Website Design in Portsmouth
Looking for a website designer in Portsmouth? We design and build custom websites for Portsmouth businesses of every kind, from independent shops, bars and restaurants in Southsea to marine and defence suppliers and trades working across Portsea Island and the mainland, working with you online from the first call to launch.
Web Design Services in Portsmouth
DigitalPod is a UK-based design and web development studio that provides its web design services across the UK, including website design for businesses in Portsmouth. Your website designer starts with a blank page and works from your brand and your customers, and the same team then builds the site in-house, with no templates and no outsourcing. The studio specialises in startup website design and website redesigns, with a design degree and more than 15 years of industry experience behind it, and websites start from £2,400 wherever you are based.
Because one business can reach the whole of a compact city, clarity is the first task of website design in Portsmouth. Customers still think in neighbourhoods, whether Southsea, Fratton or Cosham, and expect the same firm to cover Gosport, Fareham, Havant and Waterlooville. We give each area you serve a page of its own, and for businesses that sell to visitors we make sure opening times, directions and booking can be found before anyone reaches the dockyard or the ferry.
Websites for Portsmouth Businesses
Portsmouth is the United Kingdom's only island city. Most of it sits on Portsea Island, with Cosham, Drayton, Farlington and Paulsgrove on the mainland below Portsdown Hill. The naval base, home to most of the Royal Navy's surface fleet and both of its aircraft carriers, has shaped the place for centuries, and BAE Systems, the international ferry port and the University of Portsmouth are large employers beside it. Gunwharf Quays and the Historic Dockyard bring visitors to the harbour, and Southsea has a seafront, shops and restaurants of its own.
Because the city is so compact, a business can reach all of it, but customers still think in neighbourhoods: a salon in Southsea, a garage in Fratton, a nursery in Cosham. Beyond the city boundary the same firm is often expected to cover Gosport, Fareham, Havant and Waterlooville, and it competes with businesses based there. So the areas a business serves belong on its website by name, and anyone selling to visitors needs to be found before they reach the dockyard, the ferry or the seafront.
Website Design by Sector in Portsmouth
How a website should work depends on what the business does. Each page below explains what a website for that kind of business in Portsmouth needs, how its customers search and the rules that apply in England.
Homes and Property
Victorian terraced houses are the dominant type of housing across most of Portsmouth, as in Fratton, with late Victorian and early twentieth-century streets in North End and inter-war housing in Copnor. Southsea adds late Georgian and early Victorian villas and terraces, many listed and inside a conservation area, and Old Portsmouth follows the street plan of the medieval town. Wartime bombing destroyed many houses, and estates such as Paulsgrove, on the mainland, were built afterwards. Newer homes include the residential tower at Gunwharf Quays and the housing around Port Solent marina.
Professional and Business Services
The naval base and the companies that support it, led by BAE Systems, give Portsmouth a large defence and marine engineering sector, and the international port handles ferries and cruise ships. Away from the harbour, Lakeside North Harbour at Cosham is a business campus in landscaped grounds, on the site that was once IBM's UK headquarters, and the council's Civic Offices are in Guildhall Square. Professional firms here also serve Gosport, Fareham and Havant, so a website should say which sectors it knows and which parts of the Solent it covers.
Hospitality and Retail
Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, with HMS Victory, HMS Warrior and the Mary Rose, is among the city's most popular attractions, and nearby Gunwharf Quays combines a designer outlet with restaurants, bars and a cinema beneath the Spinnaker Tower. Southsea has the Common, two piers, Southsea Castle, the D-Day Story and the Victorious Festival, with independent shops, bars and restaurants around Albert Road, Palmerston Road and Osborne Road. Ferries and the hovercraft leave for the Isle of Wight and the Continent, so many visitors decide where to eat and stay in advance.
Health, Care and Wellbeing
Queen Alexandra Hospital, at the foot of Portsdown Hill in Cosham, is the large NHS hospital for Portsmouth and south-east Hampshire, and the University of Portsmouth's teaching buildings and student accommodation are concentrated around the Guildhall. Many residents live in terraced streets with several dentists, salons, gyms and nurseries close by, in Southsea, Fratton and North End, while Cosham's High Street serves the suburbs on the mainland. With so much choice so near, reviews, opening hours and online booking decide who gets the call.
What Every Website We Build Includes
Custom Design, No Templates
Designed from a blank page around your brand and your customers, and approved by you before any code is written.
Fast on Every Phone
Hand-coded for speed, because most local searches in Portsmouth are made on a phone and a slow page loses the enquiry.
Local Search Foundations
Page titles written for the searches people in Portsmouth make, service and area pages, and details that match your Google Business Profile.
Bookings, Quotes and Members
Online booking, quote forms, member areas and payments where your business needs them, built in rather than bolted on.
Update It Yourself
An optional admin dashboard, so you can add services, news, listings or photographs without calling a developer.
Hosting and Support
Managed cloud hosting from £20 a month, or take the code and host it yourself. The website is yours either way.
Getting Found in Portsmouth
People rarely search for a business by city alone. In Portsmouth they search by district, in places such as Southsea, Cosham, Fratton and North End, and by the towns around it, so a website that wants local customers needs a page for each service and each place it serves, written for that place rather than copied with the name changed.
We plan that structure with you before the design starts: which districts and nearby towns, such as Gosport, Fareham and Havant, are worth a page, which services people look for, and how the site should match your Google Business Profile. Our guide to getting a new website found on Google explains what to do after launch. We do not promise rankings, which also depend on reviews and competition, and ongoing search engine optimisation is available as a separate service.
What a Website Costs in Portsmouth
Our prices are published and do not change with your postcode. A custom-designed website of up to around ten pages starts from £2,400, a website with an admin dashboard from £3,900, and managed cloud hosting from £20 a month if you would like us to run the site for you.
- Startup Website from £2,400
- Website + Admin Dashboard from £3,900
- Managed Cloud Hosting from £20 per month
Agencies commonly quote £6,000 to £20,000 or more for a comparable small business website, while experienced freelancers and small studios typically charge £2,000 to £6,000. With us, payment is a 50% deposit with the balance on completion, and the finished website, its design and its code are yours. See the full website design prices or, for a new business, startup website design prices.
What Clients Say
"I would recommend Digital pod as I am very pleased with the website they designed for me."
"Been working with Matthew at DigitalPod to apply and build upon our existing website. Our business needs to display the artwork and present it really well for our client, DigitalPod have completed every task we have asked of them and more. We have in the past suffered from bad website developers yet Matthew and his company are a total delight to work with and I can Highly recommend him and his company. We have also intrusted them to keep working on our website also to complete SEO projects and look forward to a long business relationship. Thank you very much indeed to DigitalPod."
"We required a designer to take our initial vision and develop a website for our company that would be extremely easy to use and would be most appealing to our intended market.Digital pod were an excellent choice and were extremely helpful through the entire process.The end result is something that we are all very proud of and has greatly helped our business expand into a wider market place."
Website Design in Portsmouth: Questions
Are you a website designer based in Portsmouth?
No. DigitalPod is a UK-based design and web development studio that provides its web design services across the UK, and we work with businesses in Portsmouth entirely online, over video calls, email and shared documents. You review designs and the test site in your browser and give feedback in writing, so nothing is lost between conversations. Where your website designer is based has no bearing on the quality of the website, and our prices are the same wherever you are.
How much does a website cost in Portsmouth?
The same as anywhere else in the UK. Our websites start from £2,400 for a custom-designed site of up to around ten pages, and from £3,900 with an admin dashboard so you can update it yourself. Managed cloud hosting is from £20 a month. Agencies commonly quote £6,000 to £20,000 or more for a comparable small business site, while experienced freelancers and small studios typically charge £2,000 to £6,000.
Can you help my business get found in Portsmouth?
We build the foundations local search depends on: a page for each service and each area you serve, such as Southsea, Cosham, Fratton and North End, page titles written for the searches people make, fast loading on a phone and details that match your Google Business Profile. Nobody can honestly promise a position on Google, because rankings also depend on your reviews and the competition. Ongoing search engine optimisation is available as a separate service.
What kinds of business in Portsmouth do you work with?
Any business that needs a website to win customers. We have built sites for solicitors, recruitment companies, trades and service businesses, e-commerce stores and membership organisations, and we have researched what a website needs in twenty sectors, from plumbers and accountants to restaurants, dentists and care homes. Each has its own page for Portsmouth, listed above. If your kind of business is not among them, tell us what you do.
How long does a website take?
Most websites take three to six weeks from brief to launch, provided your content is ready. We give you a realistic completion date once the visuals are approved, and if you are working to a deadline we can suggest a focused first version to launch quickly and build on.
More answers in our FAQ. Starting a new business? See startup web design. Replacing a site that has dated? See website redesign. Or go to the DigitalPod home page for our portfolio and services.
Website Design Near Portsmouth
We work with businesses across the South East and the rest of the UK. These are the nearest cities with a page of their own.
Guides to Planning and Costing a Website
Start Your Portsmouth Website
Tell us about your business in Portsmouth and what the website needs to do, or book a call with our senior software engineer to talk it through. Everything runs online, and we reply personally with a clear, fixed price.