Moving your existing website off expensive hosting
If your website looks fine but the monthly bill is making you wince, or you've slowly realised the platform you're on makes it almost impossible to leave, I can move you. The new site will look identical to the visitor and cost a fraction of what you're currently paying.
The way this works is that I rebuild your site as a "static" site - which is a slightly technical term for a site whose pages are written out in advance and served as plain HTML, the way the early web worked. The design and content stay the same, the URLs stay the same, your visitors won't notice any difference, but the whole thing becomes much cheaper to host and much harder to break.
If you rarely update your site, this is often the smartest move you can make. And if you do need to change things regularly, I can wire up a simple editing system on top of the migrated site so you can update it yourself.
The two kinds of website
Roughly speaking, websites fall into two camps.
Platform-based sites like WordPress, Wix and Squarespace rebuild every page from a database every time someone visits. That needs computing power, which means the hosting bill is higher, and it means there's more software running that can break or get hacked. It's a bit like a restaurant cooking every dish from scratch as the order comes in.
Pre-built (static) sites prepare every page in advance, just once, and store them as files. When someone visits, the server hands over the file. Much faster, much cheaper, much fewer moving parts. More like a bakery with everything ready on the shelf.
Most small business sites don't actually need the database-and-cooking bit. They're brochures - they tell people what you do and how to reach you - and the static approach fits that job almost perfectly.
What you get out of moving
The hosting cost drops a lot. You can host on Cloudflare Pages or Netlify for free, or pay very little to host with me or another small provider.
Pages get faster for your visitors, typically loading in well under a second, which also gives you a stronger foundation for ranking on Google.
There's nothing to maintain. No software updates, no plugins to patch every fortnight, no server to babysit. The hosting provider keeps the files online and that's about it.
The site is more reliable for the same reason - fewer moving parts means fewer things that can go wrong. And it's more secure, because most websites get hacked through outdated software or vulnerable plugins, and a static site doesn't really have those to start with.
You can still edit the content. I'll set you up with an editing interface that lets you change text without touching code, and I'll show you exactly which bits to edit and which to leave alone.
You can still customise anything. You own the full source code, so adding a new section, rearranging the layout, changing the styling - all on the table. Not locked in.
And the interactive bits still work - contact forms, maps, image galleries, all the usual things people expect from a small business site.
When this isn't the right move
There are a couple of cases where a static site doesn't fit, and it's worth being honest about them upfront.
If you need genuinely live data on the page - "3 left in stock", real-time booking availability, a customer login area - then you need a database behind the site, which is a different kind of build. I can help with that too; see my custom web application services.
If you want a completely code-free editing experience - the kind where you literally never see anything technical - the static approach can feel a bit raw. You'll probably see a bit of YAML or Markdown when you're editing. I'll show you which lines to change and which to ignore, and most people get the hang of it within their first edit, but it's worth knowing in advance.
Get in touch
If you reckon a migration would suit your site, fill in the form below.