Website design and development
Websites designed, built and launched to earn trust.
We design and build complete business websites: strategy and structure, UX and interface design, responsive front-end development, integrations, testing and launch. The result explains what your business does and makes the next step obvious.
Starting from scratch or replacing a temporary site? We’ll help define the right structure before anything is designed or built.
- Your business
- Message
- Structure
- Interface
-
Clear next step
A customer who understands the offer and knows exactly how to get in touch.
Who this is for
Businesses starting from nothing, or from something temporary
- A new company, service or venture about to go to market
- A business trading entirely through social media or WhatsApp
- A DIY or template site put up quickly and never revisited
- A complex offer that is difficult to explain in a conversation
- A business that needs a foundation before spending on marketing
WeDevelop is South African and works remotely, so where your business is does not change how the project runs or what it costs.
If you already have a website that once worked and no longer does, that is a different job. Start with a website redesign instead.
What a new website has to do
A visitor decides in four questions
They ask them in this order, and they leave at the first one the website fails to answer. Design is what makes those answers findable, not a coat of paint applied once the content is written.
- Who is this for?
- What does the business actually offer?
- Why should I believe it?
- What do I do next?
The work
What we design and build, and what depends on the project
Four groups of work. The message and the structure are settled on every project; the rest is scoped to what the business actually needs.
Strategy and structure
Settled before anything is designed.
- Positioning and message
- Who the website is for
- Pages, order and navigation
- What each page has to say
Depends on the projectCopy support depends on the scope you choose. Website and Automation projects include a first draft of your page copy, written from a structured intake. A full professional rewrite, and brand or identity work where none exists yet, are scoped separately.
Design and content
Designed against your real content, not placeholder text.
- Page layout and hierarchy
- Typography and spacing
- The phone layout, resolved first
- Imagery direction
Depends on the projectPhotography, illustration and custom iconography.
Development and integrations
One obvious action per page, wired to where enquiries need to land.
- Responsive front-end development
- Enquiry forms and contact routes
- Search foundations
- Performance and accessibility basics
Depends on the projectCRM, WhatsApp, booking or payment connections, which rely on the accounts you already hold.
Launch and improvement
You leave owning it, and knowing where everything lives.
- Browser and device testing
- Domain and hosting handover
- Documented ownership
- Built so measurement can be added
Depends on the projectAnalytics setup, plus content updates and further pages after launch.
Search foundations mean unique titles and descriptions, semantic structure, crawlable links, a sitemap and structured data where it applies. Anything beyond that is separate search work.
How it runs
Approved stage by stage
The project follows the standard WeDevelop process. For a new website that means the structure is approved before any design starts, and the design before it is built — so nothing is designed on an assumption you have not seen. If a website is not your first problem, we say so at discovery rather than after you have paid for one.
Scope, price and timing
What moves the estimate
Two websites with the same page count can differ by a factor of three. These decide which end you land on. Starting prices are under project packages, and every project gets a written scope and price before work begins.
Size and complexity
- Number of pages and how different they are from each other
- Custom functionality beyond standard pages and forms
- Booking, quoting or ecommerce requirements
- Whether an existing brand exists or identity work is needed
What you can supply
- Whether copy is written, drafted or not started
- Photography and imagery, or the need to source it
- Access to the domain, hosting and any existing accounts
- Who signs off, and how quickly
What it connects to
- Forms routed into email, a spreadsheet or a CRM
- WhatsApp, calendars or payment providers
- Third-party accounts we need permission to reach
- Any compliance or accessibility testing you require
Content readiness is the most common reason a project runs long. If copy and images are not ready, plan for that rather than discovering it halfway through. Design work is normally scoped as a Website Upgrade, or as part of Website and Automation where the enquiry process is being improved at the same time.
Evidence
Bonelo
Bonelo is a WeDevelop-founded initiative, not an independent client engagement.
It is the fullest example of this service run end to end, and the one project where we can describe the reasoning openly. It started with no name, no identity and no website.
- Naming, identity and a complete logo system
- Product terminology and the concepts the interface is built on
- Page structure and the journey through the platform
- Responsive interface design across desktop and mobile
For a client project built the same way, see the Vortex Trance Adventures case study — a live site with four worlds of material to organise and more than one audience to serve.
Read how it was designed
Where to start
If anything is live, start with the review
A DIY site, a one-page holding page or a social profile doing the work of a website — all of it can be reviewed. You get a prioritised list of what a new site would need to fix, and what is worth carrying over.
If nothing is live at all, skip the review and tell us what you are building. We will work out the scope from there.
Free Website Review
Free, with no obligation, and normally back within two business days.
If enquiries will need routing, qualifying or following up the moment the site goes live
Automation & IntegrationsFor keeping the site improving after it launches
Ongoing Growth & SupportQuestions about designing and building a first website
Do you handle both the design and the development?
Yes. Design and development are run as one coordinated project under a single scope, so nothing is handed between disciplines half-finished. We settle the message and structure, design the pages against your real content, then develop the site, connect the enquiry routes, test it and launch it. You do not receive a set of mockups and a recommendation to go and find a developer.
How long does a website design and development project take?
A clearly scoped Website Upgrade, which is how most new sites are packaged, typically runs 7–15 working days. A Website and Automation project usually takes 2–4 weeks. The timeline is confirmed in writing before work begins. What moves it most is content readiness and how quickly approvals come back, because each of the five stages waits on your sign-off.
I do not have any content yet. Can we still start?
Yes, and it is common. Structure tells you which pages exist and what each one needs to say, so you write to a brief instead of a blank document. If you would rather not write it at all, copywriting can be added to the scope.
Do I need a logo and brand before the website?
Not necessarily. If you have brand guidelines, the site is designed within them. If you do not, we can establish enough visual direction to build a coherent site, or take on the identity work properly — the Bonelo project covered naming, identity and website design together.
What do I actually own when it is finished?
Ownership is documented for every project. Client-specific work in the approved scope transfers or is licensed to you after full payment, subject to third-party licences and reusable WeDevelop components. Your domain and key business accounts should be in your name from the start, and we set them up that way.
Will it be found on Google?
The foundations are built in, but being found also depends on competition, the age of the domain, what you publish after launch and the authority the site earns over time. Anyone guaranteeing rankings is guessing.
Next step
Get the foundation right the first time
Tell us what you are building and who it needs to reach.
Already have something live? Get a free Website Review first.
Or email lance@wedevelop.co.za