buildsbyleo

Website design

A website built round how you actually work.

Not a template with your logo dropped into it. A site designed for what you sell, who buys it and how they find you — by the one person you deal with from start to finish.

Zero depositNo credit cardNo sales calls

Most small business websites are one of two things: a template someone filled in over a weekend, or a site an agency built four years ago that nobody has opened since. To a customer deciding whether to trust you, both look the same — dated, generic, and slow enough on a phone that they go back and tap the next result.

Yours should look like the business you actually run.

So I start from your business rather than a theme. The words are yours, the photographs are yours, and the order things appear in is decided by what a customer needs to see before they feel ready to get in touch. You see it before you pay anything: answer a few questions and a real sample design lands within 48 hours. If it isn’t right, that’s the end of it.

What you get

What’s included

  • A design made for your business, not a stock theme with your colours swapped in
  • Built for a phone first, because that is where nearly everyone will see it
  • Fast enough that nobody gives up while it loads
  • Set up so search engines can read it — page titles, headings, structured data, a sitemap
  • A contact form that reaches you, and a phone number that dials when it is tapped
  • Your photographs prepared and compressed properly, so the page stays quick
  • Domain, hosting and the security certificate sorted, so there is nothing for you to configure
  • Usable with a keyboard and a screen reader, which is the law and also just better

How it works

Four steps, and one of them is yours.

  1. You answer a few questions

    Nine of them, about five minutes, on your phone. What you do, who you sell to, the colours and feel you want. That is the brief I design from — there is no call to book.

  2. I design a sample

    Within 48 hours you get a real page, built round your answers, with your business on it. Not a wireframe and not a stock mockup.

  3. We change what needs changing

    Tell me what is wrong and I change it. This is the part agencies charge for by the round; I would rather it were right.

  4. It goes live on your domain

    I handle the domain, the hosting and the certificate. You get the logins, and the site is yours.

How long it takes

The sample lands within 48 hours. A finished site is usually one to two weeks from the point we agree the design, and what decides it is almost never me — it’s how quickly your photographs and service details come back. If you have them ready, it’s quick. If you don’t, I’ll tell you exactly what I need rather than leave you guessing.

What I need from you

Less than you’d think. A rough idea of the services you want on there, photographs of your own work, and your logo if you have one. What I don’t need is a document describing what you want it to look like — that’s my job, and the sample exists so you can react to something real instead of describing it in advance.

Who owns it, and what happens next

You do. The domain is registered in your name and goes with you if you ever work with someone else. There’s no arrangement here where leaving means starting again, because that’s a way of keeping clients who’d rather not be kept.

A site isn’t finished the day it launches — prices change, you add a service, last summer’s photographs stop representing the work you do now. Small changes like those are part of the first year: you email me and they happen, with no ticket system and no minimum charge.

FAQ

Questions people ask before they get in touch

How much does a small business website cost?

It is quoted per job, because a one-page site for a sole trader and an online shop with a hundred products are genuinely different pieces of work. You see the sample design first and there is no cost or obligation attached to that, so you are looking at a real design before there is a price to discuss.

How long does it take to build a website?

The free sample design arrives within 48 hours of you sending the brief. A finished site is usually one to two weeks from the point we agree the design. The main thing that decides it is how quickly your photographs and service details come back to me.

Do I need to write the content myself?

No. I write it from your brief and from anything you already have — an existing site, a Facebook page, a leaflet. You read it and correct anything I have got wrong about your business, which is faster for you than starting with a blank page.

Will my website work on a phone?

It is designed on a phone screen first and then scaled up, rather than designed on a desktop and squashed. Most people who find you will be on a phone, so that is the version that has to be right.

Do I own the website and the domain?

Yes. The domain is registered in your name and the site is yours. If you ever want to move to someone else, everything goes with you and there is nothing to unpick.

Can you update the site after it launches?

Yes, and small changes are included in the first year. Email me a new price or a new photograph and it goes on. There is no ticket system and no minimum charge for a ten-minute change.

What if I already have a website?

That is usually easier, not harder, because there is existing content to work from and I can see what is currently costing you enquiries. Your existing address keeps working and nothing goes offline while the new site is built.

Get started

See yours before you pay for it.

Answer a few quick questions and I will design a real sample of your website within 48 hours. No deposit, no card, no call.