Design
Real WordPress sites we built for small businesses, from an electrician to a watch dealer, with what each one had to do and what to look for when browsing examples.
Most WordPress website examples you find online are showcase pieces for agencies with enormous budgets, or template demos filled with placeholder text. Useful if you are a designer, less useful if you run a plumbing business and want to know what your money actually buys.
These are real WordPress sites we designed and built for small businesses, all live, all working. For each one there is a note on what the site had to do and what we would point at if you were deciding what your own needs.
WordPress runs a large share of the web, and the reason is not that it is the newest option. It is that you own the result. Your site is not tied to one company’s subscription, you can move it to a different host, and you can hand it to a different developer without starting again.
The trade-off is that it needs looking after: updates, backups and security are your responsibility rather than a platform’s. If you would rather not think about that at all, a hosted builder is a legitimate choice, and we compared the options in Wix vs WordPress vs Squarespace.
An electrician working out of Ramsgate. The whole site is built around one problem: making a stranger comfortable enough to ring an electrician they have never met. That means real photos rather than stock, clear coverage of the area, and the phone number never more than a thumb away.
Worth looking at if your business lives or dies on trust and local reputation. Read the full case study, or see how we approach web design in Thanet.
A heating engineer covering southeast Kent. Every service has its own page rather than one page listing everything, which is the single most useful structural decision a trade website can make, because it matches how people actually search. Somebody looking for a boiler replacement does not search “plumber”.
In their words, the phone actually rings now. See the case study or web design in Folkestone.
A used van and commercial vehicle dealer in Sandwich, with stock that turns over weekly. The interesting problem here was not design, it was maintenance: a listing that the owners can keep current themselves without ringing us every time a van sells.
Worth looking at if your site has to show something that changes constantly. Read the case study or see web design in Dover.
A double glazing installer covering Kent. Five pages built from their own job photos and their grey and orange branding, with the contact form going to their inbox and click to call and WhatsApp on every page. We also set up their business email and wrote them a guide to getting on Google Maps.
Worth looking at for the timeline as much as the design. Their first message reached us on 25 July, three homepage designs went back on 27 July, the full five page draft followed on 31 July and the site was live on 4 August. Ten days from first contact to live. Charles, who runs it, said: “Website looks absolutely amazing” and, on the turnaround, “thanks for a supa quick service and professional website”.
An independent watch dealer in Canterbury, buying and selling Rolex, Tudor and TAG Heuer. Two jobs on one site: an online shop, and a clear route for people who want to sell a watch rather than buy one. High value purchases need a lot of reassurance before anyone gets in touch, and most of the design work went there.
The part you cannot see from the front is the one that mattered most to the owner. He moved here from Wix, where listing a watch was slow enough to put him off doing it. He now has a private stock room built into the site: add a watch from his phone with several photos, a price and a stock number, hit publish, and it is on the site straight away. When one sells, he enters the tracking number and the customer is emailed automatically. The site takes card, Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPal.
Leigh, who runs it, put the working relationship better than we would: “Can I just say Jake u have been a pleasure so far.”
See the case study or web design in Canterbury.
An online store for a research supplier, built around cold chain shipping and strict compliance. A good example of WordPress handling a technical product without making it complicated to buy, which is usually where specialist shops go wrong.
Luxury watches, London based. Proof that WordPress does not have to look like WordPress. The design brief was that the site should feel as premium as the stock, because buyers judge the seller by the shop window.
Solar and battery storage, fitting everything from a 14 panel family home to a 600 kW school rooftop. A wide range of customer sizes on one site, with the whole thing pointed at a single action: booking a survey. Worth looking at if you sell something people research for months before buying.
Different industries, different budgets, same handful of decisions.
| Decision | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| One page per service | Matches how people search. One page listing eight services ranks for none of them |
| Real photography | Stock images of people who do not work there are the fastest way to look like everyone else |
| One clear next step | Every page points at the same ask, rather than offering three equal options |
| Built for a phone first | Most visitors arrive on a small screen, often outdoors and in a hurry |
| The owner can update it | A site nobody can edit goes out of date, and out of date is worse than plain |
It is easy to judge a site on whether you like the colours. More useful questions:
Run those five questions over your own site as well. If any answer is uncomfortable, our website audit checklist covers the rest.
Less than most people expect. These are small business websites rather than corporate builds, quoted as one fixed price for the whole job before any work starts. We set out the detail in how much a website costs.
Every site on this page is one we designed and built ourselves, and every one is live. We have linked them so you can open them and judge for yourself rather than take our word for it, which is the only sensible way to read an agency’s own examples. The notes under each are what the business actually needed rather than what we found clever about the build.
Two things we have left out on purpose. There is no gallery of concepts that never launched, because a design nobody has to run is easy to make look good. And this is not everything we have built over the past year, only the sites whose owners are happy to be named. Several of the newer ones are not on here yet for that reason.
You can see more of the work in our case studies. If you want something along these lines for your own business, that is exactly what we do: web design for small business, with the words written for you and the site and domain in your name. Tell us what you need and we will come back the same working day.
The examples in this article are all real sites we designed and built: an electrician in Ramsgate, a heating engineer in southeast Kent, a used van dealer in Sandwich, an independent watch dealer in Canterbury, a research supplier's online shop, a London watch dealer and a solar installer. Different industries, but the same handful of design decisions behind each.
Because you own the result. Your site is not tied to one company's subscription, you can move it to a different host, and you can hand it to a different developer without starting again. The trade-off is that updates, backups and security become your responsibility rather than a platform's.
No. Most of the sites in this article would not be identified as WordPress by a visitor. The platform decides how the site is managed behind the scenes, not how it looks, and a site built from a custom design looks like your business rather than like a template.
One page per service rather than one page listing everything, real photography instead of stock images, one clear next step on every page, a layout built for phones first, and an owner who can update it without paying every time. Those five decisions matter more than the visual style.
For a small business site, less than most people expect, and it should be quoted as one fixed price for the whole job agreed before any work starts. What moves the number is how many pages you need, whether you are selling online, and how much of the content already exists.
Yes, and you should be able to. Changing text, prices and photos without breaking anything is a reasonable expectation, and any designer should show you how before launch. If you would rather not deal with the updates and backups behind the scenes, a maintenance plan covers that side separately.
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