Many Liverpool businesses do not need a cleverer website; they need one that loads quickly on a phone, says plainly what they do and can be updated without ringing a developer. SpiderHunts is a UK software company that designs and builds sites like that, working remotely with businesses across Merseyside.
Thanks, that’s with us.
A senior engineer reads every enquiry and will reply as soon as they can.
Book a time that suits you, or send a message on WhatsApp.
2020
Building since
1,000+
Clients served
UK
Registered company
4.6/5
Rated on Clutch
The short version
A Liverpool business website usually has one of three jobs: take a booking, win a quote request, or sell something. Which of those it is decides almost everything else, from the page structure to the content management system, so it is the first thing we ask about. A hotel on the waterfront, a freight forwarder in Bootle and a solicitor in the commercial district all need website design, but they need very different websites.
The city's economy shapes the brief in a few predictable ways. The visitor economy means a lot of first visits come from phones, often from people already in town deciding where to eat, stay or go that evening, so mobile speed and clear opening hours count for more than visual flourish. Port and logistics firms mostly sell to other businesses, whose buyers want capability, coverage and a quick way to ask for a price. And the independents, from Bold Street to Lark Lane, need sites the owner can update between customers.
Then there is the reader most owners never think about. Search engines and AI assistants such as ChatGPT have to be able to read the page as well. A site whose content only appears after JavaScript runs can look perfect to a person and arrive almost empty at an AI crawler, and nothing warns you when that happens. We build server-rendered pages by default, so a customer, Google and an assistant all receive the same content.
One plain statement, so there is no confusion later: SpiderHunts does not have an office in Liverpool. We are a UK company with a registered office in London and a remote team, and we work with Liverpool businesses through video calls, shared documents and a named contact. If meeting your designer in person matters to you, a studio in the city will suit you better, and that is a perfectly reasonable choice.
What we build
Six kinds of work, often combined in one project. A typical brief is a rebuild of an existing site rather than a first website, so the move from old to new is planned from the start.
Page structure planned around the one action that matters most to you, then designed and built as fast, server-rendered templates your team can extend. This is the core of our website development for Liverpool businesses, whether the site has five pages or fifty.
New WordPress sites, and repairs to existing ones that have slowed down under years of plugins and page builders. We tidy what can be kept, replace what cannot, and leave an admin area your staff can find their way around.
Stores for independents and growing brands, with product data, delivery and collection options and category pages planned so that search engines can crawl the whole catalogue.
Hosting, security updates, backups, speed checks and small edits after launch, from £150 a month. For owners who would rather never think about plugin updates again.
Business details, opening hours and service areas made consistent between the site and your Google Business Profile, with pages for the Wirral or Sefton only where they add something new.
For when the site has to do more than inform: customer areas, quote builders, booking flows and links to the systems you already run. This is where being a software company helps most.
Costs
Quotes for what sounds like the same brief can be far apart, and the gap is rarely about design time. It comes from what each supplier has included: how many distinct page templates, who writes the words, whether an old site has to be migrated, what the site has to connect to, and what happens after launch. Two quotes that look miles apart may simply describe different projects.
With us, a business website starts from £3,000, and the optional care plan for hosting, updates, backups and small edits starts from £150 a month, both excluding VAT. Those are starting points for a straightforward site. Before you commit to anything you get a written quote with scope agreed up front, including what is not in it. The same figures are on our packages and prices page.
If you are comparing a web design company in Liverpool with a remote supplier like us, put every quote through the same questions: who writes the content, how many templates are designed, who owns the domain and hosting accounts, and what support costs once the site is live. The table below shows what usually moves the price.
| What changes the price | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Number of page templates | A home page, a service page and a contact page are three designs. A site with menus, events, team profiles and case studies has more, and each one is designed, built and tested. |
| Content | Writing or rewriting copy takes time. Moving dozens of old pages across, and deciding which are worth keeping, takes longer. |
| Integrations | Booking tools, payment providers, a CRM or a stock system each add set-up and testing. |
| Migration | Replacing an established site means mapping every old address to a new one, which protects the search visibility the old site built up. |
| Size of an online shop | A few products can be added by hand. A large catalogue needs imports, filters and a category structure planned properly. |
| Support after launch | Hosting, updates and small changes can sit on a care plan or stay with your own team. |
Online shops
Many retailers start out selling through social media or a marketplace and reach the point where they want a shop of their own. The platform decision is usually simpler than it looks. Shopify suits most independents because payments, hosting and security are handled for you. WooCommerce makes sense when the shop sits inside a content-heavy WordPress site. A custom build is only worth it when the products or pricing genuinely fit neither, such as made-to-order goods with complicated options.
The work that decides whether a shop earns its keep is mostly invisible. Product titles and descriptions written the way customers actually describe things; category pages that help someone choose rather than showing an empty grid; filters that do not spin off thousands of near-duplicate addresses; and delivery, returns and collection details that are easy to find before checkout. For a shop with a counter in the city, showing what can be collected in store can matter as much as delivery.
We build Shopify stores and custom shops, and we can take over a store that has grown untidy. Our Shopify page and the ecommerce development page go into more detail.
WordPress and editing
WordPress runs a great many small business sites, and plenty of them were built by a designer who has since moved on. The symptoms are familiar: a page builder that makes every edit fiddly, dozens of plugins nobody remembers installing, updates left undone because nobody is sure what will break, and a site that has become a little slower every year.
For a contained job, such as fixing a form, updating a theme or adding a page, a freelance WordPress expert in the city can be quicker and cheaper than an agency, and that is often the right call. An agency earns its fee on the bigger jobs: a rebuild that has to keep the old site's search history, a move to a lighter theme, custom features that must be maintained for years, or a site that several people edit. It also means more than one person understands how the site works.
Whoever you choose, ask how updates will be handled after launch, and whether the admin accounts, hosting and domain will be in your name. A good content management set-up is less about which system you use and more about leaving the site in a state your own team can run.
Choosing a supplier
Six questions that separate a careful supplier from a risky one. Ask them of us as well.
Three mistakes come up again and again when businesses commission a site. The first is choosing on a home page mock-up, when most visitors arrive on inner pages from search. The second is signing off a design before the content exists, so the real words never fit the boxes drawn for them. The third is leaving the redirect plan until launch week, when there is no time to do it properly.
Some agencies design in-house and pass the build to a contractor. That can work well, but you should know who writes the code and who will fix it next year.
The domain, hosting, analytics and CMS logins should be in your name, with the supplier given access. Getting them back from a supplier you have fallen out with is a common headache.
Ask for the redirect plan in writing. A rebuild that drops established pages without redirects can throw away search visibility the old site took years to earn.
Ask to see the editing screens of a site they built. If a simple text change needs a developer, the site will quietly stop being updated.
Ask them to open a recent site on a mid-range phone over mobile data rather than office Wi-Fi. A layout that adapts to the screen is the minimum; speed on a real connection is the test.
Content writing, photography, plugin licences, hosting and changes after launch are the usual gaps. A written scope avoids arguments later.
Where sites fall short
Most of the faults below have nothing to do with how a site looks. They are about what happens on a phone, what happens when the owner wants to change something, and what happens on the day an old site is replaced.
Replacing an old site?
Talk to someone before the new one goes live. The redirect plan and the content inventory are far cheaper to get right before launch than to repair afterwards, and the first conversation costs nothing.
Typical situations
Illustrative situations, not client stories. Each shows what a site in that part of the city region usually needs first.
A restaurant or attraction whose bookings run through a third-party widget that crawls on a phone, with the menu uploaded as a PDF and opening hours that disagree with its Google listing. Visitors deciding where to go that evening will not wait. The work starts with the booking route and the details people check most: menu, hours, directions and accessibility information.
Aim: a table booked in a few taps, on a phone
A studio with strong designers and no spare developer time, whose own portfolio site is a heavy client-rendered build. People see the work; search and AI crawlers receive almost nothing. Here the job is often to build from the studio's own designs rather than design from scratch, which is development work, and a natural fit for a software company.
Aim: the studio's design, readable by every crawler
A research group, clinic or training provider with useful content locked inside PDFs, several audiences to serve and accessibility gaps nobody has checked. The site needs a structure that sends patients, students, funders and partners to the right place, and pages that work with a keyboard and a screen reader.
Aim: content people can read without downloading a file
A freight forwarder or haulier whose site describes its services in general terms and asks for quotes by email, so every enquiry needs a phone call to fill in the gaps. A structured quote form, clear coverage and capability pages, and later a customer area for shipment updates, usually matter more here than visual polish.
Aim: quote requests that arrive with the details needed
An independent that sells well through Instagram, with an online shop that is awkward to update and says nothing about collecting in store. The owner needs a shop that can be run between customers, where photos, stock levels and collection options are quick to change.
Aim: an online shop the owner keeps up to date
A builder, electrician or care provider working on both sides of the Mersey, with near-identical pages for Birkenhead, Southport and St Helens that search engines treat as duplicates. Fewer area pages, each with something genuinely specific to say about the work in that area, usually do more than a page for every postcode.
Aim: area pages that each earn their place
How we work
Remote does not mean hands-off. Every stage ends with something written that you can check before the next one starts.
A video call about what the site must achieve, who will edit it and what the current site does well. You then get a written scope and quote in pounds, before any work begins.
A page list, a plan for each template and, if there is an old site, an inventory of its addresses. Content gaps are found now, because missing copy holds up more launches than code does.
The templates most visitors will land on are designed first, then built as fast, server-rendered pages on a staging site you can click through on your own phone.
Redirects and forms tested, analytics confirmed, and a check after launch that search engines are finding the new pages. Then a walk-through for whoever edits the site, and a care plan if you want one.
Clear scope · Regular demos · Full handover
Honest fit
We are engineers who design websites, not a branding studio. That suits some Liverpool businesses very well and others not at all, so check which list sounds like you.
Your options
There is no single right answer. It depends on the size of the job, how much you value meeting in person and what the site has to connect to.
| Freelance web designer | Studio in Liverpool | SpiderHunts (remote) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meeting in person | Often possible | Usually possible | No: video calls, shared documents and a named contact |
| Brand and visual identity | Varies by person | Often a strength | We apply your brand; we do not create identities |
| Integrations and custom features | Depends on the individual | Varies; some subcontract | A core strength, as a software company |
| Cover for holidays and illness | One person | A team | A team, with one named contact |
| Site migrations | Varies | Varies | Old addresses mapped one by one and checked after launch |
| Starting price | Often the lowest | Varies widely | Business websites from £3,000, with a written quote |
| Small, one-off fixes | Usually the quickest route | Possible | Better suited to larger pieces of work |
Sectors
General patterns rather than a client list. The city's economy leans on a handful of sectors whose websites do very different jobs.
FAQ
Straight answers before you commit to anything.
Still have a question?
Ask us directly. A senior engineer reads every question.
Ask about your projectNo. SpiderHunts has a registered office in London and a remote team, and works with Liverpool businesses through video calls, shared documents and a named contact. There is no Liverpool address and no designer who will visit, and we would rather you knew that before the first call.
With us, a business website starts from £3,000, and a care plan covering hosting, updates, backups and small edits starts from £150 a month, both excluding VAT. Where a project lands above that depends on the number of templates, how much content needs writing or moving, and what the site connects to. You get a written quote with scope agreed up front.
If meeting in person matters to you, or the job is small and self-contained, a web designer in Liverpool is a sensible choice. A remote company makes more sense when the site needs integrations, a careful migration or ongoing development, and you are comfortable working by video call. The comparison table on this page sets out the trade-offs.
Yes. Most independents are well served by Shopify; WooCommerce fits when the shop sits inside a WordPress site; a custom build is for products that fit neither. The work that matters most is the product data, the category structure and clear delivery and collection details.
Usually, yes. We start by reviewing the theme, plugins, hosting and backups, fix whatever is risky, and then tell you honestly whether the site is worth keeping or rebuilding. If you only need one small fix, a freelance WordPress developer may be quicker and cheaper, and we will say so.
Nobody can honestly promise rankings, but a planned move keeps the risk low. We list every address the old site has, map each one to its new home, test the redirects before launch and check afterwards that search engines are following them. When a rebuild does lose traffic, a missing or incomplete redirect plan is the usual cause.
Yes. Because all our work is remote, the whole Liverpool City Region is the same to us: Wirral, Sefton, Knowsley, St Helens and Halton, as well as the city itself. What changes is the brief. A trades firm covering both sides of the Mersey needs different pages from a restaurant on the waterfront.
Every site we build adapts its layout to the screen, but that alone is not enough, because a site can fit a phone and still be slow on it. We test on ordinary mid-range phones over mobile data. For hotels, venues and attractions, where many first visits come from someone already out in the city, that test matters more than anything on a desktop.
That is part of the brief from the first call. We choose the editing system for whoever will use it, keep the editing screens simple and walk your team through them at handover. If you would rather not touch it at all, small edits are covered by the care plan.
Fill in the form with a few lines about the business and what the site needs to do. We will reply with questions, arrange a video call and follow it with a written scope and quote. None of that costs anything.
Start here
A few lines about the business, what is wrong with the current site and what you want visitors to do on the new one. We will come back with questions and an honest view on whether we are the right fit for your Liverpool project, then a written quote if we are.
Thanks, that’s with us.
A senior engineer reads every enquiry and will reply as soon as they can.
Book a time that suits you, or send a message on WhatsApp.