Your website has one job. Is it doing it?
Send me your site. I'll run it through Google's PageSpeed test, tell you the score, and give you the three things I'd fix first, in plain English.
- Free
- No hard sell
- Plain English
- Back to you within 2 working days
- No logins needed
- Works on any website
- Google's own PageSpeed test
- Three fixes, in order
- Free
- No hard sell
- Plain English
- Back to you within 2 working days
- No logins needed
- Works on any website
- Google's own PageSpeed test
- Three fixes, in order
- Free
- No hard sell
- Plain English
- Back to you within 2 working days
- No logins needed
- Works on any website
- Google's own PageSpeed test
- Three fixes, in order
Wait, I can just do that?
It's 2012, and I'm a college student staring at a blank text editor. I don't really know what I'm doing. I've copied a few lines of code from somewhere, changed a word or two to see what happens, and saved the file.
I switch over to the browser and hit refresh.
And there it is. A heading, a bit of text, a colour I picked. Nothing fancy. Honestly, by any normal standard, it's terrible. But a minute ago it didn't exist, and now it does, and I'm the one who made it.
I remember sitting back and thinking: wait, I can just do that?
That question has stuck with me for over fourteen years. Somewhere along the way I realised that most people running a business never get to feel that. They get a website the way they get a boiler: something that's supposed to work in the background, that they don't fully understand, and that they only think about when it lets them down.
I'd like to change that for you. But first, the bit in the middle, because it matters more than the bit at the start.
The bit in the middle
The thing nobody tells you about that first refresh is how many more come after it. Thousands of them. Most of them showing you something broken.
For years, I learned the slow way. I'd build something, it would fall over, and I'd sit up working out why. Early on, I launched a site that looked great on my laptop and fell apart on phones. I spent the weekend rebuilding it, and I've tested everything on real devices ever since.
Every one of those mistakes is now something I don't make. That's the only real way anyone gets good at this. Not talent, not a course, just doing it enough times that you've already seen the problem before it turns up.
Now, here's where you come in.
You've probably got a website. Maybe a friend did it as a favour, or you put it together yourself one weekend with a template. It's there. You pay for it every month. And if you're honest, you're not sure it does anything.
You've maybe pulled it up on your phone while waiting for a coffee and watched it load. And load. The photos come in a beat late, or the text jumps about while you're trying to read it. You've thought,that's not great, and put your phone away, because you've got a business to run.
Meanwhile, most of your work still comes from word of mouth. Which is brilliant, right up until it isn't. And every time someone does find you online, there's that small worry at the back of your mind: what do they think when they land on it?
That worry is the thing I want to take away.
A website only has one job
It's not to look nice, although it should. It's not to win awards or show off clever animations. Its job is to get the right person to pick up the phone, send an email or fill in a form. Everything else is in service of that.
And the biggest thing standing in the way of that job is something most business owners never think about: speed.
When someone finds you on Google, they're usually on their phone, in a hurry, and looking at two or three of your competitors at the same time. If your site takes a few seconds too long, they tap back and try the next one. They never see your photos or your reviews. You don't get a notification when that happens. You just never hear from them.
Speed is the thing nobody sees and everybody feels.
It matters to Google too. A slow site gets nudged down the results, so fewer people find you in the first place. A slow website costs you twice: fewer visitors, and fewer of them sticking around.
So every site I build aims for a 100 on Google's PageSpeed score. Most small business sites I look at score somewhere in the 30s to 60s, and the owners have no idea, because nobody's ever told them to check.
It's not about chasing a number. A site built to score well is a site built properly: lean, quick on a weak phone signal, and easy for Google to understand. My old business site, line23.dev, ranked number one on Google for web design in Kirkmuirhill. That wasn't luck. It was the same approach.
The projects are a wee bit bigger now
Your site will be smaller than any of these. But the things that can go wrong are the same things, and I've already fixed them for someone else.
One of the world's oldest golf clubs
Moved onto a modern platform without anything going wrong in public. It had to work on day one, and feel like the club, not a template with a logo on top.
The result: faster pages, a members' area people can find their way around, and fewer calls to the office.
Over a dozen sites, one brand
A machinery company had sites built at different times by different people, none of them matching. I pulled them into one clear home without losing anything that mattered.
The result: one site to look after, one place for enquiries, and a brand customers recognise.
Apps staff rely on every morning
Built apps that dozens of staff open every day to do their jobs. When a tool like that is slow, people can't work, so you learn to build things that just keep going.
You won't be paying for me to figure it out as I go. You'll be getting fourteen years of figuring it out, already done.
How we'd work together
I'd like you to pull your website up on your phone, watch it load in a blink, and think: that's mine. Getting there is simpler than you'd think, and most of it is on me.
We chat
about what you do, who it's for and what a good enquiry looks like. No website knowledge needed, and no jargon.
I build it
aiming for that 100 score, and you'll see it working on your own phone well before it goes live.
It goes live
and it's yours. I look after hosting, security, updates and support, so there's no new system to learn.
Most small business sites are live in 14 days. Bigger builds take longer, and you'll get a realistic timeline before we start.
Start with your score.
Not ready for a new website? That's fine, most people aren't when they first land here. Send me your address and I'll tell you the score and the three things I'd fix first. Either way, you'll know more than you did five minutes ago.
- No charge
- No hard sell
- No follow-up calls you didn't ask for
Frequently asked questions
Can't find your answer here? Send me a message and I'll get back to you.
Is it really free?
Yes. No charge, no hard sell, and no follow-up calls you didn't ask for. If you want help fixing things afterwards, that's up to you.
What do you need from me?
Just your web address and an email to send the results to. You don't need to give me logins or access to anything.
My site is on Wix, Squarespace or WordPress. Does that matter?
Not for the check. The test works on any public website. I'll tell you which fixes are possible where you are now, and which aren't.
Do I have to buy anything afterwards?
No. Plenty of people take the three fixes, sort them out themselves, and that's the end of it. That's fine by me.