More calls, bookings & enquiries — that’s what a good website is for.
A clear, fast website people can understand, trust, and contact you through.
Web design for a small business has one job: a clear, fast site that explains what you do and turns visitors into enquiries. That's what I build — one freelance web designer and developer you deal with directly, not an agency — for small businesses in Melbourne and across Australia, and for the charities, not-for-profits, and community sports clubs working alongside them.
Your website should not become another technical thing you have to manage. And keeping it affordable means something specific here: a fixed quote before any work starts, one consultant's overheads rather than an agency's, and the free Health Check first — so you only pay for a build if a build is actually what you need.
45 minutes · Google Meet · free Health Check included
// Recognition
Usually because the existing site has quietly stopped earning its keep — and it tends to look like one of these:
An ageing WordPress install that's drifted past the point where anyone in the business can safely change a thing on it.
A Squarespace or off-the-shelf template that looks like every other business in your category — nothing about it says it's yours.
A site an agency built that started fine and slowly turned into something you don't recognise, can't measure, and can't keep up.
You're a few years past the last rebuild. The site loads slowly on a phone. The contact form sends emails into a spam folder you've forgotten the password for. Nobody can tell you whether it's bringing in enquiries any more. It shouldn't need a marketing team to decide what to do about that — one person who can talk you through it plainly, and then build the next one to a standard you don't have to babysit, is usually enough.
// The work itself
A site built from scratch for your business — designed once, built well, and handed back in a state you (or whoever comes after me) can keep going without me. The work covers everything from how the site is structured to whether Google can read it cleanly when it ships.
No starter themes, no drop-your-logo-on-our-template builds. Designed for what your business actually does and who it's for.
Performance is part of the brief, not an afterthought — the site doesn't go live until the speed targets are met. My plain-English guide to Core Web Vitals for small businesses explains what those targets are and why a slow site costs you customers.
Clear navigation, sensible page hierarchy, content people can scan for what they came for.
Tested on real devices — phones, tablets, desktops — before launch.
Clean HTML structure, headings, meta tags, schema markup, a sitemap, internal linking that makes sense. The plumbing is in from day one, not bolted on six months later.
Analytics and conversion tracking set up so you can see which pages are bringing in enquiries — and which aren't. (Set up underneath via my SEO & Analytics service — that work goes first, so the rest of the build can actually be measured.)
Cloudflare's fast global network, with HTTPS and a spam-blocker on your contact form, all bundled in if you stay on for monthly care after launch (more on that under What comes next). When I host a site I built, that plan carries a 12-month minimum, stated up front.
Written guides plus a screen-share — enough that you can update content yourself if you want to, or sensibly hand the site to whoever comes after me.
Astro + Tailwind CSS on Cloudflare Pages. No page builders, no themes I have to wrestle. Svelte or React only where a project genuinely needs interactive components beyond what Astro handles cleanly. The whole point is fewer moving parts, so less can break.
// Redesign
A small business website redesign has a failure mode nobody warns you about: the new site launches, looks great — and the enquiries stop, because the URLs changed, the redirects were never set up, and the pages Google had learned to rank quietly disappeared. Rebuilding the traffic can take months.
When I rebuild an existing site, search continuity is part of the launch checklist, not an afterthought. Every existing URL is mapped to its new home, permanent redirects are in place before cutover, page titles and structured data carry across, and Search Console is watched after launch so anything unexpected gets caught in days rather than months. The same discipline applies whether the old site is WordPress, Squarespace, or something older.
If you're not sure what your current site actually ranks for — most owners aren't — the free Basic Digital Health Check shows you before anything is touched, and the SEO foundation underneath is how the new site does better than break even.
// WordPress
Plenty of Melbourne small businesses run on WordPress, and there are two honest ways I can help. If the site is basically doing its job and needs someone reliable keeping it updated, backed up, and secure, that's the website maintenance service — WordPress sites included. If the site has drifted past saving, I'll migrate you off WordPress onto a simpler, faster stack — with the redesign discipline above, so the move doesn't cost you your rankings.
What I don't do is build new WordPress sites. That's not a knock on WordPress — it's that the value I offer is fewer moving parts, and a fresh WordPress install starts with more of them. If a new WordPress build is genuinely what you want, I'm the wrong person, and I'll say so on the call.
// What I don't do
Honest scope. The work below isn't a refusal — it's a stay-in-lane discipline that keeps quality high on the work I take on.
If a project sits outside the default scope and there's a real reason to do it, ask anyway. The honest discipline applies on both sides: you have to agree to the scope, and I have to be confident I can deliver it to a standard worth my name. If I'm not, the honest answer is no — and I'll point you toward someone who can take it on if I know one.
// Fit
// Best for
// Skip if
// Recent web design work
// Mobile wellness service
A mobile IV business working in Victoria and Western Australia. I built its new website, help people find it on Google and in AI tools like ChatGPT, and run its Google ads.
// Animal rescue charity
A volunteer-run animal rescue. I built the website it uses today, and I'm building its new one.
// My own software studio
My own small software studio. I designed and built its website, and I keep it running and easy to find on Google and in AI tools.
// Pricing
Pricing is project-based — a fixed quote after the discovery conversation on the intro call, agreed before any work starts. No hourly surprises, and one consultant's overheads rather than an agency's. Two shapes most web work takes:
// Fresh build
Priced on page count and content complexity. Whether ongoing monthly care after launch is part of the work shapes it too (see What comes next for what that covers).
// Migration
A migration from WordPress or Squarespace, content given a quality review on the way in rather than a straight copy-paste. Priced on how much content comes across and the shape it arrives in.
You don't have to commit blind to find out where you stand: the Basic Digital Health Check is free, and the In-Depth audit runs from $300 — so you'll know what the site actually needs before a build quote ever lands.
Comparing quotes? My plain-English guide to what a small-business website costs in Australia explains what a quote should itemise and what to ask before you sign.
ACNC-registered charities: 25% off all paid services.
45 minutes · Google Meet · no obligation
// Timeline
Most small-business sites take 3–4 weeks from kickoff to launch:
Existing-site review, content inventory, page-by-page brief, design direction. Outputs: a sitemap and a one-page brief per page.
Pages built directly in the live preview environment. You review as the site is built, in real browsers, not in mockups.
Final pass, DNS cutover, search-console and analytics live, handover docs delivered.
Single-page redesigns or focused landing pages: 1–2 weeks. Migrations from WordPress / Squarespace with significant content: usually 3–6 weeks — the existing content gets a quality review on the way in, not a straight copy-paste. I won't import junk.
// Shipping
Before a site I build goes live, it has to pass the same launch checks — and it doesn't ship until they do:
Fast on phones. It loads quickly on a phone — speed targets met before launch, not after.
Google can read it. Clean structure, headings, schema, and sitemap, so search engines read it cleanly.
Tracking is firing. Analytics and at least one conversion event confirmed firing through to a real enquiry.
Nothing's broken. Tested on real phones, tablets, and desktops — nothing broken on any screen.
30 days post-launch: a quick check-in — traffic patterns, indexation, conversion event sanity. Free as part of the project.
// Journey
A plain-English audit that shows whether a new site is actually the right move. Sometimes it isn't, and the honest answer is "fix three things on your existing site and revisit in six months." The PDF is yours to keep, whether you work with me afterwards or not.
If a rebuild is genuinely the right next step, the next move is straight into the project — or a Strategic Digital Roadmap first, when the broader digital direction needs clarity before touching the website.
Once the site ships, ongoing monthly care (the Looked After plan) covers hosting on Cloudflare's fast network, monthly performance and indexation checks, content updates, dependency upkeep, broken-link sweeps, and reports in plain language. Optional; the project stands on its own without it. The website side of that care — updates, backups, security, uptime — is covered in detail on the website maintenance page.
// FAQ
// Start
Thinking about a new site or a rebuild? Book a 45-minute call. I'll run a free Basic Digital Health Check on your existing site beforehand and walk you through it on the call — so the conversation starts from a clear picture, not a blank page.
45 minutes · Google Meet · no obligation
Every call ends with one — a plain-English read on your current setup. No charge, no catch.
The PDF is yours to keep regardless.
// Last updated: 14 October 2026
