Web Design & Development
starter websites for small businesses and startups
I’ve been involved in various capacities in launching Magento and Shopify website builds that have cost up to £100,000. I am know taking that knowledge and putting it into practice designing and creating websites for small businesses around the globe.
In addition to my expert consultancy services, I have the technical skills to produce a website on the likes of Shopify, WordPress or any of the online website builders such as Wix and make them as SEO friendly as possible to garner traffic. If you are on the lookout for your first business service website or ecommerce store, I will be able to offer you a site that will fulfil your needs.
I am based in the North East of England and can service clients in the Newcastle, Sunderland and Durham regions face-to-face. Other appointments can be made via video consultation.
Shopify
Shopify is one of the most popular CMS systems to build your online store. It offers a huge range of features and easy to use system. A range of preset templates can get you up and running to keep costs down.
WordPress
Over 800 million websites are powered by WordPress. A range of templates can be bought and customised at reasonable rates, whilst upgrading to Woocommerce allows to integrate shop functionality.
Online Website Builders
Although not as customisable as Shopify and WordPress, various online website builders are available at fairly reasonable rates. These may be advised for people with limited requirements.
HTML / CSS
Some sites will need a degree of HTML and CSS customisation. I have been self-taught in HTML and CSS for years and customised many sites and newsletters. Fully trained in responsive design.
Responsive Design
All of my work will feature a responsive design. No site should be built in 2024 without a responsive framework. This simply means that the site looks good on a host of devices and is a key ranking indicator for Google search rankings.
Core Web Vitals
Similar to responsive design, Google now uses Core Web Vitals as one of its key metrics to determine where to rank your site. Any site that I build or customise will be ran through tests before and after changes to see how it performs.
Pricing
Small Business Website Development
This is perfect for small serviced based businesses such as electricians, plumbers, lawyers etc. This set of options do not allow for ecommerce functionality. Each package can have additional add-ons depending on what you require from your website.
What I will do:
- Build Shopify / WordPress sites based on templates
- Build From online builders such as Wix, Squarespace, Weebly etc
- Customise with your own wording / imagery / layout
- Make changes that the theme allows including HTML / CSS tweaks
- Keep pricing very reasonable
- Be up front with the costs involved
What I will not do:
- Build custom theme from scratch
- Create custom functionality the theme doesn't allow
- Charge agency level fees
Frequently Asked Web Design & Development Questions
If you are considering a new website or online store, you probably have a lot of questions. You should do your due diligence before any investment of this kind but maybe some of your questions can be found here:
How to choose a url for my business?
You url is a very important part of representing your business online. Where possible you want to have your business name and / or keywords relating to what you do. You can check very easily on domain registration portals such as godaddy to see if your chosen domain is available or any that come close if it is not. If someone has already purchased your intended domain, you can sometimes reach out to them using the broker service at the likes of Godaddy but it can be very expensive.
How long will it take to build my website?
This really depends on what you want from the website. If it is a simple one page website to showcase your small business, it is obviously not going to take as long to develop as a Shopify store selling hundreds of products. Once we’ve discussed your wishlist, we can look at timescales.
Should I build my store on Magento?
Magento is a unbelievably powerful content management system. However I would only recommend a build on Magento if you can afford the ongoing cost. Licences alone for the platform usage are expensive, as are the ongoing support retainers you will need with an agency to keep your version up to date. I would argue that any startup business should be looking to develop on Shopify or Woocommerce initially (obviously circumstances dependant) and then scale up if your revenue goes over £10,000,000 a year.
Am I able to update my website myself?
Absolutely. I’m an advocate for everyone being able to update their website to some degree. You may not be able to fully redesign it but given the correct platform and instruction, you should be able to add enough to keep you going.
Can I meet you for a design session
I am building websites based in the North East area of England so areas like Newcastle, Sunderland, Washington and Durham are really easy to arrange design sessions. However we can always jump on a Zoom call if you’re from out of the region. It really isn’t a problem.