Web design and development in Western Australia

WordPress suits a team that publishes often and wants to edit most of the site itself. Its plugins offer a wide choice of features, but someone needs to keep WordPress and those plugins updated for security. Think about who will take responsibility for those updates alongside your regular content work.

A custom-coded site, such as one built with Next.js, suits a business that wants fast pages, tight security and a design without template limits. You will usually need a developer for structural changes. A headless setup adds a separate content editor to a custom front end, which suits heavier editing, although there are more parts to host and maintain.

A hosted builder such as Wix, Squarespace or Webflow suits a small site you want to run yourself. You give up some control over code and speed, and moving away later can mean rebuilding. We recommend an option after understanding how your team works and how much editing you expect to do.

Australian guidance recommends WCAG 2.2 at a minimum of Level AA for digital goods and services. We agree an accessibility target in your brief and set up the sitemap, wireframes and desktop and mobile page designs with that target in view. You can review the designs and give feedback before the build starts. Putting the target in the brief gives everyone working on the site a shared basis for those decisions.

Gather these details before the conversation so we can discuss the work your site needs.

• Your main goal, such as quote requests or calls, and who handles each enquiry.
• The services or products to feature, ranked by importance.
• Account access for your domain, hosting, email and search tools, or the name of whoever holds it.
• Sites you like and dislike, with a short reason for each choice.
• Case studies, permitted client logos, testimonials and certifications in a shared folder.
• Photos of your team, premises and finished work, or a plan to arrange them.

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  Copying every old page

  Start with the service pages visitors need. A shorter site is easier to scan and keep current.

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  Letting an agency own your accounts

  Hold the domain and hosting accounts in your business name and grant access to the people working on them.

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  Leaving copy until the end

  Use real headings and paragraphs during design so the layouts accommodate your actual content.

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  Leaving search setup until launch

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