Website Development
Custom marketing sites engineered for speed, SEO, and conversion — handed over fully editable.
Booking Q3 — 2 slots remaining
Websites that turn UK businesses
into lead machines.
A senior freelance studio building fast, conversion-obsessed websites in React, Next.js & WordPress — for gyms, clinics, restaurants and ambitious founders across the UK, Ireland & Scotland.
lighthouse audit — fitforge.co.uk
// auditing ... Performance ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ 98 Accessibility ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ 100 Best Practices ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ 100 SEO ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ 100 // before strata: avg. 41 / 79 / 83 / 71 // after strata: avg. 96 / 99 / 100 / 99
This month
+312%
FitForge Gym (Manchester) — 14 weeks post-relaunch.
Page weight
48kb
0.9s
0
42ms
Services
A complete web partner — without the agency overhead.
One senior engineer, the same standards as a £50k Webflow agency, billed at a freelance rate. Everything you need to launch, rank, and keep growing.
SEO Optimization
Technical audits, keyword strategy, structured data and local SEO that ranks UK businesses for the searches that pay.
Speed Optimization
From 3.4s to 0.9s LCP. Image, font and JS hygiene that quietly compounds into more revenue.
React.js Development
Component systems, dashboards and product UIs built to scale with your team — not against it.
Next.js Development
App Router, RSCs, ISR. Full-stack Next.js with the boring, production parts taken seriously.
WordPress Optimization
Tame bloated themes and rebuild around a lean stack. Keep WordPress, lose the page-speed problem.
Website Redesign
A modern, on-brand rebuild that reflects what your business has actually become — and converts.
Maintenance & Care
Quiet monthly retainers: security, backups, content edits, analytics and the calls you don't want to make.
Why STRATA
Agency-grade craft, without the agency overhead.
Four reasons clients sign within a week of the strategy call — and stay on retainer for years.
You talk to the engineer, not an account manager.
No briefs lost in translation. No junior on the Slack channel. The person you meet on the call is the person writing the code on launch day. Decisions in hours, not weeks.
Fixed scope. Fixed price. Always.
Every project is quoted in pounds before any work starts. No "discovery fees", no surprise change-orders. If a scope genuinely needs to grow, we agree it together — in writing — before any new hours are logged.
Engineered for Core Web Vitals from day one.
Performance is not an afterthought. Every site ships with Lighthouse 95+ across all four categories — guaranteed in the contract. We've never missed that mark.
Designed around your one big number.
Booked classes. New patients. Reservations. Listings. Every section, every CTA, every paragraph maps back to the metric that pays for the project — measured weekly, refined quarterly.
Industries
Built for the businesses that actually keep the UK running.
Different patterns, same playbook: a fast site, real local SEO, and a booking flow that converts strangers into customers.
Process
How every project actually gets built.
No surprises, no scope creep, no "let's circle back". Every engagement follows the same six-stage process — with written sign-off at every gate.
STEP 01
Free strategy call
30 minutes on Zoom. We look at your site, your competitors, and your numbers. You leave with three concrete improvements — whether we work together or not.
STEP 02
Scoping & fixed quote
A detailed written spec and fixed price before any work begins. No discovery fees, no estimate ranges. The number you see is the number you pay.
STEP 03
Design system first
We agree on typography, colour, layout and motion before a single page is built. No surprise redesigns halfway through because we all signed off on the direction.
STEP 04
Build with weekly previews
You get a private staging URL from day one. Every Friday there's a new preview to click through and comment on — no waiting until the end to see what you paid for.
STEP 05
Launch & measure
Migration, analytics, Search Console, schema, sitemaps. A live dashboard so you can watch leads compound from day one.
STEP 06
Care plan
Optional monthly retainer: edits, performance reviews, content sprints, and a shared Slack channel for everything else.
Selected work
Quiet results that compound — month after month.
A few recent projects, with the numbers we measure together every Monday.
How we compare
The honest comparison most agencies won't show you.
Same project. Three different routes. What you actually get for the cheque you write.
| Digital agency | STRATA | DIY / template | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Typical price | £25k – £80k | £3.4k – £14k | £0 – £400 |
| Time to launch | 14 – 24 weeks | 3 – 6 weeks | 2 days (rough) |
| You speak to the actual builder | — | ||
| Custom Next.js / React | — | ||
| Lighthouse 95+ guaranteed | Sometimes | Always — in writing | Rare |
| Local SEO + schema baked in | £+ extra retainer | — | |
| Fixed price (no change-orders) | — | n/a | |
| Account manager friction | High | None | None |
| Walks away mid-project? | Risk | Money-back at any milestone | You're stuck |
Words from clients
The kind of feedback that pays the next year's mortgage.
A few quotes from owners who said yes to the strategy call. The 38 others are a click away.
"We expected a website. We got a sales machine. Three weeks after launch we had to hire a second receptionist just to handle the calls."
Aisha Khan
"His only job was to fix our Lighthouse score. He quietly rewrote the booking flow at the same time and our conversion rate doubled."
Eoin McCarthy
"The brief was "make it look premium without looking expensive". He nailed it on the first design. We've had three competitor clinics ask who built it."
Siobhán Reilly
"I've worked with two big agencies before. This was faster, cheaper and the result was better. I won't go back to an agency."
Tom Murray
Pricing
Honest, fixed-price work — billed in pounds, not vibes.
Three project tiers and three retainer plans. No discovery fees, no hidden hours, and every quote is written down before we start.
Launchpad
For new businesses ready to look the part.
£3,400
- 5-page custom site, fully responsive
- Lighthouse 95+ across all categories
- Local SEO foundation & schema
- Calendly + WhatsApp lead capture
- Editable in WordPress or Sanity
Most popular
Growth
Most popular for established UK operators.
£7,900
- Everything in Launchpad
- Custom Next.js front end + CMS
- Conversion-rate audit + redesign
- Multi-location SEO programme
- Migration, redirects, analytics
- 60-day post-launch optimisation
Scale
For multi-location or product businesses.
£14k+
- Everything in Growth
- Headless commerce or product UI
- Design system + component library
- Dedicated Slack + 24h SLA
- Quarterly conversion sprints
FAQ
The questions every UK business owner asks me.
If yours isn't here, send it on WhatsApp — I usually reply within a few hours.
Three weeks for a Launchpad site, six for Growth. Scale and product work usually runs 8–12 weeks. You'll have a week-by-week schedule before any money changes hands — and I have never missed a launch date.
Edinburgh, Scotland. Most of my work is across the UK and Ireland, but I'll happily work with EU and US founders if the project is a fit. All meetings happen on Zoom or in person if you're nearby.
Both, and the right answer depends on you. WordPress wins when your team needs to edit pages constantly. Next.js wins when you need speed, scale, or anything custom. I'll recommend the right stack on the strategy call, not the one that locks you in.
30 minutes on Zoom. We look at your current site, your competitors, and your numbers. You leave with three concrete things you could change tomorrow — whether we work together or not. No deck, no pitch.
Fixed price for projects, monthly for retainers. I will never send you a "discovery fee" invoice or surprise you with hours. If a project genuinely grows, we agree the scope before any new work begins.
Yes. About 40% of my work is rescuing sites built by someone else — usually a bloated WordPress build, a half-finished Webflow, or a Shopify theme that won't scale. I do a paid two-week audit before any rebuild work begins.
I handle technical and on-page SEO end-to-end. For content, ads, and outreach I partner with two specialist agencies in London and Dublin I trust completely.
Every project has milestones with sign-off gates. If we reach a gate and you're not happy, you can walk away and only pay for work delivered. I'd rather lose the project than ship something you'll regret.
Your next move
Let's build the site
your business deserves.
Two slots remaining for Q3. A 30-minute call costs nothing and you leave with a plan — whether we work together or not.
30-min callNo prep neededZero obligationReplies in < 4h
Let's talk
Three ways to start the conversation.
No discovery fees, no decks, no "intro to your account manager". You'll be talking to the engineer who will actually do the work.