Creative Website Design Bristol - Bespoke, fast and SEO optimised web design and development.

A WordPress website uses a free, open-source website development code that accounts for around 40% of the internet and is supported by an entire global community. WordPress incorporates one of the most accessible CMS (Content Management System) platforms available, giving users the freedom to create anything they desire, even online shopping sites with the additional option of an extremely robust E-commerce solution provided by WooCommerce.

At Red Thread Creative our developers are able to harness WordPress to design and build completely bespoke websites that are cost-effective and transferable for the benefit of our clients. This means we can work with just about any budget and will never hold a gun to a client’s head after the website is launched.

This depends very much on whether we are developing a Portfolio/Brochure website, Interactive or E-Commerce website, or both should be accommodated.

For a multi-page Portfolio website, we would need to decide on the number of pages based on Category navigation, sub-navigation and even sub-sub-navigation. Complex functionality issues, animation, app-integration (calendars, booking/enquiry forms, social media etc) may also need to be considered. This could also entail building a more complex or bespoke CMS. Image carousels, competitor research and keyword recommendations may also be needed. For a complex website (development only) of approximately 30 to 50 pages, we would recommend a budget of between £6,000 and £8,000.

For E-Commerce development using WooCommerce, the parameters are much wider still but can still be achieved cost-effectively if all parties are happy to invest sufficient planning time at the start. This will ensure that the brief becomes concrete, project scope is maintained and expectations are met. Depending on the number and nature of the products involved, filtering requirements, online customer account management, payment gateways and bespoke (outside of standard WooCommerce) development and CMS, costs can add up to anywhere between £10,000 and £100,000 or more.

While it doesn’t cost extra to embed YouTube or Vemio videos on your website, it is different if you plan to host your own video. Hosting videos on your own website uses up valuable resources such as server space and the amount of data allowance you have with your hosting package. Luckily, because you are using WordPress there are some amazing video hosting services provided by the creators of WordPress which offer unlimited video hosting from just £15.92 per month using their plugin Jetpack.

Development time depends heavily on the design, functionality and goals of the website. Firstly you shouldn’t under-estimate the amount of work that goes into even the smallest websites. To design and build even a small 3 to 5 page portfolio website could take weeks. If you then consider a large E-commerce website with lot’s of bespoke features and bespoke applications you can expect to wait a couple of months.

Shared hosting is exactly that, you share it with many other businesses. Expect service to range in quality depending on who you choose to host your website. Just because a hosting provider has ‘FAST’ in their branding, it does not mean that they are very good at hosting and the same goes for providers that advertise ‘dedicated WordPress hosting’, they are also guilty of offering poor shared hosting. However, if you choose the best shared hosting that Red Thread Creative offers, you won’t have to worry about speed as our managed hosting packages provided by Siteground are simply the best you can find.

Cloud hosting delivers guaranteed resources, such as RAM and CPUs, if your website has outgrown a shared hosting solution. The Cloud hosting platform offers powerful dedicated resources and is optimized for efficiency and speed that guarantees a top performance of your site. Best of all is that it is scalable and you can increase the resources as your website grows. However, that does come with a price and this service starts at £48.00 per month and grows to £144.00 per month.

A domain name is the address of your website that is typed into the browser URL bar to visit your website. In simple terms, if your website was a house, then your domain name would be its address.

A detailed explanation of what a domain name is:

The Internet is a network of computers connected to each other through a global network of cables. Each computer on this network can communicate with other computers. To identify each computer, they are assigned an IP address, this is a series of numbers that identify a particular computer on the internet. A typical IP address looks like this: 66.249.**.* Now an IP address like this is quite difficult to remember. Imagine if you had to use such numbers to visit your favourite websites. Domain names were invented to solve this problem.

Every website designed and built needs to have a domain name in order to get it published online. If you are unsure which domain name registrar you need to buy from, then leave it to us to purchase your domain name. This will also help with upgrades to your website later on, such as a transition from shared hosting to cloud hosting. The upgrade would be seamless, which is not the case for external domain names, meaning your website coming offline for at least 24 hours.

You can keep an existing email address with your new website and any domain transfer, However, we have found that this usually make’s people uncomfortable because that infamous word ‘back-up’ is used, which puts most people into a bit of a panic. We recommend to everyone that they must back-up their existing email before any changes are made. If a link to a hosting provider is cut, then email history will be lost. Most website hosting today comes with email. However, there is a caveat, the webmail service offered with hosting eats away at your storage allowance. There are also risks of website hosting disruption when changing hosting provider, which would make your emails inaccessible. It is one of the reasons we are starting to recommend clients choose Microsoft Exchange to host their emails, with plans starting at just £3 per month:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/exchange/compare-microsoft-exchange-online-plans

A portfolio website is typically designed to provide business information and services and doesn’t include any other bespoke functions. Because we use WordPress to develop websites, a blogging function is included. This can be adapted to become a way to publish news and content onto your website without having to create new pages with the help of a developer.

The main difference between a portfolio website and an e-commerce website is that an E-commerce website mainly deals with presenting and selling products and handling transactions online. Portfolio websites shouldn’t do anything other than inform visitors by presenting information about the business.

In digital marketing, landing pages are stand-alone web pages, created specifically for marketing or advertising campaigns. It is where the visitor “lands” after they click on a link in an email, or somewhere else on the internet, such as an advert seen on Google or Social media.

A content management system or ‘CMS’ is software that is used to build websites and upload content to be published on the internet. Typically a CMS allows you to create a website without having to write code.

In the early days of the web, you needed to know some code to be able to make a website and publish your content online.  While it has gotten a lot easier to make a website using a CMS it is not without pitfalls and can be frustrating when you cannot achieve what you want. That is where Red Thread Creative comes to the rescue by helping clients take back control of their websites. We’ll develop the WordPress CMS to the point where clients can change and manage their website’s content.

Websites built using WordPress do require updating. Sometimes this is because of the continuing development of the platform and a ceaseless quest for improvement. It is truly amazing how WordPress continues to develop better built-in features, meaning fewer addons and bespoke code, which is a good thing. Another reason for regular updates is security.

There are a lot of bad people out there just wanting to ruin anything good. Luckily WordPress stays on top of any new threats. Another reason WordPress requires maintenance is the use of plugins. We use plugins to handle a wide range of functions, covering all manner of services, like commerce, SEO implementation, visitor analytics and much, much more.

Yes. We’d prefer your existing website is built with WordPress, but it can be updated and changed regardless of how it was made. We will take a look at any existing website and then provide a list of available options.

Well, this is tricky because testing is needed. The website might have been developed using outdated methods, or it may have been built poorly and be full of errors due to the ever-changing world of web development. If the website is a WordPress website that was built using an old theme or with plugins that are no longer supported by their developers, this could also be the cause of a website stopping. Another thing to consider is poor website hosting. Some website owners opt for cheap hosting or even free hosting and then wonder why their website barely loads. We cannot stress enough the importance of high-quality hosting for your website development.

Absolutely. We, like most web designers, develop a mobile version of your website and test exclusively for mobile devices. There are the rare occasions when website code is interpreted differently by a certain device or browser and Red Thread Creative will aim to find solutions to solve these issues when they arise. We’re glad that it is almost never.

A search engine is what drives the browsers, where we search online for the answers we seek.

Your website has to be readable by the search engines. Every page on your website will be read by a search engine to determine whether it is relevant to a specific search. If you provide information on a service or answer to a question then your website will appear on Google. Depending on how well you provide that information, determines how easily you will be found.

Reaching page 1 of Google is the goal of millions of businesses on the internet today. There are many ways to improve your ranking position on search results in Google or Safari, Yahoo etc. The key is to provide accurate, helpful information to people seeking and searching for that information. Keep your content updated, well written and supported by imagery and video and you will be well on your way to reaching page 1 results in searches.

This depends on your requirements. For those with ability and time to administer their own websites, the costs would be minimal, such as continuing to pay for your hosting, email and domain names. You must also consider any plugins used on your website that usually require a yearly license fee in order to maintain bespoke functions with ongoing updates that are required as WordPress continues to be improved and developed. Costs are never hidden by Red Thread Creative and are always introduced when scoping out projects. Cost approval up-front is the only way we design and build websites.

Simply put, yes you can. Red Thread Creative can help with website transfers; this depends on the support of the existing providers though. If the existing team has jumped ship it might be impossible to complete a transfer and the only next step would be to start over.

You do. If you asked us to buy your domain name, the domain name belongs to you. If you’ve asked us to design and build your website, in the end, the final product belongs to you. While the managed hosting we provide is ours, the files and database are yours.

The first step is to decide what you want your website to communicate and also what you want it to do. i.e. increase enquiries, enable bookings or sell products. What available content exists and what needs to be created? Search online to find out what your competitors have done. What can you do better? Remember, this is a very competitive arena and how you present your business and how easy you make it for your customers to do business with you, will determine how well you are perceived.

Don’t be afraid to step outside the box though. Have a friendly, no-obligation chat with Red Thread Creative and together we’ll create something special, that presents you brilliantly and performs amazingly!