Websites for small businesses in Porthcawl.
I'm Huw. I build sites for small businesses and sole traders in Porthcawl. I can help acquire and setup your domain, the hosting and your custom email.
It's just me, so you deal with the same person the whole way through.
For most sites I build, there's no ongoing monthly cost once it's live, that includes no hosting cost. You'll see some other agencies charge a monthly ongoing fee to keep your site live, with me, you only pay when you actually need something.
- Where I live
- About 15 minutes from Bridgend
- Also covering
- Porthcawl and the rest of Bridgend County Borough, including Nottage, Newton, Kenfig, South Cornelly, North Cornelly, Pyle, Kenfig Hill, Cefn Cribwr.
Two different years
Porthcawl has a summer and a winter and they’re not the same business. Easter to September the caravan parks are full and the front is busy. Come October the same cafe is doing a fraction of the trade. The Elvis festival is the last weekend in September, so that’s one more weekend where you can’t park.
Most sites here only show the summer version, and most of them were last updated in August when nobody needed convincing.
The bit that actually loses money is opening hours. If Google still says 9 to 5 and you’ve been shutting at 3 since half term, someone drives over from Bridgend, finds the shutters down and leaves a review about it.
Visitors search differently to locals
Someone in a caravan at Trecco Bay doesn’t know one end of town from the other. They type “dog friendly cafe Porthcawl” or “breakfast near Rest Bay”, look at the map and pick from the top three. Rest Bay, Newton, Nottage and the harbour are the words that matter, not just Porthcawl.
Locals search once and keep your number. Visitors search every time, on a phone, and mostly in the map rather than the websites underneath it. I’ll setup the site so it works for both.
What I’d build
Four or five plain pages. Seaside businesses have a lot of photos and photos are what make a site slow, so I’ll sort those before they go up. The site will load fine on two bars in the seafront car park.
Enquiries here come in late, someone on a caravan bed at 10pm. They need to reach you and not a spam folder. If you take bookings I’ll tell you straight whether you need anything building or whether the system you already pay for is fine.
Coming down
Porthcawl’s 15 minutes from me so I’ll come to you. An hour in your place with your phone on the table and I’ll have the photos, the hours and the questions customers keep asking.
After that it’s messages and the odd call, and I’ll come back down when there’s something worth looking at.
Hosting and email
For most sites I build there's no ongoing hosting cost and no monthly retainer. The domain renews once a year at list price, no commission from me, and it's registered in your name so you can take it elsewhere whenever you want.
Email goes on your own custom domain, setup properly so what you send lands in the inbox rather than the spam folder.
What I'd build for a business in Porthcawl
These read differently depending on the trade, so there's a page for each with the searches your customers make and what the site has to do about them.
See where your site stands first
Put your address into the free check and it tells you where the site's hosted, what it's built with, what a search engine actually gets and whether your email is setup right. Takes about ten seconds, nothing is installed and nothing on your site is touched. Run the free check.
If you'd rather read about how I build first, here's the web design page, and here are five things to ask anyone quoting you. You can also see everywhere else I work.
Tell me what you need in Porthcawl.
Say what you're trying to achieve and I'll tell you what I'd do, including when the answer is you don't need a new site at all.