Structure before design
What each page is for, who arrives on it, and what they need to do next. Most website problems are structural, and no amount of visual work fixes them.
guest@make-directory:~$ cat ./capabilities/website-development.md
make-directory:~/capabilities/websites
Website Development
A website is the part of the business the public can see.
We build and maintain websites that stay fast, accessible, and maintainable, and that connect to the workflows behind them rather than sitting alongside as a brochure.
guest@make-directory:~$ ls ./how-we-do-it
how we approach it
What the work involves.
Content systems, not one-off pages
Reusable sections your team can edit without calling us. A site that only we can change becomes a site that stops changing.
Build on what fits
WordPress where a CMS earns its keep, Next.js or React where the site is closer to an application, and plain and boring where that is genuinely enough.
The workflows behind the form
Enquiries, bookings, intake, payments, and the systems they land in. A contact form that emails an inbox nobody watches is not a working website.
Performance and accessibility as build criteria
Both are much cheaper to get right during the build than to retrofit after launch, and both are checkable rather than matters of opinion.
Launch details
Redirects, metadata, analytics, monitoring, and the search equity of whatever was there before. This is where most rebuilds quietly lose traffic.
guest@make-directory:~$ cat ./what-we-think.md
so you know how we decide
Where we will push back.
Most redesigns should be refreshes
A full rebuild resets your search position and your team’s familiarity at the same time. We will tell you when the structure genuinely needs replacing and when it does not.
A CMS is a liability if nobody uses it
The right question is not which CMS, it is who is going to edit this and how often. Sometimes the answer means a much simpler build.
guest@make-directory:~$ cat ./website-care.md
smaller than an engagement
Your site, kept running.
Steady upkeep for a WordPress site that works and needs to stay that way — patched, backed up, watched, and edited when you ask, without anyone in-house having to remember it.
from $1,399.99 per month
You’re here if
You rely on a WordPress site, nobody is really looking after it, and you do not need a development team on hand.
The floor covers one straightforward site, and moves with the number of sites, how much editing you use, and how quickly you need us when something breaks.
Planning something bigger — a rebuild, new features, or a site built on something other than WordPress? That is where Essential picks up. Not sure which you need? Ask us and we will tell you.
- WordPress core, plugin, and theme updates
- Backups, with a tested restore
- Uptime and certificate monitoring
- Up to two hours of content or copy edits each month
- A named person to email when something breaks
guest@make-directory:~$ cat ./what-this-is-for.md
where this gets used
What we get called in to solve with it.
If one of these describes your situation more closely than the technology does, start there instead.
guest@make-directory:~$ mkdir ./what-needs-to-change
next step
Tell us what you are trying to change.
Describe it however makes sense to you. If this turns out not to be what you need, we will point you at whatever is.
Would you rather look at code?
We build and operate our own software in the open — infrastructure tooling, a modernization toolchain, and a research arm. All of it is public, so you can see how we work before you talk to us.
What we build