Web design and development in Bristol

WordPress suits a team that publishes often and wants to edit most of the site itself. Its choice of plugins gives you options for extending the site, but someone needs to keep those plugins and the platform updated. Think about who will take responsibility for that work after launch.

A custom-coded site in Next.js suits a business that wants fast pages, tight security and a design without template limits. A developer will usually handle structural changes. A headless setup adds a separate content editor to a custom front end, which suits heavy editing, but gives you more parts to host and maintain.

The design choice is separate from the platform. A custom design fits a particular brand, audience or set of content; an adapted template suits a simple site with a tight brief, provided it is reworked around your real content. We recommend a platform after understanding how your team works.

If your business is a UK limited company, its website must show its registered number, registered office address, place of registration and limited company status. We set up space for those details in the site footer, using the information you provide.

Organisations providing services through a website must make reasonable adjustments for disabled people. Agree an accessibility target in the brief; WCAG sets out levels A, AA and AAA, and the W3C encourages use of its latest version. We use the agreed target to guide the page and form designs.

Bring what you already have and note anything still to be arranged.

• Your logo in SVG, AI or EPS format, plus brand colours and fonts.
• Real photos of your team, premises and finished work, or a plan to arrange them.
• Login details for your domain, hosting, email, analytics and Search Console, or the name of the person who holds them.
• Websites you like and dislike, with a brief reason for each choice.
• A folder of case studies, permitted client logos, testimonials, certifications and memberships.
• Your main goal, such as quote requests or job applications, and who handles each enquiry.

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  Leaving content until the end

  Use real headings and paragraphs in the designs, so their length is accounted for before layouts are approved.

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  Choosing a platform too early

  Decide who will update the site and how often before selecting the editing setup.

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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 to the people doing the work.

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  Leaving search setup until launch

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