I build and look after small websites for local businesses, charities and community organisations. One person who knows your site, answers when you write, and keeps it running year after year.
Same day, every day. Not an automated acknowledgement either, but a real answer from the person who would do the work.
I read everything the day it arrives, so you are never left wondering whether it got through. The three commitments above are the things people worry about when they hand their website to somebody else, so they go in writing before we start rather than being left to hope.
At a place this size the website is rarely anybody's actual job. It gets picked up by whoever has time, and then that person moves on. My whole approach is built around that.
People need to find you, see what you charge, know when you are open, and get you on the phone. Do those four things well and the site has earned its keep. I will sort your Google listing too, which for a local trade often matters more than the website does.
Volunteer run, tight budgets, and a committee that changes every few years. Your site has to survive that. Everything goes in the organisation's name, everything gets written down, and nothing depends on one person remembering a password.
Accessibility duties, data protection, forms carrying real patient details. This is the part I know best, because it is what I do in my day job rather than something I read up on for the quote.
Eastfield Medical Practice in Penicuik has 8,400 registered patients and five GP partners. When their website provider closed down, I rebuilt the whole thing, including the forms patients use to send the surgery their medical details.
That work has to meet NHS accessibility standards and UK data protection law, and it has to still be working on a Monday morning when half of Penicuik tries to use it at once. It is the same care I bring to a village hall booking page.
I live in Auchendinny and I manage a GP practice in Penicuik. Websites started as the part of that job I enjoyed most, and turned into something I now do for other local organisations too.
I keep the number of projects small so that each one gets proper attention, and so that I am still around to answer when you write in three years. If you ring me you get me, not an account manager. If something is outside what I do, I will say so and point you at somebody better placed.
Neil
The Wee Site, Auchendinny, Midlothian
hello@theweesite.co
You will always know what is happening and what I need from you next. Here is the whole thing, so there are no surprises in week three.
I ask what you do, who gets in touch, and what they ask when they do. Then I build one rough page with invented details on it, so you have something real in front of you. Nobody can answer "what do you want on a website". Everybody can tell you what is wrong with the one they are looking at.
Prices, opening hours, staff names, and fifteen or twenty photos taken on a phone. Pictures of your actual work beat stock images every time. This is the part that slows projects down, so I will keep gently chasing you until we have it.
You get a link. You send me a list of everything that is wrong. We go round that two or three times until you are happy. Nothing becomes public until you say the word.
The accounts were set up in your name at the start, so there is nothing to transfer and nothing to argue about later. You get the logins whether you want them or not, plus a short note saying where everything lives.
Changes whenever you need them, an annual look over the links, forms and accessibility, and a note from me before your domain is due so nothing quietly lapses. If you would rather take it in house at some point, that is fine, and everything is already set up for you to do exactly that.
Placeholder. Ask your first client for two sentences about what changed after the site went live, and put it here.
Name, role
Organisation
Placeholder. The useful quotes mention a number or a specific worry that went away, not how nice the site looks.
Name, role
Organisation
Placeholder. If you only have one real quote, delete the other two cards. One genuine line beats three invented ones.
Name, role
Organisation
One straightforward way to do this, with the build and ongoing care together. This is for a site of around five pages. Anything larger costs more, and you will have the figure in writing before I start.
For the first year, including the build. Then £295 a year for as long as you want me, cancelled whenever you like.
Worth knowing before you compare quotes. Hosting a site this size costs essentially nothing, and your domain is about £12 a year on your own card. Plenty of providers charge £30 a month for that and call it a package. What you are paying me for is my time and my attention, and only when you actually use them.
These are the things that go wrong when people hand their website to somebody else. So I make them commitments rather than hoping they never come up.
Your domain, hosting and email accounts are in your name with your card on them, from the first day. If you want to leave you take the files and go, and I will spend an evening helping you do it properly.
A reply the same day you write, five working days for any change you ask for, and the same evening if the site is actually down. I would rather promise something I can keep every single time than a two hour guarantee I cannot.
No system only I understand, no admin panel you are frightened of. Every site comes with written notes aimed at whoever comes after me. If I move away or get hit by a bus, you should be inconvenienced rather than stranded.
If what you want is a proper online shop, a large booking platform or something that needs a team behind it, I will say so at the first conversation and tell you who to speak to. A job I take on badly helps nobody.
Most small business websites are enormous. They crawl on mobile data, and a fair share of people give up before the page finishes loading. Mine are built the old fashioned way, which makes them very small and very quick.
Every figure above was measured in your own browser a moment ago rather than typed in by me. The last two are why you were not asked to accept cookies when you arrived. Nothing on this page is tracking you, so there is nothing to ask permission for, and your visitors would get the same.
A complete replacement for an NHS GP practice of 8,400 patients after their previous provider closed. Built to NHS accessibility standards, with patient forms encrypted in the browser before they are sent anywhere.
Replacing a fifteen page site with five well written ones, and putting hall bookings front and centre because that is where the Centre's income comes from.
A one page shopfront for a salon that currently lives entirely on Facebook. Prices, opening hours, stylists, and a phone number you can tap.
You do not need to know what you want yet. A sentence about what you do and what is frustrating you is plenty to get going.