A business website you own outright.

Because that is where your customers are. When a tap leaks, people search Google for a plumber. When someone plans a renovation, they type in the service and their city. If your business does not show up at that moment, the customer calls the one that did.

Picture two similar companies. One has a website Google shows for those searches. The other has none. The first takes calls from people who went looking for it. The second pays for flyers. A company website is the cheapest salesperson you will ever hire: it works nights, works holidays and takes no commission.

How does showing up on Google work? It is called SEO, and we explain it in plain language on our blog. In short, the site has to be built around what people actually search for, from the page structure down to the headings.

A business card says you exist. A working business website makes you findable. That is the difference between "looks nice" and "the phone rings".

A one-page brochure site has a logo, two sentences and a phone number. Google has nothing to show from it, so it shows nothing. A site that works for the business has a separate page for each thing customers search for, service descriptions written in their language, and answers to the questions they would ask you on the phone anyway.

To be honest, not every business needs the second kind. If customers find you through your Google Maps listing or referrals, and the site just needs to hold your opening hours, tell us that. We will build something simpler and cheaper. We do not sell big websites to companies a small one would serve.

One simple rule: the website is yours. We design and build it, then host and look after it for a monthly fee. Ownership stays with you.

Much of the market works the other way. You pay monthly, and when you stop paying, the site disappears, because in practice you were renting it. With us, if you ever cancel hosting, you receive the complete website. The domain and SSL certificate stay with us, because they are part of the hosting service. The site itself, the design and the content are yours.

Most clients order both services: the build and the care. That way the same team that built the site keeps it running, and you run the business.

Whatever the industry, a business website should clear a few bars:

• Fast loading. Nobody waits for a slow site, and Google measures site speed as part of how it evaluates pages.
• Works on a phone. Most customers search from one.
• A separate page per service. That way Google has something to show when someone searches for that specific thing.
• Copy in the customer's language. No industry jargon.
• Obvious contact. Form, phone, address. A customer who has to hunt for your number is already a competitor's customer.
• Connected to a Google Business Profile. That puts the company on Maps as well.

That is not a wish list. It is the minimum we start every project from.

The price depends on two things: how much work the site needs, and how much it can earn for your business. That is why anyone quoting a single price before talking to you is guessing. Page count, copy, features and industry all move the number. One thing is fixed, though: from an agreed plan to a running website takes at most 7 days.

We do not publish a price list, but we make no secret of what drives the price of a website. We have written it up separately. Tell us about your business through the form below and we will send back a free audit and a concrete plan within 48 hours. No strings attached. At worst, you will know where you stand.