Web developer in Birmingham: a site that names the towns you cover
I'll build you a site that names the towns you cover and says whether you travel past them. Someone searching types the name of their own town, and the page they want uses the same words. That's the first job I would do as your web developer in Birmingham.
Overview
Where do you stop?
Someone living just outside your area wants to know whether you'll come, and on what terms. So the site says plainly where your area ends, and what changes if you go further.
I would rather the site turns away the jobs you won't take. Each of those calls costs you time you could spend on the work.
Two audiences
A trade with an area, or a maker with a capability?
Decide which one you are first. A business that is both gets one site with two clear routes in.
Not sure which you are? Look at where your last few big jobs came from. If the answer is a list of towns, you are a trade. If it is a list of firms, you are a maker.
A trade serving nearby towns
- Asks first: do you cover my town?
- Looks for photographs of finished work
- Location decides the call
A manufacturer or supplier
- Asks first: what can you make, and to what standard?
- Looks for volumes, standards and who you supply
- Location barely enters the decision
Start from your best jobs
Tell me which jobs you'd like more of. The first screen is planned around those, and its photographs come from them.
What a scope from me looks like
Sample scope: a trade working nearby towns
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
- The towns you cover, named in plain text
- An area you can edit yourself when it changes
- 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 page for each main town once the list is settled
- A capability page with volumes and standards
- 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
- Claiming coverage you don't offer
This sample is a regional business website for a trade with a set area. A manufacturer's version swaps the area for a capability page. If you work both ways, the scope carries both routes and says which one the home page leads with.
What moves the number
How big does the site need to be?
The kind of buyer decides most of it. The rest is detail.
- How many services you offer — each one gets its own section, with photographs of finished work
- Whether the buyer is local, national or both — two routes in means more pages
- A capability page for manufacturing buyers — volumes and standards have to come from your records
Where this comes from
UK clients, in their own words
UK work is on the public record, with the client's own review where they agreed to be named. It's on the projects page, among 900+ projects completed since 2017.
The testimonials page has more: 890+ five-star reviews across Fiverr, Upwork and direct clients.
Nearby
Other UK cities
Bristol has independent shops and food businesses selling over the counter. Leeds has professional firms setting out why clients chose them.
FAQ
A trade site, from area to first scope
Ask the one that is not here on WhatsApp.
What if the business really does cover the whole UK?
- A business that covers the whole UK should say so, in one plain sentence near the top. It should also say what changes for a job far from base, if anything does. A customer at the far end of the country then knows where they stand before they ring.
How many towns should go on the list?
- A town list should hold only the towns you'd take a job in without thinking twice. If you're unsure about one, leave it off until a job from there comes in.
Does any of this apply to a manufacturer?
- A manufacturer's buyer wants capability first. So the site leads with what you make and the standards you work to, and the town list moves to the contact page. The firms you already supply can go on it too, if they agree to be named. If you also take local work, a second route on the home page handles that.
What's needed to start a trade site?
- Photographs of finished work are the main thing to have ready, along with the area you cover. A hand-drawn map, photographed on a phone, is useful too. The scope is drafted from those, and you read it before anything's built.
Can an offshore web developer handle a UK site?
- A UK site built from Kolkata, India is checked the way any site is: page by page on a staging link, before launch. Nobody from my team visits your area, so the area you cover comes from you. My team writes British spelling as a matter of course. The team works on your schedule, in your time zone.
Can finished work go on the site without naming the customer?
- Finished work can go on the site without naming anyone. A photograph and the town it was in are enough, and a customer's name appears only if they've agreed. Ask them when the job's handed over.
Next step
What does your working map look like?
We start with a rough map of where you work, and where you'd rather not. If you're a maker rather than a trade, bring your standards and volumes instead. A sketch on paper is enough.
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