always work hard to understand your business and help you address the challenges you need to solve.

Absolutely.

We’ve designed packages that have everything you need including:

• All meetings and advice
• Professional website design and build
• UK domain or transfer included
• Essential Hosting included (Year 1)
• Free email accounts
• Up to 5 pages
• Contact forms
• SSL Certificate
• Search engine registration
• SEO optimisation

It’s entirely up to you.

In most cases you will have existing branding, marketing materials and photos either in use on your current website, or from marketing materials. We will work with you to discuss your marketing strategy and decide how to present your business and consider all of the content that we’re likely to need to support this.

However, if necessary we can complete a new website for a start-up from scratch including branding, copy and images.

In addition to building the website, we can provide other services like:

• Logo and brand creation
• Copywriting
• Image sourcing

If for any reason we’re not able to cover your requirement we have a strong network of service providers who we can enlist to help.

Quite often we can. It depends on a number of factors, but the worst case scenario is that we will have to manually copy and paste the content from your existing website.

A new website is often a great opportunity to re-think your user experience and content structure. You’ll no doubt have learned from your old site so we can apply that experience with best practice and organise your new site’s data accordingly.

We will always write 301 redirects from your old site’s pages so that you don’t lose any traffic after launch.

This varies greatly based on a number of factors including the following:

• Complexity of the project
• Our leadtime
• Availability of branding materials, content and imagery
• Design iterations
• Review process and sign-off

However typically, a basic website can be completed in 4-8 weeks, and a more complex site or e-commerce site would take from 6-12 weeks.

Yes of course.

Our portfolio features a number of recent projects, however we’ve worked on many more projects that are not featured there. If you would like to speak to one of our customers please let us know.

We build our websites using either static html, a CMS called WordPress or Magento.

Sorry no. Most of our websites are built using WordPress and we find it’s flexibility and intuitive system surpasses all other available options.

Also by concentrating on one platform we’ve been able to optimise our skill set and offer technically excellent solutions.

Generally not. We would normally prefer to build you a new website using the latest software and best practice. This is so that we can 100% stand behind everything that we create.

However in some cases we will take on an html or WordPress website where the site has been well constructed and when it would be too costly to rebuild the site in the very short term.

You could do it yourself, and there are plenty of website builder solutions out there that promise you a cheap and easy way to build your own website. Squarespace and Wix are examples.

Whilst on face value these companies do a great job of making it look really easy, the reality is that they just don’t measure up in the long run. The visual part of the website you actually see is just a small part of the technical detail necessary to create a website that will work and deliver results.

Here’s a few important reasons why you’d be far better off getting your site built professionally:

• The design options with drag and drop interfaces are limited
• It will take far longer than you expect
• What will you do when you get stuck?
• SEO relies on the correct technical structure & practices which can’t be achieved using these systems
• Your competitors’ sites will look superior and work better

The bottom line is that if you’re considering building your own site to save money, in the long run it’ll cost you more in time wasted and missed opportunities. You’ll be far better off if you cost a well-built website into your business plan.

If you’re in any doubt ask yourself this: Would you expect an amateur to be able do your job as well as you?

The chances are the answer’s no. If you’re in business because you’re excellent at what you do, you’ll earn far more by focusing on that, and letting us do an excellent job on your website.

Yes the new website is entirely your property.

We believe that every client should own their website, regardless of the agency. For that reason we only build on open source frameworks that are free, transferrable and can be worked on by any developer.

All software and images we use are licenced to you. If for any reason you decide to locate the website on your own or another company’s hosting platform we will provide you with a backup of all of the files and database.

Yes, if you buy a new website that runs on the WordPress content management system.

We will design your website so that you or your staff can edit it to update content or add news & articles.

We can provide WordPress training in half-day blocks if necessary.

It’s difficult to answer this until we’ve discussed your business requirements. Much like buying a car it depends on the quality and the specification you need.

However, for most small businesses our fixed-price packages that include absolutely everything you need are ideal. Prices for these start at £1995 for a 5 page site. Additional pages are charged at £150/page. Our recommended WordPress+ package represents great value for a 10 page site, with a saving of £250 versus the basic package.

Our pricing is completely transparent and there are no hidden costs.

You’ll find that unlike most agencies, we are completely up front about our prices. The reason for this is that we believe in the quality of our service and that the prices offer excellent value for money.

Please note that you will also need to pay for on-going annual fees in the second year onwards, and these are detailed in the topics below.

Once we have agreed scope of the work and the fee, you will need to pay a 50% deposit. After you’ve signed off on the design stage, and before we move into the development phase, we will ask you to pay a further 25%. Once we have completed the work to your satisfaction, the remaining 25% will be billed and your website will be scheduled for launch.

Sorry we do not offer finance.

We may however be able to offer alternative payment schedules to help you spread the cost of your investment.

A professionally designed website is an essential business tool and as such you should provide a reasonable budget in your business plan for this investment. If you’re applying for funding from your bank or other investor, they will expect you to budget for professional website design.

Payment via bank transfer is preferred. The sort code and account details will be on your invoice.

If you prefer to pay your invoice by card, or want to pay us regularly, you can pay securely with a debit or credit card here.

We do not accept cheques.

When you buy a new website we include all of your first year’s annual costs into the package price.

After the first year, there are a number of factors to bear in mind that will affect your ongoing costs.

At the very least you should expect to pay annually to renew your domain name(s), and to pay for your hosting ie. the server space and resources where your website is stored.

Domain names are from as little as £10/year, and our entry-level hosting starts at £96/year. For a basic static website that is running on a .co.uk domain, your annual bill would be £106/year on the anniversary of your site’s launch date.

If your website is running on a content management solution (CMS) like WordPress, your site will be located on our more powerful shared VPS (virtual private server) hosting platform and your annual fee for this would be £180/year. Additionally as the CMS software requires periodic updates and health checks, you will need to pay for annual support which is £150/year. Therefore on the first anniversary of your website launch you will be billed for the domain, hosting and support at £340/year.

If you need more powerful hosting, additional ongoing support services or software licenses these costs will be advised at the outset of the project.

Generally speaking there are unlikely to be any other costs other than content updates or SEO work. You can read more about these in the tab titled SEO.

As you know, technology changes quickly and web standards are just the same, so it’s worth factoring depreciation into the life of your website. Much like buying a car or a computer, you should anticipate having to update or renew your website periodically. Normally we would recommend you write the cost off over 3-5 years. You can read more about this in the topic below.

It’s up to you, so it’s best to discuss it with your accountant.

You can treat a the cost of developing a new website as an expense and write it off through the Profit & Loss thereby reducing tax liability.

Alternatively the cost of developing a new website can be treated as a capital cost (like creating a physical storefront) which should go on your balance sheet. Like a vehicle or other asset you should depreciate the value of the investment over a period. Depending on the nature of your business, normally we would recommend 3-5 years, but your accountant will be able to advise. A well designed and future-proofed website may well last far longer.

Treating the investment as a tangible or intangible asset should mean a boost to this year’s profits, a strengthened balance sheet, and a boost to your credit rating.

There’s little argument over the treatment of the regular costs of maintaining your website like hosting, support, maintenance & updates which should be considered revenue expenses and should appear on your P&L account.

Source: HMRC Business Income Manual 35815

SEO is short for Search Engine Optimisation.

It’s the practice of making your website rank as highly as possible on a search engine for your chosen search terms. This rank is free (organic), as opposed to paid advertising or ‘Pay Per Click’ (PPC) which we cover in a topic below.

A high organic rank means increased traffic, and ultimately results in more enquiries and more purchases.

Honestly no.

No one can promise this, well not without throwing an enormous amount of money and time at it.

We can however work for or with you on a sensible budget to establish the core elements for a good SEO strategy, namely:

• Build a standards-based website that incorporates all of the tools necessary to optimise SEO
• Discuss, research and agree your preferred search terms
• Organise your website’s content into optimal sections and hierarchy
• Write or re-write your content so that it’s search engine friendly, user friendly and accessible
• Use structured data formats and other markup so that search engines and social media sites understand your data
• Review & monitor your performance metrics and adjust your site and content accordingly

We’ve delivered some outstanding SEO results across a variety of sectors. If you’d like to view some examples of the SEO work and the ranks we’ve achieved for our clients take a look at the SEO projects from our portfolio.

Good SEO begins with a solid website foundation, but having an ongoing SEO strategy is a crucial aspect of any website. We will work for you to develop your website so that it attracts regular visitors for your selected search terms.

We have fixed price packages for SEO as follows:

• Entry level SEO: Quarterly rank monitoring and SEO

  We will proactively help you to optimise your site’s ranking on search engines like Google through SEO. We will monitor your position and update your website’s content and images to establish, maintain and improve your rank on an ongoing basis. This costs £120/month.

• Enhanced SEO: Monthly rank monitoring and SEO

  This is as per our SEO support, except that we will perform a detailed monthly review of your SEO. Frequent checks and a hands-on proactive strategy can provide not only fast results but sustained growth over long periods. This costs £300/month.

• Bespoke SEO: Made to measure SEO package

  We will configure a package specific to your business and the volume of traffic you want to achieve. The monthly cost will be agreed based on your requirement or budget.

Yes.

A good organic rank (ie. natural free result) on search engines takes time to achieve. How long depends on a multitude of factors.

Whilst we are building your SEO ranking, you can deploy PPC advertising campaigns quickly and get instant results.

A word of caution though, these campaigns need to be carefully set-up and managed effectively to minimise unnecessary spend. It’s very easy to target a broad search term and end up paying a lot of money for little or no results.

A well composed campaign however, can deliver fast results and give your business a boost.

In the long-run we would aim to reduce campaign spend as your organic rank improves.

We’re Google Adwords accredited so can advise you if you want to run these yourself  – or we can manage these for you entirely.

Yes absolutely. We provide a consultancy service for a number of clients to help them with the following:

• Overall marketing strategy
• Website audits
• SEO strategy
• Project specification & project management
• In-house training

Yes absolutely. If you’d like us to a take a look at your current website get in touch.

We will assess your existing site and provide a free overview to help you understand how well your site’s constructed and how well you’re performing against your competitors. We’ll also provide recommendations to help you plan ahead.

Yes.

We prefer to host your website on our array of VPS’s (virtual private servers).

Cheap hosting environments (lately called clouds) are shared servers, sometimes with as many as 500 other websites, and consequently very often over-loaded. They are typically slow, unreliable, and often subject to virus infection.

By contrast our servers are high-powered ring-fenced environments that are fast, secure and offer 99.98%+ up-time.

Additionally your data is backed up hourly and if necessary we can provide access via cPanel.

Yes we strongly encourage this. It’s normally pretty straightforward.

It’s easier for us to work in a known hosting environment and will give you the long-term benefits of a more secure managed environment.

Yes you do.

HTTPS was typically the preserve of online e-commerce stores. This however was normally quite costly as you had to buy an annual SSL certificate often costing hundreds of pounds, and is why previously developers haven’t recommended it for marketing or informational websites.

However internet security is an ongoing battle and everyone’s pushing to move to more secure systems. All web pages that aren’t certified are now marked as insecure, and in the fullness of time we expect that browsers will eventually refuse the connection completely.

Thanks to initiatives like Let’s Encrypt, SSL certificates can now be obtained for free and in the long-run HTTPS will become standard, so all new websites we build have this installed at the outset.

Google also states that they give websites using HTTPS a boost in search rankings versus non-HTTPS sites.

You can read more about HTTPS & SSL here.

Yes it does.

Increasingly people are using mobile devices to surf the internet. Companies like Google are changing their ranking algorithms to rank mobile friendly websites and to penalise websites that are not designed to render well on a mobile or tablet device.

If a website is not designed for mobile Google will also display a warning in search results stating the fact. This will of course deter mobile users, and ultimately they won’t be shown the result at all.

That’s why all of the websites we build are mobile-friendly from the start.

Yes we do.

Most of our clients are gained through seeing our work or direct referrals.

If you refer a new customer who invests in a new website we will discount your next annual hosting bill by £100.