Web design and development in Baltimore

WordPress suits a team that publishes often and wants to edit much of the site itself. Its plugins offer a wide choice of features, though the site needs regular updates to stay secure. Before choosing it, decide who will be responsible for those updates and how often your team expects to publish.

A custom site built in Next.js suits a design without template limits, with fast pages and tight security. Your team needs to be comfortable asking a developer to make structural changes. A headless setup adds a separate content editor to a custom front end; it suits heavier editing needs but brings more parts to host and maintain.

A hosted builder such as Wix, Squarespace or Webflow can suit a small site you plan to run alone. You give up some control over code and speed, and moving away later can mean rebuilding. We recommend WordPress or Next.js after understanding how your team works, including who will make changes after launch.

For a business open to the public, US guidance says ADA Title III covers goods and services offered on the web and identifies WCAG as helpful guidance. We agree an accessibility target in your brief and use it to guide the page designs and build. We also set up a clear heading structure, page titles and descriptions, an XML sitemap and structured data as part of the search-ready work. Agree the target before design starts.

Decide who will gather and write the content: descriptions, biographies, case studies and photos often take longer to assemble than design takes to approve.

• Rank the services or products you want the navigation and home page to feature.
• Choose a goal, such as quote requests, and name the person who will handle those enquiries.
• Gather photographs of your team, premises and finished work; book a shoot ahead if needed.
• Collect case studies, permitted client logos, testimonials, certifications and memberships in a folder.
• Find the account details for your domain, hosting, email, analytics and Search Console, or identify who holds them.
• Bring examples of sites you like and dislike, with a short reason for each choice.

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  Copying every old page

  Keep the service pages clear and review which existing pages are still needed. A shorter site is easier to scan and maintain.

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  Reviewing only on a large screen

  Check every page on a phone before approving the design.

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  Putting accounts in an agency’s name

  Hold the domain and hosting accounts in your business’s name and grant access.

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  Leaving search setup until launch

  Check page titles, the sitemap and any development indexing block before the site goes live.