Frequently asked questions

There are so many reasons but here are some of the top ones. Our huge portfolio shows you the diversity and pride we take in our work and you can have confidence that all of those businesses chose us. We offer a free consultation and are happy to give free advice. There are no hidden charges or ongoing maintenance fees. We are one of the only studios to offer unlimited design so you can be confident of getting a website you love. You can only get the easy-to-use Website Manager and eShop systems from us and our partners and we can show you just how good they are before you even sign up. We include everything you need as standard; if you don't have a logo we'll create one, we'll optimise your website for search engines and we'll give you training on how to use your website. We also offer free support so you can come back to us at any time if you need help in the future. We're also really friendly and quick to respond so do get in touch!

We believe the most important goal is that our clients love their websites so we'll keep working on the designs until you're happy. Of course the unlimited offer has to be within reason to prevent abuse but we've never said no to a client yet. In fact we're happy to say that most clients fall in love with one or more of our very first concept designs.

Your domain name is the address for your website and often ends in the popular .com or .co.uk. You can't buy them outright but once they are registered to you they are yours while you pay an annual subscription. Hosting is the physical server where your website is stored, the place your domain name will point to. There are different types and not all work with every type of website and they also vary in the amount of space they provide and bandwidth (traffic) they will allow. Hosting is also normally rented although you can set up your own server if you have the skills to do so.

You need both hosting and a domain name for your website to be found on the internet. We usually include eveything you need with the website but as many of our customers already have their own domain name and hosting that we can use, it keeps the cost of our websites down for them. However we can offer both at a low annual cost and we always show the current price with all our standard quotes.

Our shared Linux hosting package is great value. It includes unlimited webspace, unlimited bandwidth and up to 50 email accounts. We'll also include your domain name free of charge. It is managed by one of the UK's largest providers who maintain them 24/7. They have a 99.9% average uptime. We'll give you free support and can set up your email accounts for you. It suits most of our customers but some websites may need specialist hosting. We'll let you know if we think you will need that.

We can send you a setup guide for all the most popular software and devices and following the guide will solve most common problems. If you still have issues you may need the help of an IT company. Unfortunately we can't provide IT support but we can put you in touch with some great people who can.

We keep a copy of the files when the website goes live. If you are using a website management system, the content on the pages may be in a database which we do not keep a copy of. Our hosting service makes daily backups in case of system failure but these are not available if you just want to go back to an older version for any reason. You can however make your own backups from our hosting control panel. If you use your own hosting you will need to check with your hosts about their backup procedures.

There are no maintenance charges with our websites and most come with a management system so you can update them yourself. If you need more features adding then we can quote you a fixed price depending on what you need. You're only ongoing cost is your yearly hosting and domain name renewal if you are using Fluid Hosting.

The overall copyright of the design and content is entirely yours. We keep the license of the code entirely open so you can do anything you want with it except make and sell duplicate copies. If you want another developer to work on the website or move it elsewhere, that is absolutely fine. Please see our terms and conditions page for details.

With most websites we require a 50% deposit before we start and the final payment once you are happy with the website and ready for it to go live. With larger projects we can break down payments for each stage. We accept payment by BACS, cheque, credit or debit card. We charge 3% on credit AND debit cards payments as we are charged this by the bank.

We are a very established business with a large, diverse client base and an excellent credit rating so going bust is very unlikely. However if the worst happens it won't have much effect on you. If you are hosted with us then your accounts will be transferred, either to one of our partners or direct with our provider. There may be a slight change in your annual renewal fee but you will still be free to move elsewhere if you are not happy with that. All your website files will all be available to you and you can ask any other developer to help you with them. We would transfer all our projects over to one of our partners and you can choose whether to continue with them or move elsewhere. Our development code is also clearly annotated to make it easier for external developers to make changes to your wesbite if required.

You will need to confirm in writing if you wish to cancel a project. We may then either partly refund you or invoice you depending on the amount of work done so far and the amount you have already paid. Please see our terms and conditions page for details.

Many people ask for apps because they think they need one but you only need it if it will offer extra functionality that your website won't. We don't create apps in house but we have partners that are experts in this field.

This is a large area and it depends on what you need. We do provide on-site search engine optimisation and social media set up. If you are looking for print marketing or ongoing marketing services, we have some fantastic partners that we can put you in touch with.

We build all our own websites in house and we rarely outsource, except when a client asks for a service that we don't provide and then we usually refer them instead. However we do work closely with design companies and other developers who often contract us to work with their clients. We are always looking for partners that can complement our skills but we always prefer local companies.

Yes certainly. We have clients all over Europe, in the USA and even Australia and New Zealand. We find working with the time difference is not usually much of a problem, especially when a lot of the communication is by email. We can arrange Skype / Google Hangout meetings on request.

Our design and development work is all done in house except where the client has specialist requirements or an urgent timescale that requires us to contract work out. In those cases we'll always try and use reliable local experts and you will be informed of this process. It is important our partners and contractors are local, even if our clients are not as it often helpful for us to meet in person for closer collaboration on projects. If you've had bad experiences with designers who farm development work out to India or Eastern Europe where standards are often lower and long term support is poor, you can be sure of getting a far better service with us.

There is a little bit about our careers at the bottom of our about us page. We generally don't advertise for positions but tend to grow as and when we find talent that works well with our existing team. Give us a call or email over your C.V. / portfolio if you think you've got talent to add to our mix. For developers, we work with PHP / MySQL and javascript, no ASP.

Our systems are all coded in PHP. We are not able to work on websites coded in ASP / C# at this time.