WordPress Websites

For your Small Business

There are so many web developers out there...

How do you pick one?

Find your partner-in-crime

WordPress Developer

When it comes to selecting the best person to create your business website, it’s tough deciding who will be the best fit for you and your company.  You’ll get a good feel for who you can work with after an initial conversation so take time to speak to prospective developers.  

A snazzy website and a cheap quote may entice you but how do you relay your thoughts, ideas and personality to a complete stranger to build a website in line with your brand and business needs?

Finding someone with deep business knowledge combined with website design and development skills will bring value and a positive impact to your business. By understanding your business, I can help you to make content placement and design decisions and deliver a website that will meet the business outcomes you desire – including more sales, more enquiries and happier customers.

My personal aim is to offer you an end-to-end service in the design and delivery of a stylish and functional website, and I can do as little or as much as you need to ensure your online visitors get the best experience with every visit.

If you have a particular budget, let’s talk and see what we can achieve.

partner with your website developer

6 Things to know about owning a website

It’s important to understand what it takes to own a website in order for it to work for you and to deliver the outcomes your business requires.  As well as giving your customers a great experience and showcasing your brand, your website firstly needs to be found. It also needs to be kept secure and up to date and you should understand your total cost of ownership each year.

make sure your website is seen

Building a beautiful website is pointless if people can’t find it!  You need to include all the basics for good SEO (search engine optimisation) right from the start.

  • on-page SEO is the backbone of enabling search engines to read and understand your site – we do this as standard
  • build internal links throughout the site to build credibility and visibility with search engines
  • sitemaps need to be created and submitted to top search engines
  • get advice on off-page SEO – linking to relevant directories, forums and groups
  • set up new Google Analytics and Google Search Console Accounts to understand customer behaviour and monitor site goals.

find someone that 'gets' you (and your business)

Wouldn’t it be great to find someone with a technical background, decades of business and sales experience and amazing customer service?

“Hey – over here!”

  • I’ll ask the right questions. I’ll test your requirements to make sure you understand the implications of your ideas and decisions so that you gain a robust website that delivers what you need
  • I have broad industry and business experience to be able to add considerable value to your site and your business.

make sure your website is kept secure

At any time, anywhere in the world, over 100,000 sites are hacked per minute. Security is really important and should be taken very seriously.  Every Beknowin website includes

  • SSL certificates for visitor safety and confidence
  • security tools to lock out persistent attempts to access your website for malicious purposes
  • regular backups to multiple locations

And with a maintenance plan in place, you benefit from

  • uptime monitoring to ensure the site is up and running as expected
  • timely core WordPress, theme and plugin updates, to ensure continued functionality, security and compatibility.

deliver a great online customer experience

Would it surprise you to know that over 50% of website traffic comes from mobile devices and smartphones? These days we need to ensure websites perform well on multiple devices.

  • fully responsive design for desktop > laptop > tablet and phone
  • maximise page load speeds and performance to avoid visitors giving up straight away on a website with poor loading speeds and clunky interaction
  • images and videos compressed and right-sized to reduce load times
  • designed to enhance your customer’s journey through the site, so they meet their objectives easily.

show-off your brand with a professional website

Your brand is everything and even if you don’t have a specific brand now, your website should still reflect your business and values in a consistent way.

  • an initial questionnaire gets you thinking about aspects of your website you may not have even considered so we can agree on a design which looks great and ‘fits’ well
  • we capture the basics of fonts and colours right through to aspirations and end goals
  • ‘wants’ don’t always deliver the optimum website so I will advise and guide you on what will and won’t work well
  • many customers approach me for a new website without a clue about what they want.  If that’s you – don’t worry! Most of my customers just leave me to it and each one has been delighted with the results.

own your website outright, for a fair price, with no surprises

The total cost of ownership for a website can be confusing and misleading.  You don’t want to be flushing money down the drain with growing costs and price increases. Sometimes the low-cost monthly spend is very appealing but if you do the maths you could be paying over the odds and NEVER own your website. Look for 

  • an upfront Statement of Work and quote for your new website, outlining everything included in the price and outlining some of the things not included, for full transparency
  • everything you need included in the first year
  • a month’s free maintenance while your site beds in (then decide if you want or need a maintenance plan in place)
  • absolutely EVERYTHING relating to your website owned by yourself, with full access and control
  • all third-party tools, hosting, domains and other accounts created in your name for you to own and manage.

Here's what you get, in a nutshell...

Design

Design

You can provide as much or as little information on design as you like. If you have brand fonts, logos, colours or typography I will incorporate these for you.

I can use your content or create content for you. I will provide a prototype for you to review, provide feedback and make any changes you need.

 

Build

Build

We design, adapt and build as we go. The magic takes place in the background, with regular updates to a test area for you to see how things are progressing. Your site will be built to a good technical structure for on-page SEO optimisation.

You can choose to use your own content and images to ensure your website hits the mark with messaging or let me decide for you.

Host

Host

I will host your website on a cloud based hosting service at a great price with excellent support.

Beknowin will upload your site and take care of your hosting needs including back-ups, SSL certificates and domain transfers. I can even help you to set up professional email accounts on your domain.

Maintain

Maintain

One months maintenance is included as standard.
I take care of content uploads, plugin and core WordPress upgrades, back-ups, renewal of SSL and technical liaison with the hosting provider's support team. 

I also set up on-page SEO. You have full access to, and ownership of your site and hosting account. 

good to know

Frequently Asked Questions

There are many variables involved with creating and building a website.

Some website developers and many DIY platforms offer a monthly price plan to ease your spend (and lure you in) BUT this works out more expensive the longer you keep your website AND it often ties you to that person or company, limiting your future options.

For this reason, Beknowin offers a one-off fixed price for your website’s design, build and hosting.

Let’s compare a monthly plan vs a one-off upfront fixed payment.

Example 1: DIY or monthly billed website plan

For a DIY website or starter plan with an agency:

Let’s assume, £25 per month – they or you design it, build it and host it.

At £300 per year, the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is

Year 1: £300 (£25 p/m)

Year 2: £600 (£25 p/m)

Year 3: £900 (£25 p/m)

Year 4: £1200 (£25 p/m)

Year 5: £1500 (£25 p/m)

Year 6: £1800 (£25 p/m)

This doesn’t include technical updates, site changes or maintenance, inflationary price increases, VAT or extras like domain renewal.

It probably includes hosting & technical support.

With this type of plan, the annual cost of your website costs you MORE the longer you keep it!

In reality, monthly costs will also increase annually and pricing plans tend to get upgraded as hosting and website plans are outgrown. You should also plan for buying additional functionality as your business grows and expands, making these figures very conservative.

Example 2: Upfront costs for a one-off, fixed-price website (from Beknowin)

For a fixed-price website, say costs start at:

£750 fixed price – for consultancy, design, build, hosting, domain name and business support.

Most importantly a full consultation ensures your website will be developed to meet the exact requirements for your business.

This is equivalent to the following total cost of ownership:

Year 1: £750 (£62.50 p/m)

Year 2: £750 (£31.25 p/m)

Year 3: £750 (£20.83 p/m)

Year 4: £750 (£15.62 p/m)

Year 5: £750 (£12.50 p/m)

Year 6: £750 (£10.41 p/m)

This doesn’t include annual hosting and domain renewal (approx £95 per year inc VAT).

In this example, you’ve saved money over the monthly payment route in 2.5 years and much sooner once extras start to add up, and you’ve included VAT on your DIY prices. 

You should also consider the

  • business advice and technical support you receive
  • cost of ongoing maintenance (should you decide not to do that yourself)
  • ease of working with your provider 

Most importantly, whatever the cost, does your website deliver in the way you need it to and give you a good return on the investment you make?

Website costs vary depending on many factors. Prices start from £699 and include

  • Qualification and requirements gathering
  • Design
  • Build
  • Hosting
  • Business mentoring

to get you the website that’s right for your business.

You will receive a full statement of work and by the end of the project have a fully functioning, SEO-optimised and structured website, with EVERYTHING you need to go live.

Beknowin focuses on the bigger picture.

My aim is to ensure you understand what a website can do for your business and how best to maximise its effectiveness.   We’ll get into the nitty gritty and I may even talk you out of getting a website right now if we come to the conclusion that your business isn’t quite ready.

This is important. If the building blocks aren’t in place just yet, your website may just add to the confusion and become a costly first attempt at marketing your business.

So what qualifies me as your go-to website developer and business mentor?

I firmly believe that your success is my success.

Aside from my web creation excellence, I have had > 20 years in the corporate world as a senior salesperson, manager and director.  These roles have been in technical environments including project management, data centre & hosting, technical learning and development and consultancy.  The industries I’ve operated in have been wide and varied, from travel to national security – retail to transport – FMCG to IT and everything in between.

My passion lies in helping smaller companies to be the best they can be. I’m a great mentor, business sounding board and ally – I’ll go the extra mile for you because it’s the right thing to do.

I believe that what I can offer is unique. A well-rounded and highly valuable package of technical know-how and business support & guidance  – ensuring you take the right approach to creating AND owning your own website.

Find me on LinkedIn for the full story, or read more about Beknowin here.

Here’s an overview of the steps involved in creating your new website.

Don’t worry, it’s all very simple but I will challenge your requirements to make sure you benefit from more than just a pretty website!

1. Initial Consultation
The process begins with an initial call to discuss your goals, objectives, and requirements. This is where I get to understand your vision for the website and get a feel for how you want it to take shape and be used by visitors.

2. Requirements Gathering
Following our consultation we need to confirm detailed requirements. I will pre-populate a questionnaire with my understanding of your requirements and ask you to confirm or fill in the gaps. This includes information on the website’s purpose, target audience, features, design preferences, and any specific functionality needed. This forms the basis of the project statement of work (SOW).

3. Statement of Work
This document outlines the scope of work, timescales and costs – typically a fixed-price contract. It also outlines any optional extras or day rates for future reference. It states our terms of engagement and if accepted is signed by both of us to form our agreement.

4. WordPress build
The core WordPress CMS is installed and configured with the relevant plugins, for functionality, design, security and optimisation. New accounts are created in your name for the effective management of the website.

5. Design & Development Phase
Your content is provided to me – including text, images, links etc. The design and website build-out starts to take place, with a first draft of the home page created for your review and feedback. The website is optimised for device responsiveness on mobile, tablet and laptop. Housekeeping tasks are completed, including set up of caching, back-ups, performance, security and email set-up.

6. Testing and Quality Assurance
The website is tested for functionality, performance and responsiveness. Any issues or bugs are addressed and fixed.

7. Client Review and Approval
The website is handed over for final review, and any final adjustments are made based on feedback. If not already on the new hosting site, the website is transferred across to the new hosting provider. This usually happens prior to this stage but at the very latest, by this stage.

8. Handover
All logins and customer account details are handed over, following the final payment. You have full access to, and ownership of, your website.

9. Post-Launch Support
One month’s support is included following the handover to answer any questions or make any small changes during the ‘bedding in’ phase.

10. Maintenance (optional)
You may want to opt for an annual maintenance package to ensure the timely upkeep of your website including security updates, plugin updates, and technical assistance.

You have complete ownership of your website, from domain name, hosting account and website content to any supporting accounts such as Google Analytics and Gmail.

Once your website is complete, you are free to move it anywhere you want to and you have full administrative access to the site.

All login details are provided to you which means that you are not locked in, you have full control of what you want to do with your website. 

This is important to know as there are horror stories of customers paying lots of money for a website but not realising that when they want to move away from spiralling hosting costs, the developer wants to charge more money to release the site, or worse still refuses to give them access. You should also check who the domain name is registered to as this is the key to all the hard-earned SEO kudos which will be associated with that URL. If you lose access to your domain, you lose the SEO too, even with a copy of the website. 

DIY platforms largely ‘rent’ you the space on their proprietary platform, in simple terms. You can’t for example move a Wix website to another provider as the functionality is specific to the Wix platform. A WordPress website however can be moved away to a new hosting provider as a standalone website and this gives you more options for development and faster or more cost-effective hosting.

It doesn’t help that some deals are almost too good to be true. Some developers will offer a free website in order to ‘build their portfolio’. The truth is they’ve been building the portfolio for years and the ‘additional costs’ kick in once you’ve committed.  After all, no one really works for free!

If you don’t use Beknowin for your next website, please make sure you understand the total cost of ownership, as well as any other ‘unavoidable’ extra costs over the next 12-24 months.

Remember, cheap lures you in but it’s not always the most cost-effective option in the long run, and ultimately you must ensure it delivers what you need your website to deliver for your business.

I don’t offer ‘cheap’, but I do insist on offering the best value, which is why I also provide business and technical advice & guidance so that you gain maximum benefit from our engagement – with a website that helps your business to grow.

If you are truly interested in discussing a website project with me but need a payment option to enable that to happen, let’s have a chat. I will always do my best to help where I can, and no problem is insurmountable.

Once your website is paid for you have nothing further to pay Beknowin.

At this point, the website is in your ownership and management. You will only have annual hosting and domain renewals to pay to your chosen providers. 

Typical annual hosting costs are £69.99 and domain renewals costs are £6.99 (both +VAT).

You should consider whether you require a WordPress maintenance plan going forward.

Over time, neglecting the update of any website can result in poor performance, security, and user experience. Here are some key reasons why WordPress maintenance is important:
 
1. Security
Regular maintenance helps protect your website from security threats. Updates to WordPress core, themes, and plugins often include security patches that address vulnerabilities. Failing to update can leave your website susceptible to security breaches.
 
2. Performance
As your website grows and evolves, it can accumulate outdated or unnecessary code, database entries, and other elements that can slow down your site. Regular maintenance includes optimizing and cleaning up your database, ensuring faster loading times and a better user experience.
 
3. Compatibility
WordPress frequently releases updates to its core software, and plugin and theme developers do the same. Failing to update these components can lead to compatibility issues. An outdated theme or plugin may not work with the latest version of WordPress, resulting in a broken website.
 
4. SEO
Search engines prioritize websites that are up-to-date and provide a good user experience. Regularly maintaining your website ensures that it remains optimized for search engines, which can positively impact your search engine rankings and visibility.
 
5. User Experience
Users expect websites to load quickly and function smoothly. Outdated elements or broken features can frustrate visitors and drive them away. Regular maintenance ensures that your website provides an excellent user experience.
 
6. Backup and Recover
Regular backups of your website are essential in case of unexpected issues such as data loss, server crashes, or hacking incidents. Maintenance includes creating and testing backup systems, so you can recover your website quickly in case of an emergency.
 
7. Feature Enhancements
As your business or organization evolves, you may want to add new features or functionality to your website. Maintenance allows for the implementation of these enhancements, ensuring that your website stays aligned with your goals.
 
8. Reduced Downtime
Regular maintenance can prevent issues that lead to website downtime. This is crucial for online businesses or any website that relies on continuous availability.
 
9. Cost Savings
Regular maintenance is often less expensive than addressing major issues that result from neglect. Fixing a hacked website or resolving a compatibility issue can be much more costly than routine updates and maintenance.
 
There’s a wonderful description of the importance of maintenance for your website here along with a choice of monthly and annual maintenance plans with as little or as much support as you need.

all come as standard

friendly advice, business support and recommendations for your small business and website...