Web Design Agency 

Visually appealing, high quality websites that inform & inspire

Creative Web Design

Web design is not simply how a site looks and feels, it’s about how it works behind the scenes to deliver your marketing goals. From planning a clearly structured sitemap that makes your pages easy to find or devising a user friendly layout, Digital Whitebox has you covered.

Great web design is the expert combination of ideas and planning with the technical and artistic skill of creating layouts and user interfaces. These will include carefully chosen fonts, styles, colours and motifs, graphics, visual content and design features that reflect your brand and company ethos.

We have successfully established a tried and tested web design process that ensures every site we create provides the best digital presence for our clients.

Why do you need a  Web Design Agency  ?

What does the term web design really mean? Essentially, it’s an umbrella term that covers a lot more than simply building a website. Every aspect of every site we create is carefully researched and developed and based on meticulous planning. This crucial research phase gives us a deep understanding of not only your business and brand and the purpose for the site but also the needs and wants of your customers.

Knowing how your audience behaves online, what they buy and when they shop helps us to devise designs and content that will capture their attention and convert their custom. This means that the sites we create provide digital spaces that are enjoyable to use, convenient to update and easy to find and navigate.

Understanding your Project

Knowing exactly what each project will require is something we pride ourselves on. We offer our clients clarity from the start and build our sites to a set timescale in a cost effective and efficient way. You will have a dedicated project manager working with you from start to finish, keeping you in the loop and advising you all the way.

Research & Planning

In the research phase of any web design project we gather all the information we need regarding your business and the market in which it operates. We also research your customers and make sure the goals and expectations for the project are clear. By clearly understanding the problems you face we can come up with effective solutions.

Creative Design & User Interface

The sites we build are creative, bespoke and engaging. They are designed to attract digital traffic and inform and entertain your target audience. Clarity and simplicity are the keys to a really great website. Clean design concepts combined with clever user experiences are the best ways to deliver your marketing goals.

Development & Innovation

At Digital Whitebox we work at the forefront of emerging technologies and online trends, and are able to integrate new ideas to fit your business goals. Relevant content, interactive elements and social networking tools are key to ensuring your website’s success. The sites we create deliver outstanding online presence and proven commercial results because of the techniques we use.

Content Management Solutions

We understand that the flexibility and control to edit your own site is a crucial part of a new website build. All of our websites are built using Content Management Systems. This allows you to manage your content with ease and puts you in control, saving you time and money.

Hosting & Maintenance

Websites simply don’t work without a secure hosting and maintenance system in place. Your website will need to be hosted and maintained to ensure its online visibility and security. Our hosting environment boasts 99.9% uptime plus daily backups and our monthly security updates ensure your website is as secure as possible 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Planning

Visualisation

Visualisation is the first essential part of our design and build process. By fully understanding your audience and all the factors that affect your project we can start to build a concept based on your unique objectives and specifications.

This initial preparation and development stage is essential and helps us ensure that very aspect of your site is consistent with your brand and your goals.

Using an underpinning column and grid system, we will plan headers and footers, logo placement and site navigation.

We will also start to define subtleties like page and text colour contrasts and content spacing that contribute to a seamless and responsive site.

Performance

Optimised performance is a key player in your site’s functionality. Every feature, image and process on your site has a size attributed to it. If these assets are not optimised you’ll be left with a slow site that underperforms on every level.

Part of our design and development process is to review and determine what needs to be present on each of your pages.

We prepare every element for your site to maximise performance, aesthetics and impact giving your customer a faster and more intuitive experience overall.

With only essential elements displayed and all of them perfectly calibrated for online use your response and load times will be significantly increased providing a faster and more enjoyable user experience.

Accessibility

Perfectly planned accessibility broadens your customer base. Well prepared and constructed websites work for everyone regardless of age or ability. If your site doesn’t work efficiently or accommodate the varying needs and requirements of different consumers then you are limiting your potential audience.

At Digital Whitebox every site we design and build has accessibility at the heart of its user experience. From choosing the perfect combination of colours and typography for clear legibility to including audio and text transcripts of key content.

Whatever your site requirements are we’ll make sure it can be experienced by everyone, enhancing your marketing goals and your reputation among customers.

Functionality

Delivering flawless functionality across all hardware and software. The functionality of your website is about ensuring it’s effortless efficiency regardless of the browser, operating system or platform it is accessed from.

Every customer will use different methods to find and navigate your site. We make sure that it works correctly on every possible option whilst retaining it’s visual integrity.

We do this by using an in-depth design and testing regime that ensures all functionality concerns and requirements are met.

We go through many rounds of UX testing and development to get it just right; making it mobile, smartphone and tablet friendly and working seamlessly across all platforms and browsers.

Project Management

Undertaking any web design project can be a lengthy process covering lots of different areas. To make sure all bases are covered from the start, working closely with you, we’ll create an in-depth project brief covering all your requirements. Then we’ll put a project management plan in place for everything from goals and deadlines, to the areas of work covered and costs involved.

We can also kickstart a discovery phase if the project needs it. This is where we talk with your business’ stakeholders to understand the requirements at a deeper level. If necessary, we might need to complete some smaller tasks to help identify if further work in one or more areas is required.

When all the project areas have been defined, we’ll provide you with a detailed proposal with our recommendations together with a timeline of schedules, deadlines, and costs. It’s really a document that explains both our and your project expectations so everyone can clearly understand the ultimate goals.

Continually Evolving Skills

Every site we produce is brilliantly designed, engaging and functional. We keep your business objectives at the forefront of each project and help you better understand how your customers behave online so that you can meet their needs and achieve your aims.

We know that web design and digital strategy can feel complicated for many reasons, so we work hard to provide clarity and simplicity throughout the process. From our commitment to banish ‘techy jargon’ to our comprehensive project proposals, we’re here to make your life easier.

Our team stays up-to-date on all new back-end and customer facing trends and developments. You can also be assured that we will always give you honest, impartial advice on the best route to achieving your marketing and business goals online.

Through rigorous planning, research and technical skills our sites always work perfectly across all devices and can incorporate the full spectrum of social media platforms and tools. This gives you a solution that provides measurable results and delivers a noteworthy online presence.

User Interface Design

User Interface Design is an essential part of any digital build process.

Rather than looking at how the site looks and feels, the best UID focuses on the underlying technology that really makes your website work well; maximising the user experience.

Pages loading slowly or not at all? A tired, clunky site with links that go nowhere? If your website isn’t working to the best of its ability and customers can’t find what they need the chances are they’ll ditch you, move on and never come back.

Well constructed UI design will help you achieve your digital goals by successfully fulfilling your customer’s wants and needs – not just once, but time and again.

At Digital Whitebox we can create a site for you that is intuitive, boosts conversions and amplifies your consumer engagement. We do this by creating a clear and engaging pathway through your site that helps users find information, browse, buy or book online quickly and efficiently. In the end this all adds up to happy customers who are more likely to return and also to recommend you.

Performance is everything

When it comes to web design, site performance is based – and judged – on how quickly everything loads, moves and displays.
The more streamlined your site overall, the better it performs.
At Digital Whitebox, optimum performance is something we incorporate into every website we design and continue to evaluate and improve over time.

Every project is different; as is every client, budget and set of goals. There are occasions when we can update your online presence and dramatically improve performance without the need for a full rebuild.

We will be led by your needs and available time and resources. Each project will start with in-depth discussions and analysis that look at a range of suitable options and solutions. Our team can provide any service from full rebrands and websites built from scratch to refreshing existing sites and everything in between.

Winning conversions is the key to your online success. Our skilled web designers devise and deliver visually stunning and engaging sites and our conversion experts analyse, test and fine tune them to make sure they work as well as they look.

To get every site performing perfectly, our team continually review and refine your content and assets. By doing this we can ensure response and load times are always at their highest and every site visitor gets the fastest, most positive experience possible. Giving them a high level of satisfaction means they are more likely to return and also to recommend you.

How do we deliver optimum performance?
Code optimisation, order of execution, server configuration and specialised content delivery networks are just a few of the strategies we employ to keep you ahead of the competition.

There are also a number of specialist tools and apps we use including:

Google Pagespeed

A helpful device from the Google toolbox, Pagespeed is a dedicated site performance checker. It’s simple but offers a good starting point to flag up any existing issues. By testing the page URL, Pagespeed will highlight potential CSS or Javascript issues as well as images that need optimising.

Pingdom

One of the better performance monitoring tools, Pingdom gives deep data on how your site is performing out in the real world. Delivering real-user monitoring, page speed testing, server response times, and downtime, Pingdom immediately highlights anything that could be slowing you down.

Litespeed Cache (LScache)

A trusted Wordpress development plug-in, LScache is a pro performance and optimisation tool to keep your site running as fast and efficiently as possible. With this in place, you’ll see an increase in page loading times, server side DDOS protection and happier site visitors.

PeRfMatters

Slow WordPress sites have higher bounce rates and fewer conversions. The Perfmatters plugin was created by web performance geeks to speed up your site! Increases the speed of your site by reducing HTTP requests, disabling plugins, stripping out code, and optimizing your database.

Sucuri Security

Sucuri Inc. is a globally recognized authority in all matters related to website security, with specialization in WordPress Security. The Sucuri Security WordPress plugin is free to all WordPress users. It is a security suite meant to complement your existing security posture. It offers its users a set of security features for their website, each designed to have a positive effect on their security posture

Attention to Detail

Web design projects can sometimes be lengthy with many different research, development and technical build phases.

As part of our client commitment and to ensure the smooth running of any project we create an in-depth brief covering all your requirements. This becomes the blueprint for our collaboration with you and means that all parties know exactly what is needed at each stage.

Alongside our technical and content specialists we have a dedicated project management team who keep track of every aspect of the build; from goals and objectives to completed tasks, costs and deadlines.

One additional process we offer should your project require it is our Discovery Phase, during which we talk with any business stakeholders to understand the site requirements at a deeper level.

If necessary, we might advise that our team undertake a set of smaller research tasks to help us identify whether further input is required in one or more areas.

When all the project areas have been defined we will share our detailed proposal including our recommendations, a timeline of schedules, phase deadlines and costs. This document sets out the project expectations so that everyone involved can clearly understand the end objectives and outcomes. We never advise our clients to commit to build or design work that is unnecessary and everything we include in our proposal is there because we believe it will help to deliver your marketing goals.

Digital landscapes and web design can sometimes be seen as complex and confusing. We understand this, which is why we always offer clarity, honesty and excellence in everything we do. Ensuring that everyone on-board feels informed and confident is the route to the successful delivery of any campaign. Demystifying our sector is one of the core values at Digital Whitebox and we promise that we will always take time to explain the more difficult aspects of online activity if you need us to.

Content Management Solutions

A Content Management System (CMS) allows you to add images, text and other assets to your website yourself without needing any advanced technical skills or web expertise. It offers businesses and individuals a flexible and cost effective solution to updating their sites regularly which in turn will aid performance and SEO.

When we build websites we use WordPress, consistently the World’s most popular open-source web platform. WordPress offers the ability to add a custom CMS solution into the fabric of your site for ease of use and complete control.

By including a CMS in your website you will be able to regularly upload a wide variety of content including blogs and news items, images, descriptive text and product or service listings. You will be able to do this from any connected device without needing to wait for anyone else to do it for you. A custom CMS gives you an efficient and rapidly responsive site that you have control over.

The Digital Whitebox team have vast experience in creating content management systems that are intuitive, easy to use and simple to manage. We can provide any training you or your team require and we are always on hand to help with any queries.

With over 35% of live websites using WordPress, around 68 million and growing, you’ll be in excellent company.

LAMP Stack

To build each website so that it looks exceptional and performs perfectly, the Digital Whitebox development team uses a set of open-source software called a LAMP stack.

LAMP is an acronym and typically consists of four essential software components: a Linux operating system, an Apache HTTP server, a MySQL database system, and PHP programming language. All of these elements sit in layers and support each other.

LINUX

The first layer in every LAMP stack, Linux is a free and open-source operating system that creates the foundation for the stack model with everything else running on top of it.

APACHE

The second layer in the stack is Apache which is an open-source software system for web servers. Sitting on top of the Linux OS, Apache translates what’s typed into a web browser and directs it to the website.

MySQL

The third layer is MySQL which holds database information looked at by scripts when building websites. MySQL is used by most database-driven platforms.

PHP

The fourth and final layer of the LAMP stack is PHP. A server-side programming language widely used in web development that contains HTML which is how your site is coded.

Alternative Web Server options

NGINX

The fourth and final layer of the LAMP stack is PHP. A server-side programming language widely used in web development that contains HTML which is how your site is coded.

Litespeed

The fourth and final layer of the LAMP stack is PHP. A server-side programming language widely used in web development that contains HTML which is how your site is coded.

OpenLitespeed

The fourth and final layer of the LAMP stack is PHP. A server-side programming language widely used in web development that contains HTML which is how your site is coded.

FAQ

See the most asked questions

I don’t like my current web design agency, can I switch to Digital Whitebox?

If you aren’t happy with the quality of service you are receiving from your current web design agency, then we are more than happy to help out. We have a number of clients that move from other web design agencies to us, because they feel they aren’t getting the service they deserve. We can even help transfer your domains and hosting to us. Customer service is very important to us here at Digital Whitebox, so if you are thinking of moving your website elsewhere please have a chat with us first to see how we can help.

What is website hosting?

Website hosting allows individuals and businesses to display their websites on the Internet. Websites are made up of various files containing the code and databases needed to display the website correctly on a users browser. These files are stored on computers called servers. Servers are kept on 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to ensure your website always remains online. We offer a quality web hosting service, which will keep your website, not only live, but as safe and secure as possible.

My website has been hacked, can you help?

Definitely! Our web designers have a huge amount of technical knowledge. We don’t just build websites, we understand how they are put together from the database to the front end. If your website has been hacked please get in touch, we can conduct an audit and either deal with the hacked content there and then or at the very least best advise you on the next steps.

How much does a website cost?

The cost of a website is determined by many factors. Websites range in style and size. You may only need a simple one page website, or you may need a complex e-commerce website with several thousand products. The amount of designing you need can also impact on costs. It is always best to create a wish list or a brief so that we can give you accurate costs.

What is a domain name?

Your computer connects to a websites server via an IP address, which is a long string of numbers. A domain name is a friendly version of this IP address, so that users can easily remember and identify a website. You need both a domain name and hosting for your website to work.

If I ask for a quote, what happens next?

We will usually arrange a phone call or if your are based locally, a meeting to get things started. From this initial discussion we can find out more about your business, your audience and your marketing goals. We will put forward our recommendations from information gathered and if you’re happy with what we’ve said, we can put together a project proposal and move forward from there.