Small business web design, Melbourne —
built to last.
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 designer-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 · no obligation
// Recognition
Why people come to me for web design.
Usually because the existing site has quietly stopped earning its keep — and it tends to look like one of these:
WordPress nobody can update
An ageing WordPress install that's drifted past the point where anyone in the business can safely change a thing on it.
Looks like everyone else
A Squarespace or off-the-shelf template that looks like every other business in your category — nothing about it says it's yours.
An agency build that drifted
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
What you get.
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.
A custom site, built from scratch.
No starter themes, no drop-your-logo-on-our-template builds. Designed for what your business actually does and who it's for.
Loads quickly on a phone.
Performance is part of the brief, not an afterthought — the site doesn't go live until the speed targets are met.
Reads cleanly without a manual.
Clear navigation, sensible page hierarchy, content people can scan for what they came for.
Works on every screen.
Tested on real devices — phones, tablets, desktops — before launch.
Google can read it properly.
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.
Tracking that tells you what's working.
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.)
Hosting included with the ongoing care plan.
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).
Handover docs and a walkthrough.
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.
// For the technically curious — the default stack
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
Redesigning without losing your rankings.
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
On WordPress right now?
Plenty of Melbourne small businesses run on WordPress, and there are three honest ways I can help. If the site is basically doing its job and just 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
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 what I do build.
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
Who this is best for.
// Best for
- Australian small-business owners who run the business and don't have a marketing person inside — and who want one person to call when something digital breaks.
- Owners replacing an ageing WordPress or Squarespace site that's quietly stopped earning its keep — and want the next one to last more than a year before drifting again.
- Anyone burned by an agency build who'd prefer a solo consultant who'll tell them plainly what's worth doing.
- Charities, not-for-profits, and community sports clubs replacing a tired site on a tight budget — the 25% ACNC charity rate applies (see pricing below).
// Skip if
- You want WordPress (the whole point of this offer is the opposite — see What I don't do).
- You need complex e-commerce, brand identity from scratch, or content at scale.
- You're not yet sure whether a rebuild is the right move — start with a free Basic Digital Health Check, which is designed to answer exactly that. Sometimes the honest answer is "fix three things on your existing site and revisit in six months", and you walk away with the PDF either way.
// Pricing
What it costs.
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
A custom site, built from scratch.
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 move off an existing site.
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.
// ACNC-registered charities: 25% off — single ABN-lookup verification at intake, the rate that runs across every NSD service
45 minutes · Google Meet · no obligation
// Timeline
How long it takes.
Most small-business sites take 2–4 weeks from kickoff to launch:
- /01
Week 1 — Discovery.
Existing-site review, content inventory, page-by-page brief, design direction. Outputs: a sitemap and a one-page brief per page.
- /02
Weeks 2–3 — Design and build.
Pages built directly in the live preview environment. You review as the site is built, in real browsers, not in mockups.
- /03
Week 4 — Revisions, launch, handover.
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
Shipping well.
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.
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Tracking is firing. Analytics and at least one conversion event confirmed firing through to a real enquiry.
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Nothing's broken. Tested on real phones, tablets, and desktops — nothing broken on any screen.
// For the technically curious — exact targets
- //Lighthouse scores (mobile and desktop) on the homepage and 2–3 key inner pages — Performance ≥90, SEO ≥95, Accessibility ≥95, Best Practices ≥95.
- //Core Web Vitals all green against Google's published "Good" thresholds — LCP < 2.5s, INP < 200ms, CLS < 0.1.
- //Search Console verified, sitemap submitted, structured data validated.
- //Analytics confirmed firing with at least one conversion event tracked all the way through to the enquiry.
30 days post-launch: a quick check-in — traffic patterns, indexation, conversion event sanity. Free as part of the project.
// Journey
What comes next.
Basic Digital Health Check
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.
The build (or a roadmap first)
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.
Looked After (optional)
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
Common questions.
How long does a website take to build?
Do you build WordPress sites?
Where will the site be hosted?
Will I be able to update content myself?
What if I just need a single landing page, not a whole new site?
Can you help with the content too?
Will a redesign hurt my Google rankings?
Wouldn't a website builder like Wix or Squarespace be cheaper?
How much does a small business website cost?
// Start
Get started.
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.
- What's working — and what's quietly leaking money
- Your top 3 fixes, in priority order
- Yours to keep, whether you work with me afterwards or not
The PDF is yours to keep regardless.
// Last updated: July 2026