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Web Design & Development

We are an award-winning web design and development agency in Shrewsbury. Local In-House Developers And 15+ Years Of Experience Delivering Stunning Websites That Fuel Business Growth.

Shropshire's Best Development Agency

Verve are a website development agency in Shropshire with local experts who design and develop powerful websites. These sites are mobile-optimised, high-performing and built for both sustainability and accessibility guidelines. We are proud of the shared experience, knowledge and ability of our fantastic team, and the quality of websites that we built on WordPress, Magento 2, Shopify and WooCommerce for our clients.

Brochure Sites Or eCommerce Stores

Whether you need a stunning WordPress site which is fast, sustainable and easy to edit, or an eCommerce store with bespoke functionality that is designed to convert, Verve can help. We are a website development agency based in Shropshire who have in-house expertise and over a decade of experience building websites on WordPress, Magento 2, Shopify and WooCommerce for our clients.

Verve Web Design & Development Hand Designing with a pencil

You are the expert in your business.

That’s why you’re at the heart of all we do. Verve understands the value of your insights and we use our expertise as a leading web design agency to build your vision, leveraging our deep experience to advise what works best for your business, and crucially what doesn’t.

Our concept sharing systems allow you to approve every stage of your design, whilst integrated feedback tools ensure your voice is heard. Once you’re happy, concept becomes reality: our Shrewsbury-based developers custom code your bespoke website, tailored to your business.

“Verve recognised and understood the complex idiosyncrasies of our business and developed the right tone and creative to appeal to all customers across our various divisions. They have proven themselves to be a creative, responsive and strategic business partner and have always delivered.”

Patrick Dixon | TG Group

“Verve first redesigned our website 6 years ago and since then we have worked together regularly and always been impressed with the quality of work. It is always a pleasure to work alongside the team, and we were extremely excited for the Magento 2 build. We are so pleased with the new site, sales are up and we love the design. Thank you!”

Charlotte Downs CEO | Fastco

“I have been involved in the launch of numerous websites and the quality of this build is second to none; I would have no concerns about using Verve for any future projects or indeed recommending them to any other businesses that are looking to grow.”

David Lane | Mangar Health
Knowledgable and Skilled Website Development Agency

Combining responsive design with bespoke code and show stopping visuals we can ensure that you’ll end up with a website that meets all your expectations, and more. We have over a decade of experience as a website development agency and on average we work with our clients for at least 7 years; this shows the quality of work we do for them and the great relationships we forge.

We’re here to help advise you on what platform is best for you and your business, whether that’s Magento 2, WordPress, WooCommerce or Shopify. We can help you choose which modules, payment gateways and security options you will need for your business.

Our combined knowledge as a team puts us in the perfect position to help you achieve your goals with your online business.

Full-Service Digital Agency In Shropshire

We are a full service digital agency based in Shrewsbury, Shropshire. Our team is small by choice, as we only hire local experts who have experience, talent and drive. The fact we are full-service means host websites, are masters at web design but also have development experience on multiple platforms and a digital marketing team to advise on business growth.

This combined experience means we design and build websites that are optimised to deliver a seamless user experience (UX). We ensure our sites are intuitive and that they take a customer on an effortless journey towards their desired destination (a conversion).

We also use bespoke UI design for new and existing sites which aims to focus on the look and feel of the site, including typography, colour schemes and the overall visuals of the site itself. Our aim is to create a stunning user interface that flows freely and enhances the user experience. As a leading web design agency, we have helped many brands to improve their image and built websites that bring this to life.

As a full-service digital agency, we look at your business as a whole and make sure our web design and development provides you with exactly what you need to succeed.

 

How do I Make My Website Accessibility Friendly?

As a B Corp, our social conscience is at the heart of what we do and we are committed to building websites for everyone. From colour palettes to font choices and alt tags, we have studied accessibility guidelines and have a team of talented frontend developers based in Shrewsbury who build accessible websites. As a B Corp website development agency, this is important to us and we have the expertise to help you pass various accessibility guidelines.

How Can I Make My Website Sustainable?

The good news is, a fast website built for performance will also be a sustainable website. It’s little known that the digital space has a larger carbon footprint than the global aviation industry, but the truth is that a huge amount of energy is needed to power and cool data centres. We have done A LOT, of research studying and tweaking our code so that it is as efficient as possible. This means the page is lighter and it loads quicker, thus using less energy. Some of our top tips include:

  1. Don’t use massive auto-playing videos
  2. Use the right image formats; PNG’s are much bigger than AVIF, WebP or even JPG’s.
  3. Hire a website development agency to write your code; pagebuilders are heavy.

In addition to this, your website hosting makes a big difference to your sites sustainability. We moved all of our hosting to renewable powered cloud servers and are listed on the Green Web Directory as a verified green hosting provider.

Our Web Design And Development Process
We have worked on all manner of projects; from bespoke portals using laravel to brochure websites on WordPress or eCommerce shops on Magento 2 using Hyva. However, one thing remains the same, we start by getting to know you and your business. A positive relationship between a web development agency and a business is the foundation upon which successful digital projects are delivered. Our process is designed to build in time for feedback and to ensure deadlines are met in an efficient and timely manner. We adapt our project plan and timeline to the unique needs of each client, but this base plan will give you an idea of how we work:

Month 1

Kick-off meeting : This is the first opportunity to get all stakeholders in one meeting; we will talk through the project plan. what we need and when, to help everyone prepare things in advance and then we will provide access to a project portal for you to be able to keep track of progress.

Marketing strategy Workshop: Utilising any marketing strategy docs you already have we will develop the Verve™ playbook to help with the whole project as it will provide foundational guidance of organisation goals and KPIs.

Website Content Audit: Verve audit the site for cotent but also advise clients to identify and extract valuable content.

Branding Workshop: Working with key stakeholders, we will start outlining the brand itself to take away to build branding concepts.

Site Map Outline: Utilising the current content from the website and the audit, we will map out a site map of key pages & their purpose/content.

Branding Concepts: Utilising what was put together during the workshop, along with any other materials supplied, we will come up with some branding concepts.

Wireframing (LoFI): From the site map, low-fidelity wireframes will be put together and then workshopped to ensure all the content that is needed is in there in an order that makes sense for “buyer journeys”.

Branding Final Development: After concepts have been narrowed down, we will develop them until a champion is picked.

Wireframing (HiFi): The final step is to start adding in any copy, colours, and logos, so we can really get a feel for the final vision.

Branding Sign Off & Delivery: We will digitally transfer all of the original and final files over to your to store. you will be provided with several formatted of logos and also a comprehensive brand guidelines.

Website Final Brief Development: The final step in the starting phase is to utilise the final wireframe along with branding to develop a robust final brief and plan to go to the studio for a pixel perfect design.

 

Month 2

Homepage design development: We will start the final design by developing the homepage out to completion, this way we can build a solid style guide ahead of doing all the “inner pages”.

Homepage Sign-Off

Inner Pages Design & Review: With the homepage signed off, we now have a solid foundation to design the rest of the pages. There will be a robust review and feedback process to ensure the design matches requirements.

Beta Site Creation & Configuration: We will create a beta site on our servers and configure it ready for the site build.

Inner Pages Sign-Off: Once happy, the inner pages can be signed off and handed over to the studio

Homepage Build Start: As the homepage design is approved and the beta site is created, we will start the build ASAP to save time.

 

Month 3

Homepage Build Finish & Inner Pages Build Start: We will set up a shared folder structure that mirrors the site map to help with dropping in the relevant content for the correct pages to keep this process smooth.

Content Population Start: We will set up a shared folder structure that mirrors the site map to help with dropping in the relevant content for the correct pages to keep this process smooth.

Inner page build finish

 

Month 4

Content population finish

DM sign-off: Our digital marketing department will review the website’s content and SEO and then sign off if they are happy that everything is in place as it should be.

Final Development Checklist & Bug Fixing: Once the content has been filled and DM has done anything they need to, usually some small bug arise. So we set aside studio time specifically to clean everything up ahead of go live.

Final go Live tasks

Go Live

 

Month 5

Post Live tasks & Training: Once everything has gone live, we will provide you with all the access you need to go forward & we will provide comprehensive training on how to update your content.

What happens after my website is launched?

A lot of web design agencies are a bit of a production line and after you’ve paid your final invoice and the website is live, they disappear. We are not like that, hence we work with our clients on an average of 7+ years. We offer retainer options which allow us to continually optimise and improve your website, and to be there to support you if you need assistance. We also have an ad-hoc rate which is slightly higher for businesses who cannot commit to a retainer. We like building a long-term relationship and building something sustainable that helps your business for years to come is really important to our process.

In addition to our development services, we also have a digital marketing department. By this time you will likely have met some of the team, as we ensure our full agency worth of expertise is involved in your project. We have in-house Shrewsbury-based expertise in SEO, Google Ads, Email Marketing, Meta Ads and Copywriting. From strategy sessions to retainers that help fuel business growth, we can help your business take them next steps and make the most of the new website you’ve invested in.

Verve Web Design and Development Laptop With The Chris Nangle Website

We are a leading web design and development agency in Shropshire that builds incredible websites. Get in touch and find out how we could help enhance your digital presence.

Verve Our Work Device Mockup The Style Coaching Institute
Website Design, WooCommerce, Digital Marketing
Style Coaching Institute

“I have been involved in the launch of numerous websites and the quality of this build is second to none; I would have no concerns about using Verve for any future projects or indeed recommending them to any other businesses that are looking to grow.”

Chris Nangle | Chris Nangle Furniture

“Aside from the obvious web development and design skills offered by the team, what I really valued was their honest and constructive input. It was so helpful to see our online business with their fresh eyes.”

Kate Redmond | The Style Coaching Institute®
Verve Portfolio Our Work Chris Nangle
Website Design, WooCommerce
Chris Nangle
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We strongly recommend WordPress to our brochure site clients. The CMS is very easy to use and the website is free of licensing and owned by you. This means you can host it on our green servers, or any other option you prefer and you also have ownership of all the content on your website. WordPress also offers fantastic value for money compared to competitors and is very easy to customise.

As a leading web design and development agency we have the experience to design and build bespoke WordPress sites and there are numerous benefits to this. A bespoke site will be designed to fit your business, be that looks or functionality. The code is then written for that design. This means there is no bloat, functionality is precise and the end result is a very high-performing fast website that caters for your business needs going forwards by performing optimally on Google. A template site is similar, but it is not designed purely for your business; this inevitably means there are parts you do not use and that do not quite work for your business. A pagebuilder allows you to drag and drop content and blocks on a page and this can give a user more flexibility. The issue with this is that the end result will not be as clean and professional and the code becomes incredibly bloated; this will make your website slow and make it harder for you to rank high on Google.

In-house web development means we are a web design agency with developers who are employees of our business. This might be what you expect from any agency you go to, but in actual fact a lot of agencies outsource the bulk of their development overseas to cut down on costs. At Verve, we pride ourselves on the quality of our development; the way we write code results in better websites that give clients a lot more value going forwards. Our whole team is based in Shrewsbury and your project manager will sit in the same room as the web developers working on your code. This enables far better communication. In addition to this, it allows us to employ local people and support Shropshire.

Investing in a brand new website for your business can seem like a big cost, and it is certainly a decision that you need to get right. The mistake a lot of businesses make is opting for a website design and build that does not act as a growth engine for their business going forwards. The cost of a website should be tailored to the amount of functionality you are looking for, so our number one piece of advice would always be to map out (or list) exactly what functionality you want, and the goals you have. Have conversations with agencies like us (three is best) and talk through this with them. Find a team you relate to and trust to build the website you want, as communication is really important to any website build project. Ultimately, you can get a templated WordPress site for a few thousand pounds and if you are a very small business with limited scope, that is perfectly okay. However, a bespoke site costs more for a reason and the business growth it can fuel will often dwarf the investment.

We recommend post-build development retainers to our clients. The main reason for this is that we believe in growth-driven-design, with your website being continually optimised. Google love this, its a better experience for users, you remain ahead of competitors and won’t be faced with a similar situation in 5 years when your website has stagnated again. Our retainers guarantee you development studio time meaning we can work on your changes. However, our WordPress websites are also very easy to edit so there are a lot of times when you will be able to make the change yourself, and the training we include in our project plan will aid this.

We are a leading web design and development agency in Shrewsbury and have experience building both brochure sites and eCommerce stores. The main difference is that an eCommerce store will have a product catalog and ordering functionality. This is a website that we will build using Magento 2 (Adobe Commerce), WooCommerce or Shopify depending on what best suits your business. We have built eCommerce stores for B2B and B2C companies for more than a decade. A brochure site is likely to be built on WordPress as this offers the best content management system (CMS). Our Shrewsbury based developers can also build a custom portal from scratch using Laravel.

Laravel is for hardcore developers. It’s an open source PHP framework that allows us to start from absolutely nothing, and code something very special from the ground up. We have used this for portal for one of the UK’s most popular wedding caterers and built in functionality to add guests, choose venue and menu options and a plethora more. This is great if you have very bespoke needs and want something custom.

Using a local agency can be really beneficial if you feel you could benefit from in-person meetings. We love visiting our clients or inviting them to our HQ for strategy sessions and more. We have a strong track record of working with local businesses in and around Shrewsbury. However, the last decade has seen great leaps forward in remote working and we have also worked very well with businesses all across the UK, forging positive lasting relationships with Google Meets calls, strong communications and a great track record of results.

The amount of time it takes to build a new website can depend on the following factors:

  • The nature of your business
  • What functionality you want on your website
  • How many unique pages your website design entails
  • What integrations your website needs
  • What platform you choose to use
  • Which agency you choose to use
  • Project Management

We always offer a timescale before we embark on a project. As you can see in our timescales above, a typical roadmap for us will sit between 3 and 6 months, but this is typical. As a small but agile agency with a team of very experienced experts, our proposals are bespoke and we have a lot of conversations around your needs and capacity before we come up with an accurate timeframe for our projects. Our project managers sit in the same room as our web developers and we find this results in projects which are much more efficient and timely for our clients. This is likely why our clients will go onto work with us for 7+ years on average and have rated us 5 stars on average.

Sometimes you simply need a website in an unnaturally short amount of time because of factors outside of your control. If this happens to your business and you truly have no options, then we recommend working out your non-negotiables and then reaching out to agencies you like for meetings. Be honest, and go from there, as the possibility of your deadline will likely depend on agency capacity. We’ve helped clients in the past to build websites in very short timeframes, but its vital that we know long-term goals. In this case, a more basic site can be designed and built as a launchpad, with continual development post-project allowing us to build in the ‘nice to have’ functionality when time is less pressing. Our number one piece of advice would be to still pick the right agency: price and timeframe are clearly important but so is value to your business. If the quality is sacrificed for speed, you’d likely have been able to build the site yourself and it won’t be a growth engine for your company.