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Whitespace Digital

Web design & development · Surrey and Hampshire

Websites that make it easy to choose your business.

We design, build and look after fast, secure websites for local businesses, trades and professional practices. Clear pricing, a realistic timescale, and someone who answers the telephone afterwards.
The curved aluminium façade of a modern building, its slatted surface fading into clear sky
  • Over a decade in practice

    Building and looking after business websites since 2013, for clients who cannot afford downtime.

  • Security from the start

    Hardened hosting, patching and monitoring are part of the build, not an upgrade you buy later.

  • Live in weeks, not months

    A focused site for a small business is usually designed, built and launched inside four weeks.

  • One point of contact

    You speak to the person doing the work. No account managers, no ticket queues, no hold music.

The problem with most business websites

A quiet website costs more than a slow one

Plenty of small business websites look acceptable and still fail to do their job. They load slowly on a phone, bury the telephone number, run five years of unpatched plugins, and leave the owner unsure who to ring when something breaks.

We take the opposite approach. Start with what the customer needs to know, make it obvious and quick to reach, then keep the whole thing maintained so it stays that way. The result is a site that earns enquiries instead of quietly losing them.

  • Slow on a real phone

    Pre-rendered pages, optimised images and almost no unnecessary JavaScript. Fast on 4G in a car park, not just on office broadband.

  • Hard to get in touch

    One obvious next step on every page, a telephone number that dials with a tap, and a form that takes seconds rather than minutes.

  • Quietly insecure

    Modern hosting, security headers, no abandoned plugins, and updates applied as part of the monthly fee rather than when something goes wrong.

  • Nobody to call

    A named person who knows your site, answers the telephone, and can make a change the same week you ask for it.

What we do

Six services, one studio

Most clients start with a new website and stay for the looking after. Everything is delivered in-house, so nothing gets lost between suppliers.
  • Website Design

    Clear, calm design that puts the next step in front of the customer instead of hiding it.

    • A structure built around what your customers are actually trying to do
    • Page designs reviewed in the browser on your own phone, not as flat images
    • Typography, spacing and colour that meet WCAG 2.2 AA contrast requirements
  • Website Development

    Fast, secure builds on modern foundations, with content you can edit yourself.

    • Pages pre-rendered to static HTML, so they arrive almost instantly
    • A content editor you can use without training or a monthly licence fee
    • Forms that resist spam and deliver enquiries straight into your CRM
  • Managed Websites

    One monthly fee covering hosting, security, updates, monitoring and the changes you need.

    • Hosting, domains, certificates and backups all handled and all in your name
    • Updates and security patches applied without you having to ask
    • Uptime monitoring, so we usually know about a problem before you do
  • Website Security

    Secure business websites built to resist the attacks that actually happen.

    • An architecture with no database, no admin login and nothing executing on request
    • Security headers and a content security policy configured and verified
    • Forms hardened against spam, injection and cross-site request forgery
  • Website Maintenance

    Scheduled care that stops small problems becoming expensive ones.

    • Updates and patches applied on a schedule and verified afterwards
    • Backups taken off-site and restores tested rather than assumed
    • Broken links, failing forms and console errors found before customers find them
  • Website Performance Optimisation

    Measured, methodical work to make pages load quickly on real devices.

    • A diagnosis based on real-user data, not just a lab score
    • Largest contentful paint, layout shift and interaction delay addressed specifically
    • Images, fonts, CSS and JavaScript reduced to what the page genuinely needs

Why choose Whitespace Digital

Experienced, careful and straightforward to deal with

We are a small studio by choice. It means the person you brief is the person who builds your site, and the standards below are the same on a five-page brochure site as on a fifty-page one.
  • A fixed price, agreed in writing

    You get a written scope and a fixed figure before anything begins. If the brief changes, we talk about it first — you will never receive an invoice you were not expecting.

  • Secure by default

    Every site ships with HTTPS, a content security policy, hardened headers, spam-resistant forms and automatic backups. Managed clients get patching and uptime monitoring as well.

  • Built to load quickly

    Pages are pre-rendered and served from a global network, images are optimised automatically, and we measure Core Web Vitals on real devices rather than trusting a score in a dashboard.

  • Accessible as standard

    We build to WCAG 2.2 AA: proper headings, keyboard support, sensible contrast and forms that work with a screen reader. It widens your audience and reduces your legal exposure.

  • Findable without gimmicks

    Clean markup, structured data, sensible URLs, fast pages and content written for the searches your customers actually make. No keyword stuffing, no link schemes.

  • Looked after long term

    Most clients stay with us for years. Managed plans cover hosting, updates, small changes and someone at the end of the telephone when something needs attention.

Included as standard

No upgrades, no add-ons

The things below are not optional extras. They are what a professional website needs in order to work, so they are in every project we quote.
  • Design and build for every screen size, from 320px upwards
  • Content management you can actually use, with no licence fees
  • HTTPS, security headers and hardened forms on every site
  • Optimised images, fonts and code for fast first loads
  • Structured data, sitemaps and clean, crawlable markup
  • Accessibility tested with a keyboard and a screen reader
  • Analytics-ready without tracking visitors by default
  • Training, documentation and a named person to call

How a project runs

Four stages, no surprises

You always know what is happening, what it costs and what we need from you next.
  1. 01

    Conversation

    A short call or meeting to understand the business, the customers and what the site has to achieve. No charge, no obligation.

  2. 02

    Proposal

    A written plan: sitemap, page-by-page scope, timescale and a fixed price. You know exactly what you are buying before you commit.

  3. 03

    Design and build

    Design in the browser rather than flat mock-ups, so you review the real thing on your own phone. Content, build and testing run alongside each other.

  4. 04

    Launch and look after

    We migrate, test, launch and monitor. Then we keep the site patched, backed up and improving, with changes handled as you need them.

Tell us about your project

Send a few details and we will come back with honest advice, a realistic timescale and a fixed price. No obligation, no sales pressure.

From the blog

Practical guidance, plainly written

What we have learnt building and maintaining business websites — useful whether you work with us or not.

Common questions

The things people ask before they get in touch

If your question is not here, ring 01420 446331 and ask. We will give you a straight answer.

Do we own the website when it is finished?

Yes, entirely. On final payment you own the design, the code, the content and the domain. The hosting account and the code repository are set up in your name with you as the owner, and we work inside them.

That means if you ever want to move to another supplier, you revoke our access and everything stays exactly where it is. Nothing has to be exported, rebuilt or bought back. You also receive written handover documentation covering how the site is deployed, where the environment variables live and how the content model works.

We would much rather you stayed because the service is good than because leaving would be painful.

How much does a website cost?

For most of the businesses we work with, a professionally designed and built website falls between £2,500 and £7,500. A focused five to eight page site for a local business or trade usually sits at the lower end; a larger site for a professional practice with detailed service pages, an article library and integrations sits higher.

We quote a single fixed price once the scope is agreed in writing, so the figure you see is the figure you pay. If the brief changes during the project we discuss it and re-quote before doing the work — you will never receive an invoice you were not expecting.

If your budget is below that range, say so. Sometimes the right answer is a smaller site now and a second phase later, and we would rather build something good within your means than stretch you into something you cannot afford.

What is a managed website?

A managed website is one where we take responsibility for keeping it working, for a fixed monthly fee. That covers hosting, domains, certificates, backups, software updates, security patching, uptime monitoring and an allowance of content and design changes each month.

The point is accountability. Most websites deteriorate because nobody in particular is responsible for them: certificates expire, software falls behind, forms quietly stop delivering enquiries, and content drifts out of date. On a managed plan those are our problem rather than yours, and you have a named person to ring.

There is no minimum term. Plans run month to month with a month's notice on either side.

Do you only work with businesses in Surrey and Hampshire?

No. We are based near Farnham and a good proportion of our clients are within an hour's drive — Farnham, Alton, Guildford, Godalming, Basingstoke, Aldershot, Farnborough, Petersfield and the surrounding towns — but we work with businesses across the UK.

Being nearby is genuinely useful at the start of a project, because it is much quicker to understand a business over a cup of tea than over email, and we will happily come to you. After that, most of the work happens remotely regardless of where you are.

If you are further afield and would rather meet, a video call at the outset achieves most of the same thing.

How long does a new website take?

A focused business website is typically designed, built and launched in three to four weeks from the point the scope is agreed. Larger sites with many service pages, location pages or integrations take six to ten weeks.

The single biggest variable is content. Projects that run late almost always do so because the words and photographs were not ready, not because of the build. We plan for that: we help shape the copy while the build progresses, and we tell you early exactly what we need from you and when.

If you have a hard deadline — a trade show, a rebrand, a lease ending — tell us at the outset. We will either commit to it or tell you honestly that it is not realistic.

Start a conversation

Tell us about your project

A few details are enough to get a useful answer. We will read it properly, look at what you have now, and reply with honest advice — even if that advice is that you do not need us.

  • A reply within one working dayUsually the same day. You will hear from the person who would do the work, not a sales team.
  • A fixed price before anything startsWe quote for the whole project, in writing, with the scope set out plainly. No hourly surprises.
  • Local, if that matters to youWe work with businesses across Surrey and Hampshire, and further afield. Meetings in person or online.

Prefer to talk?

Telephone: 01420 446331

Monday to Friday, 9am to 5.30pm. Near Farnham, Surrey.

A trading name is fine if you are a sole trader.

Useful if you would rather we called you back.

If you already have a site we will review it before we reply. Leave this blank if you are starting from scratch.

What the site needs to do, what is not working now, anything you have already ruled out. A couple of sentences is plenty.

Or call 01420 446331

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