Websites built to be maintained, not just launched.

What “built to be maintained” actually means

Most agencies hand over a site and move on. We keep looking after the sites we build, which means we are the ones who live with every shortcut taken during the build. That changes the decisions.

• A standard theme and the block editor, not a proprietary page builder. Builders are quicker to sell and much harder to leave. Your content stays in WordPress in a form any other developer can pick up.
• As few plugins as the job needs. Every plugin is another thing that can break on update night, and another vendor who might stop maintaining it.
• Pages you can edit yourself. If changing a headline needs a developer, the site will be out of date within a year, whatever the maintenance arrangement says.
• Everything in your name. Domain, hosting, analytics. We take access, not ownership, so nothing has to be untangled if you leave.

We know the cost of getting this wrong because we paid it ourselves. This site ran on a page builder for years, and moving off it in 2026 meant rebuilding every page, because the content had been stored in the builder’s own format rather than in WordPress. That is the bill that arrives years after the launch nobody warned you about.

How a build runs, and how long it takes

A standard small business site, around five to seven pages on a well-supported theme, takes two to three weeks from first conversation to launch. The same five stages run on every build.

1. Discovery. We work out what the site has to do, who it is for, and what is already working. This is where the page list gets agreed.
2. Design. You see the layout and the look before anything is built, so changes happen while they are still cheap.
3. Build. The site gets built on a staging copy nobody else can see, using a theme and blocks you can edit yourself afterwards.
4. Testing. Every page checked on phones, tablets and desktops, across browsers, with forms actually submitted rather than assumed to work.
5. Launch. We move it across, watch it, and stay on it. Sites we build can go straight onto a care plan.

The honest caveat: two to three weeks assumes your content arrives. Waiting on text, photos and logins is what stretches a two-week build into a two-month one, and it is the one part of the schedule we can’t do for you. If writing the content is the blocker, say so early and we will quote it as part of the job.

What comes as standard

These are not upsells. A site that misses any of them is not finished.

• Works on a phone. Most small business traffic arrives on one. Layouts are checked at real screen sizes, not scaled down in a browser window.
• Loads quickly. Images compressed and sized properly, and a hosting setup that isn’t the bottleneck. Our post on hosting and SEO covers why that pairing matters.
• Readable and navigable. Real headings in order, keyboard-reachable navigation, and text and buttons checked for contrast rather than assumed to pass.
• Findable. Titles, descriptions and structured data set per page, and a sitemap that reflects what is actually there. The wider work is search engine optimisation, but the build shouldn’t start you in a hole.
• Legal pages that stay current. Privacy policy, terms and disclaimer, kept updated automatically rather than written once and forgotten.

What we don’t do

Saying this early saves everyone a wasted call.

• Large custom applications. Booking engines, membership systems and bespoke integrations are a different kind of project. If that is what you need, you want a development shop rather than us.
• eCommerce as an afterthought. Online stores are quoted separately, because the ongoing work is genuinely different from a brochure site.
• Redesigns for the sake of it. Sometimes the honest answer is that your site is fine and the problem is somewhere else, and we would rather say that than sell you a rebuild.

Rebuilds and rescues

A fair share of the work isn’t a fresh build. It is a site that was fine three years ago and has since collected a dead plugin, a theme nobody supports, and a login only the previous developer had.

That work starts with an inventory rather than a design: what is installed, what still updates, what breaks if it is removed, and what is actually earning its place. Sometimes the answer is a rebuild. Often it is a smaller job than the owner feared, and worth finding out before committing to a redesign.

If you would rather see the technical problems first, the free website audit is the place to start.

After launch

Every site we build can move onto a care plan, which covers hosting, updates, backups, security scans and edits, with a reply inside four business hours. Sites we did not build are welcome too, after a check that they meet our standards.

New clients taking a care plan for twelve months get a new seven-page site included. The terms are on the home page and there is no catch worth hiding in a footnote.

Common questions

Do I own the site when it is finished?

Yes, completely. The domain, the hosting account and the site itself are in your name, and the build uses a standard theme and the WordPress block editor so another developer can take it over without a rewrite.

Can I update the site myself afterwards?

That is the intention. Text, images and new pages are editable without touching code. If you would rather not, edits are included in every care plan and you send them by email.

What happens to my search rankings during a rebuild?

They are protected by keeping the URLs that already rank, redirecting anything that has to change, and moving the content across rather than starting from scratch. Expect some movement in the weeks after launch. Expect a permanent drop only if the redirects were skipped, which is the most common way a rebuild goes wrong.

Tell us what you need building and we will tell you what it takes.