Straightforward answers about how I work, what projects typically cost, how long things take, and what to expect from working with MARS. If what you need is not here, the contact page is the fastest route to an honest answer.
The last site I built for a local business brought them 48% more clicks within three months. The one before that tripled their Google visibility. Here is what that kind of website actually costs, and what a cheap one costs you.
A professional website in the UK costs between £1,500 and £15,000. Where you land in that range comes down to three things: how many pages you need, what the site has to do, and who builds it.
Here is how I price projects at MARS:
| Project type | Price range |
|---|---|
| Single page | £1,500 to £2,000 |
| Small site, 5 to 8 pages | £3,000 to £4,000 |
| Larger site, 8 to 15 pages | £5,000 to £11,000 |
| Ecommerce or complex builds | £8,000 to £15,000 |
Ranges overlap because complexity varies. A simple ecommerce shop can be more straightforward than a large brochure site with custom functionality. You can see the full package breakdown on the custom WordPress websites page.
These are build prices. Hosting, maintenance and ongoing marketing are separate, and I have listed those below too.
A brochure site with a contact form is straightforward. A site that takes bookings, processes payments, integrates with a CRM or runs in two languages takes significantly more time.
If you arrive with everything written, photographed and organised, the build moves faster. If content needs creating from scratch, that is extra work, and it matters more than most people expect. A well-written, well-structured site outperforms a visually polished one with weak copy every time.
Template-based builds can look sharp and work well. Custom design built around your brand takes longer and costs more, and it gives you something nobody else has.
Structuring a site for search during the build costs very little. Retrofitting it onto a finished site costs a great deal. That is why every build I do includes the technical foundations from the first wireframe.
You can get a website for £500. Fiverr, a DIY builder, a junior freelancer. These are real options and they suit certain situations, particularly when you are testing an idea.
What they rarely give you is strategy. A cheap site might look fine. It probably will not be built around how people search for you, what they need to see before they trust you, or what action you want them to take. It will not be set up for Google properly, or load quickly enough to keep people on the page.
The cost of a website is rarely the website. It is what happens, or does not happen, because of it.
SJ Feist runs a plumbing and heating business in Hastings, just along the coast from my base in Eastbourne. Their old site was not quite pulling its weight as a lead generating tool. After a rebuild and some Google work, they saw 48% more clicks and three times the visibility in search.
Golden State Box Factory in San Diego came to me with a site that was not generating interest from prospective clients. After a full rebuild and search strategy, they had 83% more clicks and 170% more impressions. That is a US client finding a solo operator in East Sussex because the work speaks for itself.
IMP Sports Therapy in Hailsham needed more people booking appointments. The new site delivered 60% more form submissions three months after launch.
None of these were the most expensive projects I have done. They were well briefed, well built and set up to be found. You can see more of the work on the projects page, or read about how I work on the about page.
Before you sign anything, ask the person building your site:
That last one matters most. With no plan to measure performance, there is no way to know whether the investment paid off. There are five fuller questions in this piece on hiring a web designer or SEO, and a website audit is often the fastest way to find out what is working, whether you are building new or improving what you have.
Start with a free SEO audit. I will look at how your current site performs in search, what is holding it back, and what the opportunity looks like.
A small site typically takes four to six weeks from brief to launch. Larger or more complex builds run eight to twelve weeks. The biggest single factor is how quickly content and feedback come in.
Sometimes a full rebuild is the right call. Sometimes targeted improvements deliver most of the uplift at a fraction of the cost. A website audit is usually the fastest way to find out which situation you are in. There are ten signs worth checking in is it time to redesign your website.
Hosting, security, plugin updates and performance monitoring continue after launch. Maintenance plans start at £25 per month for essential upkeep and run to £500 per month for strategic support with performance and SEO monitoring. Hosting plans start at £15 per month, billed annually, with free migration and SSL included.
Every site I build is set up for search from day one. Proper technical foundations, page structure, metadata and speed. Ranking for competitive terms takes longer and usually involves ongoing SEO work, and the build gives you the right starting point.
Yes. MARS is based in Eastbourne, East Sussex, and current clients also include businesses in California and France. Most of the work happens remotely, and the results travel.
The Marketing Audit is a two hour session covering website, SEO, email, tracking and paid search, with a written action plan back within 48 hours. It costs £650 and it is designed to tell you what to do in what order, whether or not you build with me.
MARS is a digital marketing consultancy based in Eastbourne, East Sussex. I work with a small number of clients at a time, which means every project gets my full attention. If you are thinking about a new website or want to know what your current one is missing, the free SEO audit is the place to start.
Free
SEO Audit
