Find expert website services to navigate your web building journey with confidence
Confused by the endless options for building your first website? Expert Website Services breaks down the choices and helps you find the right path, from AI builders to professional development services.
AI-Powered Builders
In the last year, we've seen the rise of website builders where you can build whole websites or digital tools without writing any code—often just with a text box where you write prompts that shape the website.
Perfect for: Simple projects that thousands of others have built something similar to. Great if you're content with functional, easy-to-navigate designs that might lack those final design touches.
Pro tip: Many people build a first version with these tools, then hand it over to a designer to elevate it—a really cost-effective approach.
AI Website Builders
Replit Agent
AI that builds complete applications from natural language descriptions
Try Replit Agent →Lovable
Industry-leading AI that builds complete web applications from simple descriptions
Try Lovable →More Control
For people who want more personalization but still prefer drag-and-drop editors to coding. These platforms give you design constraints that lead to consistently good results.
What makes these different: They start with professional templates and themes, then let you customize through visual editors. You get more personality than AI builders, but within design guardrails that keep things looking polished.
The advantage: Backed by huge companies constantly updating features. Easy integration of shops, bookings, courses, and other business tools.
Template-Based Builders
Squarespace
Beautiful templates, perfect for portfolios, blogs, and online courses. Great all-in-one solution.
Shopify
The gold standard for e-commerce. Handles everything from products to payments seamlessly.
Webflow
More design control for visually-minded people. Steeper learning curve but powerful results.
Try Webflow →WordPress.com
The internet's backbone. Massive theme library and plugin ecosystem. Requires a bit more learning.
Try WordPress.com →Custom Design
When templates don't fit your vision or you need something truly distinctive. Web designers and developers who will work with you to build exactly what you need.
Perfect for: Bigger companies, rapid prototyping, when design is really important to you, or when you simply don't want to do it yourself—there's no shame in getting help.
Far fewer constraints: Good developers can choose the right framework for your needs. Most things can be built, and you don't need to know the technical details.
The trade-off: International developers might be talented but cost less, while local developers offer easier communication and in-person meetings. Pricing is a sliding scale from a few hundred pounds to tens of thousands.
Custom Development Options
Wonky Websites
UK-based, personal service. We handle everything from concept to launch, with clear communication throughout.
Get a quote →Local Web Agencies
Search for developers in your area. Face-to-face meetings can make communication much easier.
Search "web developers near me"Toptal
Premium freelance developers. Higher rates but vetted talent for complex projects.
Browse developers →International Freelancers
Platforms like Upwork or Fiverr. Often more affordable, but communication and timezone differences to consider.
Research carefully and check portfoliosDeep Resources
Comprehensive guides to help you make informed decisions about your website project
How to Choose a Web Developer
A comprehensive guide to vetting developers, asking the right questions, and avoiding common pitfalls when hiring for your project.
Website Cost Calculator
Interactive tool to estimate your website project costs based on features, complexity, and development approach you choose.
WordPress vs Custom Development
Detailed comparison to help you decide between WordPress and custom-built solutions for your specific needs and budget.
Tools (mostly free) that we have found useful
We curate and recommend the tools that actually move the needle for modern businesses. From SEO to design, these are the platforms we trust.
🔍 Free SEO & Analysis Tools →
Google Lighthouse
Ultimately, with SEO, the most important person to impress is Google. Performing their audit shows you exactly how they currently see your website. A really clever, simple way to improve how Google sees your website by fixing the things they suggest.
Install Chrome extension →Screaming Frog SEO Spider
An incredibly powerful free tool that breaks down all of the different issues with your website by severity - from minor tweaks to major problems that need immediate attention.
Download free version →Ubersuggest Extension
The big win is that it gives you a really quick way to check the domain authority of any website - a measure of how well-networked a website is and how many links it has from other sites. Google uses this to decide how trustworthy a website is and how often to serve it to people searching.
Install extension →Ahrefs Free Tools
Another tool to check website authority and generate keywords. It's not as detailed as their paid tool, but it's good enough for most businesses to get valuable insights.
Try free tools →🌱 Performance & Sustainability →
Squoosh.app
A free way to compress your images that keeps them really great quality. This can really improve page load speed, and images are often one of the biggest user data bits on your website.
Compress images →Website.carbon
It's fun to see your website's carbon footprint and consider it. It also ranks your website against other websites and is a backlink for your website that often gets indexed by Google.
Test your site →The Green Web Foundation
If you find the idea of making a website more environmentally friendly interesting, they've got loads of interesting resources and seem to be spearheading part of the movement.
Explore resources →🧠 AI & Research Tools →
NotebookLLM
If you have all your docs in there, you can quickly search them and it takes you to the actual bit of the document that's referencing your query. This helps make sure it's not a hallucination - quite different to other AI search tools.
Try NotebookLLM →Manus
Gives out free credits daily to use their AI agent for deep research into topics. A great starting point when you're exploring something new to you. They can help with questions like "Who are the most important people in this industry?" or "What are the key companies in this space?"
Try Manus →Wispr Flow
Records your notes but cleans them up in a few seconds before serving them back to you. It's a really talented transcriber that makes your voice notes much more readable.
Download app →Firecrawl
You can scrape the information on any website, which can be really useful for research, competitive analysis, or gathering data for projects.
Try Firecrawl →🎨 Design & Creative Tools →
Canva
These days it's just so user-friendly and can do so many design tasks - including removing backgrounds, adding outlines to images quickly, getting posters ready, experimenting with lots of different things.
Start designing →Remove.bg
It kind of says what it is - removes backgrounds from images quickly and accurately using AI. Simple and effective.
Remove backgrounds →Land Book
One of the main galleries where people look for website design inspiration. Great for seeing what's current and getting ideas for your own projects.
Browse designs →🤝 Specialist Tools →
Squarespace ID Finder
If you're using Squarespace, this is really helpful - you can find the ID of a block that you want to tweak with something that's off menu. Then you can ask ChatGPT "how can I make this blurry when I hover over it?" or whatever it might be.
Install extension →Happenstance.ai
Helps you leverage your network by asking AI prompts like "Who in my network might be able to introduce me to this person?" or "Who in my network might be looking for a new website?" or "Who might be able to host my new venture?"
Connect network →Goblin Tools
A thoughtfully put together list of tools so you can quickly consult different personas that are useful - like having an AI act as a consultant, or a to-do list organizer, or a judge for your ideas.
Try tools →📚 Learning Resources →
Danny Postma's SEO Course
A really valuable course for anyone starting up their own digital business. It gives you thoughtful ways to get your business out there, and how to use paid tools like Ahrefs to find niches where there might be great opportunities for your own business.
Learn SEO →