Web developer in Oxford: service pages that name your published work
I'm a web developer in Oxford for consultancies, publishers and professional practices, and I design and build from Kolkata, India. The first version holds a page for every service you sell, an About page and a contact page, each one a line in the written scope.
Overview
Who reads it, and from where
Whoever buys from a consultancy or a publisher may sit in another city, or another country, and decides on what you've done. I write each piece of published work up with its title and year. Where a client can't be named, I describe the kind of organisation instead. If a piece was written with a co-author or for a client, the write-up says so.
Each one can be looked up.
There's a second trade in the city, too. For visitors I write a short page that loads quickly and says how to book, in a plainer voice. Directions and a booking link come first there, and the consultancy material stays off it entirely.
Side by side
About page or service page: which carries what?
Your history still matters to a buyer, because it says who they'd be dealing with. It just has a different job from the pages that sell each service.
| What it holds | The About page | Each service page |
|---|---|---|
| Its subject | How the practice began and who runs it | One kind of work you do for clients |
| Its evidence | Your history and your people | Reports, books and projects, each with its year |
| What it asks next | To read on | To get in touch about that service |
What moves the number
Which parts add to the job?
Writing up published work takes the most care, because each write-up is checked against the original. The rest doesn't add as much.
- 01How many pieces of published work get a write-up of their own
- 02Filters for the publications list, by topic or year
- 03A contact route for buyers in other countries, by email or a booking link
- 04A page for each person who advises clients
- 05Old publication links that need to keep working
- 06An About page rewritten, or kept as it stands
One service page sets the pattern
Name the service you most want enquiries for when we talk, and its page is drafted first. The others follow its pattern, so you'll approve the approach once, on the page that matters most to you.
What a scope from me looks like
Scoped for a consultancy or publisher
Included
- A written scope: every page and feature as its own line, agreed before work starts
- Design to build, reviewed on a staging URL that stays open the whole project
- Mobile first — checked on a real phone
- Domain, hosting and every account created in your name from day one
- A write-up for each piece of published work you choose
- Basic on-page SEO: titles, descriptions, headings, sitemap, Search Console connected
- A runbook at handover: how to edit it, what renews and when
Phase two
- A case-study layout once there are several write-ups to hold
- An author page for each person who writes for the practice
- Ongoing SEO once the site has traffic to read
- A maintenance plan once the site is live
- Logo and brand design, quoted separately from the build
Not doing
- Guaranteed rankings
Where this comes from
Where the work is done
Each build is run remotely, from Kolkata, India, and I stay your contact throughout. The team works on your schedule, in your time zone.
The work so far: 900+ projects completed since 2017.
Nearby
Bristol's makers and Cambridge's spin-outs
Bristol's page is about shops that name the makers behind their stock. Cambridge's covers spin-outs setting out their team, their research and their stage.
FAQ
Consultancy and publishing websites
I build both from one written scope.
Is being based in Oxford worth mentioning on the site?
- Being based in Oxford goes on the home page and the contact page, stated once and plainly. It's also written into the business details that search engines read, which gives a local search a better chance of finding the practice.
What happens to a strong About page in a rebuild?
- In a rebuild, a strong About page is kept with its story intact. What changes is the home page, which links to the services first and to the About page second. Its best lines can also introduce the people on each service page, where they back up the work.
How should a practice that publishes a lot show its work?
- A practice that publishes a lot gets one list of its publications, newest first, with filters by topic or year if the list is long. Each entry links to the publisher's own page where one exists. Older pieces stay in the list, since a buyer may be looking for one in particular.
Will old publication links keep working?
- Each old publication link is listed in the scope and pointed at the page that now holds the piece, so a citation in someone's footnote still lands somewhere useful.
Can each adviser have a page of their own?
- Each adviser can have a page with their background, the services they lead and the pieces written or delivered under their name. It's one line per person in the scope, so you decide who's included.
Does the visitor side need a site of its own?
- When the visitor business trades under the practice's name, it gets one page on the main site with its own link in the menu. When it trades under a name of its own, I quote it as a separate small site, since the people booking it aren't the people commissioning a report.
Next step
Your recent work, turned into a page plan
A list of what you've delivered lately, each piece with its title and year, is what our first meeting turns into a plan for your service pages. It doesn't need to be polished.
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