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Static Website Development

Most websites don't need to change for every visitor - they just need to convey information to visitors as efficiently as possible. Their content is mostly "static" text and images, rather than "dynamic" and constantly changing, like on a social media website.

Despite this, these websites are often built on heavy frameworks that require expensive infrastructure and ongoing costs, like Wordpress, Wix, Squarespace, Joomla or Django. These platforms are designed to cover many possibilities, but 90% of their technology isn't needed for static websites.

This results in websites that could have been fast and affordable to host, but are either expensive to accommodate their infrastructure requirements, or slow because they're on a server that can't keep up.

I skip the heavy frameworks and build fast, stable, and mobile-friendly websites specific for your business, using minimalist and tidy code, using the "Eleventy" static site generator.

This results in sites which are super fast to load AND which can be hosted on very affordable web hosts.

Some examples:

  • This & That homepage, showing "Home", "Menu", and a photo of the alley where the This & That Indian cafe is hidden away I've been hosting the This & That site for a nearly a decade now. It changes very gradually, just like the cafe's decor and menu. But it always loads quickly, and is really easy to navigate.
  • The Blue Pits website homepage showing lots of text and a blue and green theme The Blue Pits website contains tonnes of information for people wanting to learn more about the housing charity. The team send me occasional updates, or new files to add, and I handle it for them.
  • The Vegan Prestwich website homepage, listing business names and links to subcategories 'Delivery/Takeaways', 'Restaurants', 'Shops', 'Tags' Vegan Prestwich, the community platform I run with my wife, contains tonnes of info about local businesses and their menus. It's organised in a really easy to edit structure so I can easily keep on top of updates.

How do I edit the site?

The site's contents can be edited through a simple admin interface (PagesCMS.org) or directly as text files on your computer. You'll edit the source code of the website directly! This might sound scary, but it's actually really straightforward - and everything is backed up anyway so we can restore to any earlier state.

Can you tell me how it works?

I will happily explain every aspect of your site to you - from templating to stylesheets and anything else besides. My aim is for you to become confident in taking charge of your site's growth, and adding new areas to its content and code yourself.

To really succeed online you need to know some fundamentals about structuring your website and updating its pages - and understanding how your site is built is a key part of that.

If you're in Prestwich we can even meet over a coffee and cake in a local cafe of your choice to dig into specifics of how to update your site. Bring a laptop along!

Will I rank well on Google?

Static websites are great for ranking well on Google - especially ones built like mine that are super fast loading, easy to add to, and which include contact forms. This is because Google likes fast, up-to-date, straightforward websites.

But your website is just a tool you use - ultimately SEO all comes down to the work you put in - writing content, building links, doing the socials, yadda yadda.

You'll get plenty of help with this if you host with me - you can use my free marketing guides and videos to learn SEO strategies, and I'll provide personal support to help you implement them and answer any questions.

What is the process?

  1. I build your website using Eleventy on the Chobble Template
  2. Or you can employ a designer to design a fully customised site
  3. Its content is stored in simple text files
  4. You can edit the content yourself via PagesCMS or send me changes
  5. Backups are handled automatically
  6. You get the full source code

This setup means that you can employ any web developer to expand your site, or ask anyone for help with your content - it's an open and collaborative platform you can easily share with new people.

While you are more than welcome to host with me forever, you might also like to DIY it - and I will make that process easy if you do.

Static Website Prices

Like every job, I will provide estimates and charge a flat hourly rate for building static sites, with a breakdown of everything involved. Here are some rough estimates for the stages of the process of a simple "brochure" type website:

  • 2 hours: Base setup
    • Creating an empty site
    • Backing it up via Git
    • Adding a CMS
    • Inviting you to the CMS
    • Auto-publishing to your static host of choice
  • 1-6 hours: Base template
    • Cloning an existing template and updating its text to fit your business, or creating a new template from scratch
  • 1-4 hours: Images
    • Cropping / resizing your images, sourcing designers
  • 1 hour: Domain names
    • Pointing your domain to its new host
  • 1 hour: Email setup
    • Setting up email accounts with your host of choice
  • 1-6 hours: Content
    • Populating your site content, sourcing copywriters

Use my static website price calculator to figure out how much your website build will cost

Not all of these stages will be necessary for every site, and you might be able to do some yourself - and I'll be there to guide you if you do.

Let's do it!

If static website development sounds right for your business, contact me today and we can start planning.