Pro Castors – a new website
We've just published a new website for Pro Castors, a site selling a range of grey and black rubber fixed, swivel and braked castors in various different sizes.
Beautiful web design & customised web development services
Need a new website to advertise your business to the world?
We’ve been building websites for over 25 years, so we know what we’re doing. Our care and attention to detail are second to none. We love giving existing sites a new lease of life just as much as we enjoy creating new ones.
Our designs are creative, coded to industry standards and focus on giving visitors the best user experience. All of our sites are fully responsive and look great on desktop, tablet and mobile, adapting themselves to best fit the size of the screen.
We explain everything clearly and without jargon and you can count on us to meet your brief. We offer excellent value for money.
Our offices in Swindon allow us to serve the local area, as well as attend meetings further afield. We have clients right across Wiltshire and beyond and like to meet face-to-face wherever we can.
Locally, we’ve worked with Swindon Borough Council on the new Lydiard Park website, Great Western Hospitals NHS Trust & The Shalbourne Suite and many other small business nearby.
We really want to establish long-term relationships with our clients and try to help them to understand what the Internet can offer. We can build almost anything you need, and it’s important to us we get it just right.
Our process – how we like to work with you
Phase 1: Your requirements
To be sure we’re building the right site for you, we set up an initial discussion where we spend time getting a detailed understanding of your business. Together, we discuss the challenges and issues you’re facing and the opportunities that may be open to you. We want to understand your critical business processes and who your key competitors are. Understanding your business objectives and goals is important.
Only when we have this detailed understanding can we really start to plan something which aims to meet your objectives. Our goal is to provide a site which has the ability to grow and develop with your business.
Phase 2: Prototypes and wireframes
We don’t always jump straight in with a shiny picture of what we think your site will look like – see our FAQs section for our reasons why. At the start of the project we likely don’t know what you’ll need, so we use rapid prototyping tools to develop a wireframe. This is a black and white representation of what (collectively) we think your site will need. This helps us to understand what features you’re looking for, how different pages connect with each other, what your key messages are and how best to present everything in a coherent manner.
Our wireframes are quick and easy to put together and are something you can view (and navigate) in a web browser. This helps us all to focus on the key elements – content, features and navigation. Together we refine your content, messages, calls to action, content placement and user journeys. The latter defines how a customer gets from one page to another to your end goal – be this a contact form or an e-shop.
We like to have a large proportion of the site completed in wireframe early on. It’s far easier to make changes at this stage, before we write any code.
Our wireframes also work on tablets and mobiles too. With more and more mobile traffic coming to your site we must ensure the UX works well on those devices too.
Once we’ve done this we’ll look at the graphic design element and discuss imagery, fonts & colours.
Phase 3: Graphic design
We’ll assign a graphic designer to work on creating the overall ‘look and feel’ of your site. They’ll use the wireframe as a guide, along with other websites which you say you like the look of or would like to emulate.
Depending on your budget, we’ll often be able to present you with several different designs. This allows you to choose the one (or elements from different ones) you like the best. Refinements and iterations are part of the design process.
We rarely use ‘off-the-shelf’ templates which lock you into a specific design. Your website will look exactly the way you want it to.
We’ll give you guidance based on our extensive experience, but you have the ultimate control here – you’ll get the results you want.
Don’t forget that if you need a new logo, flyers, posters or business cards, we can make these for you as well. This ensures continuity of design between your online and offline advertising materials.
Phase 4: Build
Depending on what you need, we can:
- Build your entire website with an integrated Content Management System (CMS). This makes it easy for you to update your own content using an editor. We use the WordPress CMS as well as building custom templates to give you the control you need. We make it hard to break your website!
- Create it as a custom build without a CMS. You can still edit your own website, but you’ll need to have more knowledge of HTML to do that. This is a slightly cheaper option.
- Supply you with basic page layouts and templates to integrate with your own systems. This is a good option where clients have their own CMS or publishing platform such as SharePoint.
We’ll discuss the options with you when we meet and ensure we build a system which meets your requirements.
WordPress CMS
If you want to manage your own content, we recommend building your site using WordPress. WordPress is by far the most popular CMS on the web. In 2023, its market share was just over 60% with no competitors coming anywhere near that. Out of all the websites using a known CMS, 43% of them use WordPress, cementing its ongoing popularity.
WordPress is easily extended with new pages, blog posts, categories and products. Where new functionality is needed, there are many plugins available which you can use. Plugins are pieces of code which are written by other people to be included on many different websites. There are close to 60,000 free plugins available along with numerous others which have a licence fee.
Given this enormous library, you are likely to be able to find someone who’s already written the feature you’re looking for. Extending your website is therefore a very cost-effective and time-efficient process. You don’t (always) need to invest in bespoke code that takes weeks to write.
Phase 5: Content loading
We usually load your content at the same time as we build your site. If you’re adding your own content, then it happens after the main templates have been produced. During this phase we add all the content to the site and construct the pages in line with the design plan. We build up the site navigation, add calls to action and link pages following the wireframe.
Phase 6: Testing and launch
All our work is placed on one of our development servers, so you can see your project progress from concept to finished article. You’ll be able to share this with friends, colleagues and stakeholders so you can ask people for their feedback. We’ll ask you to test the site carefully so that you can be certain it will do everything you need it to do.
Before launch we check all content, links and functionality across different browsers and devices. Once you’ve approved it, we set the new website live. We’ll set up Google Analytics for the new website as part of the launch process. We’ll also do some essential SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) work so that Google is aware of your new site.
We provide WordPress training at launch, so that you can be confident in your ability to maintain your own site.
And we’re always here at the end of the phone if you get stuck.
Phase 7: Website reviews and ongoing maintenance
We can offer you quarterly review meetings to go through your website stats and review the site’s performance. We can look at ways of further improving your website through changes to content or starting an SEO and marketing programme.
Our clients typically find these reviews to be of real value.
Hosting, maintenance and support contracts
As a full-service agency, we have hosting, maintenance and support contracts available. We’ll discuss these options with you before launch.
E-commerce and bespoke software development services
Over the years, we’ve built everything from single-page websites to e-commerce systems containing thousands of products. We also develop bespoke pieces of software where WordPress and WooCommerce aren’t quite up to the task. After we’ve built a website for you, many people ask us to run digital marketing campaigns as well. These help the site rise further up Google and attract more visitors. We can also design your business cards, flyers, posters and other printed advertising.
Building long-term beneficial relationships
At Pink Fish we’re all about creating the most effective web presence for your business. We want to help you to maximise the opportunity that the Internet offers for your organisation.
We’re not interested in delivering short-term solutions where we just build you a site and disappear off into the sunset, never to be seen again. We are always looking to develop longer-term business relationships with our clients and we can only do that if we are delivering value and a return on your investment.
Our business has been built on this philosophy. A large percentage of our customers have come from referrals and many of our clients have been with us for many years.
We believe that we can create a website and Internet marketing strategy that really works for your business – give us a try and see for yourself!
"Pink Fish and I have developed a fantastic relationship over the last two years. After redesigning and relaunching the website for BXM, we have grown significantly and they have very much been a part of this journey. From this initial contact we developed two further websites together. Each time, I have given them brief ideas and visions, they have taken that away and come back with fantastic results. The team are organised, professional, friendly, welcoming and realistic with timescales which has been vital for me. I would definitely recommend Pink Fish."
Ben Maxfield
Director: BXM Expeditions / Social Media Adventures
"I am absolutely delighted with my new website. From the initial ideas meeting to the completion of the website, nothing was ever too much trouble with regards to adding content or making any required changes. Communication was fantastic throughout the whole process. Richard really understood the direction and my vision throughout the project, resulting in the business ending up with a perfect new site. I would highly recommend Pink Fish for any website or email needs. Always helpful and extremely professional."
Phil Stevens
Stress3Suits
Case studies
Read more about some of our projects below. If you think we're the people to talk to for your next project, please get in touch.
Website refresh for writer Nicola Cornick
Oxfordshire-based author, Nicola Cornick, is the latest client to have a new website to accompany the launch of her new book.
All hands to the pump
We've just launched a new website for Wessex Pumps, water engineering experts with offices in Royal Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire and Witney, Oxfordshire.
Get in touch
If you think we can help with your next project, please drop us a line or call us. We’d love to meet with you to see how we could work together.
Our offices in Stratton St Margaret are easy to reach with free parking right outside the door.
Telephone:
Alternatively, drop us an email @ Pink Fish