Website design for UK businesses

What a UK buyer should get right before design starts

Most UK small business sites fail on the same few points, and none of them are about colour. The site does not say clearly who the company is, the cookie banner loads trackers before consent, and the mobile layout hides the phone number. Design starts with these checks, because they change the layout.

• Who you are. A limited company is generally expected to show its registered name, company number and registered office on its website. Plan the footer and contact page for this from day one.
• What it costs. Consumer prices should include VAT, currently 20% at the standard rate, with delivery shown before checkout.
• Who can use it. The Equality Act 2010 expects reasonable adjustments for disabled users, and WCAG 2.2 AA is the practical target.
• How you ask for consent. PECR governs cookies and similar tech, and UK GDPR governs the personal data inside them.

None of this is legal advice. Check final wording with your solicitor. Our job is to make sure the design leaves room for it.

Design deliverables, step by step

1. Discovery callOne short call in UK morning hours to agree audience, goals, pages and the platform. You receive a fixed quote within one working day.
2. Sitemap and wireframesPage structure first, in grey boxes, so you comment on content and flow before any colour is chosen.
3. Visual designDesktop and mobile designs for key pages, with your brand, photography and a small component library.
4. Build and contentBuilt on the platform we agreed. We load your copy, set up forms, analytics and the consent tool.
5. Test and launchAccessibility pass, speed checks, redirect map if replacing a site, then launch on a quiet day.

Our website design service page lists the full scope. If you already have a site and want to replace it, the website redesign page covers migration.

UK requirements and how the design handles them

A cookie banner is a design element as well as a legal one. A banner that covers a third of a phone screen costs enquiries, so we design the compact version and test it on small devices.

UK spelling and tone on your own pages

We write this page in US English. Your site should not be. Use UK spelling in all copy: colour, organise, centre, licence for the noun, programme, cheque. Use day-month-year dates, pounds with the symbol before the number, and 24-hour times for events and opening hours.

Tone matters as much as spelling. British buyers tend to distrust loud claims, so the strongest pages state what you do, who for, where you operate and what happens after an enquiry. If you give us draft copy, we check it for US spellings before it goes in. If you want us to write it, we do it in UK English from the start.

Working across the UK and India clocks

The UK is five and a half hours behind India during winter (GMT) and four and a half during British Summer Time. Clocks change on the last Sunday of March and October, so we reconfirm times each time they move.

You get one project lead, a shared task board and a short written update after each demo. Our Coventry office gives the team a UK address, but design work is delivered remotely.

Pricing for a UK website project

Projects start at $1,500, and the hourly rate is $30 for extra work. Price moves with page count, number of custom templates, content you supply versus content we write, integrations (booking, CRM, payments) and the platform. A five-page brochure site and a fifty-page professional services site are very different jobs.

Quotes are in US dollars, so the pound figure moves with the exchange rate. Our website cost guide shows the factors, and the website brief template helps you collect what we need before the call. Wider UK delivery detail is on the UK web pillar page.