The fully bespoke, custom designed, Pay-As-You-Go Website

We often get asked this!  The simple answer? Experience.  We’ve been doing this for a very long time, allowing us to work at a greater speed than other less experienced developers. And, over a while, your monthly fees cover all the work we have front-loaded into your site. 

Of course, we take the time to analyse the businesses that come to us, making sure that they are as right for us as we are for them.  The best thing to do is get in contact to have a chat to see the best way forward.  We don't always think a business is right or ready for us and in that case, we'll be honest and help them find an alternative solution.  

Yes and no.  You can close the website any time, but if you do that before the first 24 months you need to pay the balance to cover those 24 months.  That’s what you agree to when you place and order and sign our Ts and Cs.  Of course, there is huge advantage in staying with us – after those 24 months, at any point you can get your website completely redesigned and built, without any extra costs over and above the monthly fee you already pay. 

We build all sorts of websites.  For those companies that prefer to work on the more traditional model of paying for their website up front and keeping ongoing costs to hosting only, we are happy to work that way too. 

Simply discuss this with John when you have a chat and we can create a payment package that works for you. 

Yes!  All sites we build are driven by CMS Made Simple, a robust content management system that powers you to change your pages, add news and blogs, maintain a team directory and do anything else you need to do.  You can run the day-to-day content of your site as you need, logging in through a simple admin system. 

As you’d expect, full training is included as part of the package, with ‘how to’ videos available directly from within admin.  And of course, John is always available on the phone to answer your ‘how do I do this’ queries, or even do them with you!

No – it’s all wrapped up in your monthly fee.

Not only that your hosting includes software updates to the system that drives your website when we deem it necessary, plus nightly backups.  So if you break something, accidentally delete something or have challenges with a hack, we will always be able to restore you to a previous pre-problem copy. 

We work on a simple policy - if creating an invoice takes longer than what you need - we don't!  So all those little things; picking up the phone for some off the cuff 'how to' help; making changes to pages, blogs and other content; even tweaking small content functions such as adding in an editable 'meet the team' will most likely be no extra.

If you need something more complex, we'll analyse the requirements and then let you know what that would cost.  You can decide whether you want to go ahead, and if needed we can talk about spreading those costs too.  Your website can grow with you as needed without breaking the bank.

Sure.  Even the most cutting-edge sites have a shelf life.  Anytime after 24 months you can get a complete new website, built from the ground up just like the first one, at no additional cost over your monthly payments.  When you do that it will 'restart the clock' on your minimum contract period.  There is no reason, if you have a rapidly evolving business that needs to rebrand and rebuild frequently that you couldn't have you site redone every two years. 

The website marketing blueprint:  John will discuss in detail with you your target audience, the ways you are looking to get them to the site, the products and services you are selling, which of your products and services are your ‘entry-level’ for new customers and much more.

Design:  Once the website marketing blueprint has been ironed out, John will go into action designing.  About two weeks after that you’ll be presented with your first visual.  We don’t do the classic ‘choose from three’ visuals trick as that tends to make a client think they have to make that limited choice rather than being able to give a full opinion.  We present one visual at a time and discuss it with you, making sure that when you are delighted it’s because you’ve really examined the design you are delighted with.

Build: From the point of design approval, coding takes between 2 and 4 weeks depending on complexity and custom functionality.  Your new site is built on a development address that you can see.  So you can review the site at every stage of the build. 

Content: Content is to a certain extent simultaneous with build.  If we have access to the content you are using, we’ll add it as we go.  Often, there’ll be a need for new content, identified during the website marketing blueprint stage.  We’ll work with you on that, either helping directly or advising you on some options with copywriters we trust.  And of course, as you have a content-managed website, you can go in and add/amend your content whenever you want.

Ah yes!  That old question.  Well, eventually, if you bring your idea to market, the market will tell you.  In the meantime we provide consultancy from the earliest stages of an idea, bringing a healthy dose of realism even if that’s in the initial free conversation with John.

We probably get between 5 and 8 individuals/companies approach us each year with their ideas.  We usually take on less than half of that as jobs.  Of course, that can be because they think we are not right for them.  However it is just as likely that we don’t think the concept is going to work, or we think that the project cost (both the stuff we can do and the other stuff that the concept would need) will ever be possible to recoup.  John would rather be honest in his opinion and advise for free than take on a job that his experience tells him will not ever make money.

That’s a bit like asking ‘What will a car cost me’.  The answer would of course be ‘What car are you buying?’ 

If we are the only people that you are getting a quote from we WILL tell you to get more quotes.  To get understandable ‘like-for-like’ quotes, you need to start with a fully formed website application specification.  That can be as simple as a comprehensive listing of all the things that your website needs to do, but without it, you are nowhere.

If you are at that stage, get in contact to discuss the project.  If you are not, consider getting in contact to discuss consultancy with John – taking your ideas and turning them into that specification document that you will need to start costing out your idea.

When you get to the development stage, we use a system called CMS Made Simple as the central ‘engine’ of your site.  It is the same system we use for all of our websites because it is scalable, modular and with a central ‘structure’ that lends itself to building website applications. 

We’ve been developing sites in CMSMS since 2008.  Not only do we develop in the system, but we are an active part of the Open Source Community that builds and maintains the software.  John is currently Chairman of the CMSMS Foundation based in Canada.

The best way to find out more about how we can build and get a demo of the system is to book a 121 with John using the links on this page.

We understand.  We have signed plenty of NDAs(non-disclosure agreements) in the past when a prospective client is concerned about keeping their fledgling plan under wraps.  We are happy to do so at no cost. 

Because every website application business is so utterly different, the best thing to do is book a 121 with John to discuss your idea.