Website Design & Hosting
In our website design we pride ourselves on coming
up with a look that reflects the character of the
featured business or individual. Our friendly personal
approach should appeal to anyone daunted by the
technicalities, and a small but expert team means
we can offer very competitive rates.
Our websites are based on templates, but if
you find something totally different on the web
that you would like to emulate we
will be happy to discuss it and quote a price.
If you require a website that is frequently updated then we recommend WordPress, which started as a blogging tool but is now a well respected Content Management System (CMS) with a vast range of free and commercial designs ('themes') and plug-ins.
If you prefer, we can build a custom CMS with 'in-page editing', where you can edit text on the same page rather than the Wordpress editor.
Responsive Web Design (RWD) - webpage layout that adjusts automatically for any screen width from desktop to mobile phone - is an option we can add for an additional cost.
Whatever your needs we can guarantee you a visually impressive site with perfectly formatted text.
For an e-commerce website please check this page.
 |
|
| Website
Type |
Price |
| Existing Site Upgrade – anything from a simple improvement of layout and images to a full redesign. |
from £100
(ask for a quote) |
| Basic WordPress site – add as many pages as you want with this popular CMS, up to a limit of 1 GB, and a unique domain name.
Choose from over 11,000 free designs, then add functionality with plug-ins. When we're finished you can customise it with your own text, images, video and audio. |
from £200
|
| Custom WordPress site – we create a customised design to your specifications, including the first 5 pages, 30 images, 1,000 words text, and optional video splashscreen, then you add as many pages as you like. You can also add functionality with plug-ins.
A unique domain name is included, and you can specify exactly how your site should look rather than using a template. |
from £250
|
| E-commerce – let us build your webstore with LiteCart, a fast and efficient CMS based on standard MySQL, PHP, HTML 5, CSS 3, and jquery.
The default design is responsive, automatically reconfiguring for laptop, tablet or mobile screens, and we can customise it to your taste. Check the e-commerce page for details of features and payment Add-ons. |
from £350
|
Every
package gives you...
- Professional webdesign
- Domain name registration and 1 year webhosting included
- Submission to search engines included
- No unnecessary costs - you choose features you
want to pay for
- We use (& improve) your digital camera images
- no photography costs *
- Sites tested in all popular browsers on Windows & Mac
systems
- Friendly service - we won't blind you with technology
- Permanent technical support via phone and email for the lifetime of
your site
* only applies to Custom WordPress site, for all WordPress sites you get built-in image resizing that allows you to upload your own photo's and crop them if desired.
To
see what we are offering please check the websites
of some satisfied customers...
lizsutherland.co.uk is
a Custom Wordpress site created for painter Liz Sutherland, with a click slideshow which allows easy
viewing of all artworks in a category.
LauraHopkins.co.uk is
a Custom Wordpress site created for stage set and costume designer Laura Hopkins, with some extras
– a customised homepage menu, customised image galleries, and animated buttons.
Reasons we like WordPress as a CMS…
- It's free!*
- Some stats from Wikipedia: WordPress was used by 43.1% of the top 10 million websites as of December 2023 and is one of the most popular content management system (CMS) solutions.
- It's user friendly! The elegant interface is easy to use, allowing you to type or paste text, upload and insert pictures, video and audio, and add HTML if you're skilled enough. To this feature set we've added our plug-ins and there are thousands of others available.
- It's ideal for individual users or organisations – you can delegate certain pages to individuals, so they can edit just those pages, and as a site administrator you can review their work.
- It's constantly being improved by an active community, keeping up with general web developments.
- It's secure – like any web software, WordPress has had its share of security vulnerabilities since its release in 2003 but has come a long way since then, and there have been no significant issues since 2015.
* WordPress is distributed under GNU Public License (see details here). As a user you don't have to worry about this, it's aimed at developers like us – if we wanted to install a version of WordPress that we had modified then we would have to make all source code available under the same license. In fact we never do this, the design and functionality of sites can be changed without modifying the core WordPress code. Logos, images, text and other unique assets that you add to your website are of course covered by your own copyright.
The following applies to standard brochure websites, other packages are based on WordPress templates and you can upload, paste or type your content as desired. If you require a WordPress site with unusual features we would implement a similar procedure to this schedule.
Prior to work we will register your domain, then at an initial consultation we will discuss the
navigation, general design and layout of webpages.
Normally we will communicate with you by phone, email, or video conference if desired, and face-to-face meetings are not part of standard customer service.
At this stage we would expect you to have typical examples of your content ready as either digital photo's or text documents. Files can be transferred to us by email, WeTransfer or Dropbox.
We will agree a schedule for the work, consisting
of (1) the Graphic Design Completion Date,
(2) the Website Design Start Date,
(3) the Website Check Date, and
(4) the Final Completion Date.
Graphic Design (1) involves choosing
suitable colours and, crucially, the design of
the banner image and text, seen at the top of each
webpage and greatly influencing the character of
your site, so we take care to get this right and
submit our design for your approval before we start
any other work.
We require all necessary files from you by (2)
the Website Design Start Date,
so any additional files you don't have ready at
the first meeting should be sent to us via email, WeTransfer
or Dropbox, for which we can give instructions
if you are unfamiliar with the process.
Photographs you supply don't have to be perfect
- we can correct for perspective distortion or slight blur,
crop out backgrounds and adjust exposure. We can accept text in most
common formats - Microsoft Word, Adobe InDesign,
Excel tables, or simple Wordpad, Notepad or TextEdit
files.
According to the site option you choose and total
size of files, (3) the Website Check Date will
be between 4 and 14 working days after the agreed start
date. On this day your website will be ready for
checking - we ask you to look it over online and
tell us of any changes you require, and (4) the Final
Completion Date will usually be not more than 7 working days
later, unless design requirements have significantly changed.
