Albek Marketing

▲ Service

Mobile site rebuilds

Your business on a single fast page that works properly on a phone, custom built rather than dropped into a template. £99, the files are yours, and you see a rough example of it before you commit to anything.

Had an email from me about your website? Here is where your details came from and what I measured →

01 The problem

Four things that go wrong on a phone, and how to check each one yourself.

These are measurements, not opinions. I am not going to tell you your website looks dated — that is a matter of taste and none of my business. Every one of the four below is something you can confirm on your own handset in about five seconds.

Do this first

Pick up your phone, not a tablet. Open your own website. Do not use the tablet in the office and do not ask the person who built it. Everything on this page is checkable from that one screen.

Defect 01

No mobile viewport

The page is missing the one line of code that tells a phone how wide the screen is. With it absent, the phone assumes it is a desktop monitor, lays the page out at around 1000 pixels wide, then shrinks the whole thing to fit. Everything becomes proportionally tiny.

How to check: open your site on your phone. If your first instinct is to pinch and zoom before you can read anything, this is why.

Defect 02

The page scrolls sideways

Something on the page — a table, a fixed-width image, an old layout built for a monitor — is wider than the screen. The page drags left and right as well as up and down, and part of every line sits off the edge.

How to check: hold the phone upright and swipe left across the middle of the page. If it slides sideways and shows a strip of empty space, this is it.

Defect 03

The text renders under 12 pixels

Not the small print at the bottom — the actual body text. Below about 12 pixels, most people cannot read a phone screen at arm's length without zooming, and most of them do not bother.

How to check: read a full sentence of ordinary body copy at the distance you would normally hold your phone. If you zoomed in to do it, this is it.

Defect 04

Still on http, so Chrome says “Not secure”

Sites served over plain http, without a certificate, get an explicit warning in the address bar of every current browser. Nothing has been hacked and nothing is wrong with your business — the certificate was simply never added. The customer reading the warning does not know that.

How to check: open your site and tap the address bar at the top. If it reads Not secure, this is it.

02 The difference

The same content, laid out for the screen it is actually on.

A page built for a monitor does not become a phone page by being made smaller. The columns have to go, the type has to grow, and the thing most people came for — your phone number — has to be under their thumb rather than three screens down.

Nothing gets invented in the process. The rough example is put together from your existing site, and the finished page is built from that plus whatever you tell me in one email. If neither source says something, the page does not say it either.

Desktop page
at 360 px

Rebuilt page
at 360 px

03 What I build

One page, built for your business, and the files are yours.

A single page, because a small business site that is honest with itself is one page. Everything a customer wants — what you do, where you are, whether you are open, and the number to ring — without a menu, a carousel or a cookie banner in the way.

It is custom built, not a template with your name dropped into it. What goes on it comes from one short email exchange after you have seen the example: you tell me the services worth listing and the number you want ringing, and that is what gets built.

  • It opens straight away. No waiting on a spinning logo, a font download or a cookie pop-up. It is readable before a typical site has finished deciding what to load.
  • Your own content. Nothing about your business is invented or padded out with filler about quality service you can trust.
  • Tap to call. A button fixed across the bottom of the screen that dials your number. Most enquiries are a phone call, so it is never more than a thumb away.
  • A map link that goes to you. Pinned to your actual business, not a name search that could land on a competitor down the road.
  • HTTPS from the first minute. No “Not secure” warning, no expiring certificate to remember.
  • The files are yours. When it is paid for I send you the folder. Put it wherever you like, or hand it to somebody else — there is nothing to unlock.
  • Designed to look finished with no photographs. If you have good ones, send them and I will use them. If you have none, the page is not built around a gap where a picture should be.
  • Readable at 360 pixels. That is the narrow end of real phones, and it is the width I test at rather than the comfortable 400-odd a desktop browser defaults to.

04 What it costs

The whole price list. There is not a second one.

Two numbers for the site itself, and then one decision about where it lives. Nothing is due until you have seen the example and told me to go ahead.

▲ The site

One page

£99

One-off · files included

Custom built for your business from what you tell me in one email exchange. When it is paid for, I send you the files — they are yours, and you are free to do anything you like with them.

Six pages

£249

One-off · files included

The same thing at the size of a small proper website — services, about, contact and so on. Same rules: custom built, no template, files yours at the end.

▲ Where it lives afterwards — pick one

Hosted by me

£15

Per month

It goes live straight away on a preview address, so there is nothing to wait for. Whenever you want it on your own domain instead, I move it across — that is included, at no extra charge, whether you ask on the first day or a year later. Monthly, no minimum term.

On your own hosting

£49

One-off

Only if you would rather host it yourself. You keep whatever hosting you already have and I deal with getting the files onto it, whoever it is with and however awkward their control panel turns out to be.

Larger than six pages, or something that is not quite either of these? Quoted by email before anything starts.

Why it is only £99

Because the job is narrow. It is one page, not twelve; the exchange that settles what goes on it is one email, not a fortnight of meetings; and the checking that finds sites like yours in the first place is done by software rather than by me reading through hundreds of them. The price is low because the process is small, not because it is a trial rate that goes up later.

What is not in the price

  • Search engine optimisation retainers
  • Social media management
  • Advertising spend of any kind
  • Anything with a minimum term

I do not sell those, so I am not going to quote for them.

05 Going live

Live immediately, on your own domain whenever you want it.

Worth being blunt about this, because it is the part everyone quite reasonably worries about.

The site goes live the moment it is paid for, on a preview address of mine — something like yourbusiness.preview.albekmarketing.co.uk. That is deliberate: it means nothing is waiting on a domain, a password or a phone call to whoever set your web address up in 2011. You have a working link the same day.

Nobody wants that as their permanent address, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. So moving it onto your own domain is included in the £15 a month — not an upgrade, not an extra line on an invoice. Ask on the first day or a year later; either way I do the move and there is nothing further to pay.

The one-off £49 is for the other case entirely: you would rather host the site yourself, on whatever hosting you already have, and want the files put there for you.

While you are deciding

  • Your existing website stays exactly where it is. Nothing is switched off, moved or overwritten until you say so.
  • I do not need your passwords to build anything. The example and the finished files are made without touching any account of yours.
  • The domain move costs nothing extra, ever. It is part of hosting with me, not a service sold separately.
  • Nothing is irreversible. It stays your domain throughout. If you want to move it elsewhere later, you can, and I will not make it difficult.

If you already know which way you want it, say so in the first email and I will sort it in one go.

06 Next

Send me the address of your website.

That is genuinely all I need to start. If I have already emailed you, replying to that email is the same thing and I will have your details to hand.

What I need
Your website address. Nothing else to begin with.
What you get back
A link to a rough example, to open on your phone.
Then
One email exchange about what actually goes on the page.
What it costs to look
Nothing. The £99 is due when you decide to go ahead.
If you say no
The example is deleted and that is the end of it.