Web design company in Virginia

WordPress suits a team that publishes often and wants to edit most of the site itself. Its choice of plugins gives you flexibility, although someone needs to keep those plugins and the platform updated for security. A custom design fits when your brand, content or audience needs something specific; an adapted template suits a simpler site with a tight brief, provided it is reworked around your real content.

A hosted builder such as Wix, Squarespace or Webflow suits a small site you want to run alone. You give up some control over code and speed, and moving away later can mean a rebuild. A headless setup gives you a custom front end and a separate content editor, useful for heavy editing and speed, with more parts to host and maintain. We recommend WordPress or a custom Next.js site after learning how your team works.

For a business open to the public, US guidance says the ADA covers goods and services offered on the web and identifies WCAG as helpful guidance. We agree an accessibility target in your brief before page design begins, using the latest WCAG version as guidance for that target.

For a state or local government website, the target in the brief needs to account for the ADA Title II requirement of WCAG 2.1 Level AA. We set up the sitemap, wireframes and desktop and mobile page designs around that target for your review.

A few decisions and files give us a useful starting point for your existing brand and content.

• Rank the services or products you want the home page and navigation to feature.
• Gather your logo in SVG, AI or EPS format, plus your brand colours and fonts.
• Share sites you like and dislike, with a line explaining what works or frustrates you.
• Find the account details for your domain, hosting, email, analytics and Search Console, or identify who holds them.
• Collect real photos of your team, premises and finished work; book a photo shoot ahead if needed.
• Put case studies, permitted client logos, testimonials and certifications in a shared folder.

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  Registering accounts in an agency's name

  Hold your domain and hosting accounts in your business name and grant access to the people doing the work.

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  Reviewing only on a large screen

  Check every page on a phone before approving the design, including the path to contact you.

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  Copying the old site's entire page list

  Choose clear service pages your visitors can scan and your team can keep current.

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  Leaving search checks until launch

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