Website Design in Stoke-on-Trent
Looking for a website designer in Stoke-on-Trent? We design and build custom websites for Stoke-on-Trent businesses of every kind, from pottery makers and manufacturers to professional firms in Hanley and trades covering all six towns, working with you online from the first call to launch.
Web Design Services in Stoke-on-Trent
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 Stoke-on-Trent. 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.
Few people here say they live in Stoke-on-Trent. They live in Longton, Tunstall, Burslem or one of the other towns, and they search by that name, so website design in Stoke-on-Trent is built town by town. The site names your home town, sets out the others you travel to and devotes a page to each of the important ones, with Newcastle-under-Lyme alongside them. A website designer who treats the city as a single centre misses most of the searches your customers make.
Websites for Stoke-on-Trent Businesses
Stoke-on-Trent is a city of six towns, Hanley, Burslem, Tunstall, Stoke, Fenton and Longton, joined into one and still known as the Potteries. Ceramics remains a working industry: Emma Bridgewater in Hanley, Burleigh and Steelite at Middleport, Moorcroft in Burslem, Portmeirion in Stoke and Churchill China in Tunstall all make here. Hanley is the city centre, with the main shops, the theatres and the Smithfield offices. The betting company bet365 has its headquarters in the city, Michelin its commercial head office, and distribution centres have grown up along the main roads.
The six towns matter to anyone selling here, because residents still use them. People say they live in Longton or Tunstall rather than in Stoke-on-Trent, and they search the same way. Newcastle-under-Lyme, a separate town that adjoins the city, is part of the same everyday market. A business is therefore competing town by town rather than for a single centre. A website does best when it is clear about which of the towns you are based in, lists the others you serve and gives the main ones a page each, with Kidsgrove, Biddulph or Stone added if you travel that far.
Website Design by Sector in Stoke-on-Trent
How a website should work depends on what the business does. Each page below explains what a website for that kind of business in Stoke-on-Trent needs, how its customers search and the rules that apply in England.
Homes and Property
Victorian terraced streets, like those at Middleport, run through the six towns, and large council-built estates were added in the last century: Bentilee, between Hanley and Longton, is one of the biggest. Penkhull, on its hill above Stoke, is a conservation area, and Trentham on the southern edge has the feel of a village. Residents give their town or suburb, not the city, when they say where they live, and they expect a tradesperson, agent or architect to know one from another.
Professional and Business Services
Hanley is the main business centre, and the Smithfield development there includes the city council's own offices. Festival Park at Etruria combines offices with retail, and bet365 has its offices close by. Ceramics firms, Michelin, engineering companies and the distribution centres along the main roads give accountants, solicitors and recruiters a client base of manufacturers and employers of every size. Firms in neighbouring Newcastle-under-Lyme compete for the same work, so a website has to make specialisms and sectors clear from the first screen.
Hospitality and Retail
Pottery is what most visitors come for: the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery in Hanley, Gladstone Pottery Museum in Longton with its bottle ovens, Middleport Pottery, where Burleigh is still made, and Wedgwood, just south of the city at Barlaston. The Trentham Estate on the southern fringe adds gardens, a shopping village and a monkey forest. Hanley has the Regent Theatre, the Victoria Hall and the Potteries Shopping Centre. These are trips people plan in advance, so opening times, tickets and directions need to be easy to find.
Health, Care and Wellbeing
The Royal Stoke University Hospital at Hartshill is the main hospital for the area and the teaching hospital for Keele University's medical school, and the University of Staffordshire has its main campus at Shelton. Everyday demand is spread through the towns and suburbs, from Trentham and Meir to Tunstall, and people generally look for a dentist, physiotherapist, nursery, salon, gym or care provider in their own town first. Saying which town you are in, and which others you serve, is the first job of the website.
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 Stoke-on-Trent are made on a phone and a slow page loses the enquiry.
Local Search Foundations
Page titles written for the searches people in Stoke-on-Trent 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 Stoke-on-Trent
People rarely search for a business by city alone. In Stoke-on-Trent they search by district, in places such as Hanley, Longton, Burslem and Stoke, 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 Newcastle-under-Lyme, Kidsgrove and Biddulph, 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 Stoke-on-Trent
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
"After a poor experience with a previous SEO provider I consider myself very lucky to have engaged the services of digital pod. There has been a significant improvement to the number of visits to my Firm's website and the conversion rate from new enquiries is improving. My Firm is appearing on the first page of google searches, not bad for a start up business!"
"I would highly recommend digitalpod. Matthew has designed a brand for my company that I'm really happy with. I have a lot of customers who comment on how good my website is both visually and for ease of use."
"We are so pleased we used Digital pod to design our website and our branding, logo, stationery etc. From the very beginning Matthew was amazing. He listened to our ideas and perfectly translated them into designing the look and feel of our site, and our branding. He worked with us patiently despite our indecisiveness and happily changed and adapted elements at our request as we went along. He took the time to answer all our questions promptly, and made the whole project run smoothly. We are beyond delighted with the outcome and can't thank him enough."
Website Design in Stoke-on-Trent: Questions
Are you a website designer based in Stoke-on-Trent?
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 Stoke-on-Trent 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 Stoke-on-Trent?
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 Stoke-on-Trent?
We build the foundations local search depends on: a page for each service and each area you serve, such as Hanley, Longton, Burslem and Stoke, 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 Stoke-on-Trent 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 Stoke-on-Trent, 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 Stoke-on-Trent
We work with businesses across the West Midlands 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 Stoke-on-Trent Website
Tell us about your business in Stoke-on-Trent 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.