Custom website design and development
Templates look like templates. If your business competes on credibility — and most B2B and service businesses do — a site that visibly came from a theme marketplace works against you. That’s the case for custom website design and development rather than a themed build.
I’ve been designing and building sites since 2009. Brand-led design, hand-built development, and a technical foundation that means SEO doesn’t have to be retrofitted a year later.
What custom website design and development includes
- Discovery and strategy — who buys from you, what they need to see, and what the site has to achieve
- Brand-led visual design — designed for your business, not adapted from a demo
- Custom development — clean code, no plugin pile-up
- Mobile-first build — tested on real devices, not just a browser resize
- Performance — Core Web Vitals handled during the build, not patched afterwards
- SEO foundation — semantic markup, schema, clean URL structure, crawlable architecture
- Content support — you supply the knowledge, my content writer turns it into copy
- Training and handover — you can update your own content without calling me
How I build
Front end
HTML, CSS, JavaScript and TypeScript, with React where a site needs genuine interactivity rather than pages that merely move.
Back end
Node.js with Express for APIs and server logic. Python with FastAPI or Django where the project needs heavier data handling or faster backend services.
Design
Adobe tools, alongside whatever suits the project. I’m not attached to a particular tool — the design matters, not the software it came out of.
My process
- Discovery — business goals, audience, competitors, current performance.
- Structure — sitemap, page-by-page content plan, wireframes. Signed off before design starts.
- Design — key pages designed first, then the system extended across the site.
- Build — development, content population, cross-device testing.
- Launch — analytics, Search Console, redirects, performance check, then live.
- Aftercare — three months of full support included after launch.
How long it takes
A small site can be ready in a week. A large build runs four to six months. Most projects sit somewhere between, and the honest answer depends entirely on scope — which is why I’d rather look at your requirement than quote you a number from a page.
What it costs
I don’t publish a starting price, because a fixed entry figure is a hangover from when every site was more or less the same site. Two businesses asking for “a website” routinely need work that differs by a factor of ten.
What determines the price:
- Number of pages and templates, and how much of it is bespoke
- How much of the design is built from scratch versus extended from a system
- Functionality — forms, logins, bookings, calculators, integrations
- Whether content and images exist or need creating
- Whether you’re migrating from an existing site, and how much has to be preserved
- Timeline, if you need it compressed
Tell me what you’re trying to achieve and you’ll get a written quote against a fixed scope, so there are no surprises later. All international work is quoted and invoiced in USD.
Who this is for
Businesses replacing a site that’s holding them back — slow, dated, hard to update, or invisible in search. If you need a simple brochure site on a tight budget, a good template will serve you better and I’ll tell you so.
Recent website projects
Corporate limousine services across New York and Indianapolis. B2B signage manufacturing in Toronto. Vehicle restoration in Australia. Trade jewellery in the UK.
Questions I get asked
How long does a site take? Anywhere from one week to six months, depending on scope. You’ll get a real timeline with your quote, and I finish on the schedule we agree.
Do you work with clients in other timezones? Yes — most of my clients are in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia and Germany. I don’t keep fixed office hours; I schedule around each project.
Who writes the content? I take the information from you and my content writer turns it into copy. You know your business; writing it up shouldn’t be your job.
Who will actually build my site? I will. On larger projects I bring in specialist help, and you’ll always know who is doing what.
What happens after launch? Three months of full support is included. After that we can arrange ongoing maintenance if you want it.
Tell me what you're trying to grow.
I'll come back with an honest read on what's possible — whether or not it turns into a project.