Frequently asked questions

Here's a rough guide, so you have a sense of scale before we ever discuss your project:

• Brochure site (a handful of pages, no database) - from £500
• Small business site with a simple CMS - typically £1,200 to £3,000
• Bespoke web app (custom database, user accounts, admin panel) - from £3,000
• Ecommerce - varies with catalogue size and payment/shipping complexity, typically from £2,500

What actually drives the price is the number of pages, any custom functionality (bookings, logins, integrations with other systems), and how ready your content is before work starts.

The best approach is to be upfront with your web designer about your budget. They can then outline what is possible within it. Email me for a website chat.

SEO is Search Engine Optimisation, and is not one single thing. It is a digital marketing strategy that includes content, technical and off-site actions such as link-building, social media activity and press releases.

Done well, SEO helps your website reach page one of Google for the keywords you have identified, and helps you become an authority that provides real value to the people who find it.

I can review your current SEO strategy, carry out competitor analysis, and recommend and carry out actions to improve it.

Mobile-friendly, fast, easy to use, accessible, search engine optimised, with engaging and relevant content and on-brand design - these are the main attributes to prioritise.

More than half of website traffic now comes from mobile devices, so speed and a technically well-executed, mobile-friendly design matter. Ultimately, the goal is an attractive, guiding and responsive experience for users.

Most website browsing now happens on mobile devices, which are more constrained by bandwidth and processing power than a home computer. Google also indexes mobile-friendly websites first.

Speed influences user engagement, and user engagement influences Google - so if mobile users bounce back to Google after clicking your website, that is a negative signal.

Website speed can be improved by reducing the amount of data - video, images, codebase - needed to display the site. This includes compressing and resizing images, or choosing a better format. Some popular CMSs are large by default, so if your site isn't big, it's worth reconsidering that approach.

Email me for a speed report.

A couple of weeks is realistic to design, develop and launch a small site, provided the design is approved quickly and content is ready. For larger sites with bespoke systems, two to three months is a realistic timeframe.

Email me for a chat about your requirements.

WordPress is an amazing platform, used by millions of websites worldwide. But it has drawbacks: it's a large codebase that's constantly probed for vulnerabilities, so it needs to be kept patched and up to date, and that codebase means your site isn't as fast as it could be. Because it's used by millions, your site can also end up looking rather generic.

Whether WordPress is right for your website is always worth investigating, since a hand-coded alternative can give you something faster, more secure and genuinely unique.

Yours. I register domains on your behalf with Hover (Tucows), and you are the registered owner. I am listed as the admin, technical and billing contact, so I can handle renewals and settings for you.

Unless you tell me otherwise, I keep the domain renewed and bill you annually, typically £15 to £20 a year.

Yes. You own the site and all of its content.

It's up to you to buy, license or otherwise obtain the content that goes on it - copy, photos, illustrations and your logo - so that you have the right to use it.

You will have every login you need to manage the content on your site, plus any email accounts that come with it.

If you want to look at server information or traffic logs, just ask and I will give you the cPanel login too.

You can leave at any time. I will hand over the site files and any databases, and transfer the domain name to you on request.

You aren't locked in.

Yes, easily. Your site is built with open, semantic HTML, CSS, PHP and JavaScript - the most widely used stack on the web - with simple content management databases, all kept as straightforward as possible. Any competent developer can pick it up.

Hosting isn't required from me - your site will run on any suitable LAMP host (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP).

If I do provide the hosting, it costs from £80 a year. That package suits most brochure and small business websites. If your site outgrows it, for example a busy web app, I can move it to a larger package.

Hosting is with Krystal, a Certified B Corporation based in the United Kingdom. See krystal.io/creed for more information.

Around £100 a year: hosting from £80, plus £15 to £20 for the domain.

Changes, edits, updates and new content are billed at £50 an hour, with a minimum charge of 15 minutes.

Most of your visitors will arrive on a phone, often on a weak signal. I design for speed first, so the site loads quickly and works well on screens of every size.

A recent rebuild scored 90 for Performance, 94 for Accessibility and 100 for both Best Practices and SEO in Google Lighthouse - a big improvement on the site it replaced.

The hosting provider keeps the server infrastructure updated and running, and takes backups at least daily. I also keep offline copies of your live site code.

If I'm building a brand new website, I'll make sure your old site's most important pages - the ones Google has indexed and visitors land on most - have a home on the new one.

If I'm moving a WordPress, Wix or Squarespace site that doesn't need to change much, I'll keep all the same page URLs, so Google doesn't have to reindex anything.

Where an address does have to change, I set up permanent redirects from the old URL to the new one, so bookmarks and search results still work.