About Grass Media Web Design

Based in Herne Bay, Kent, we are highly experienced, professional and reliable makers of websites but, there’s more. We have a solid background in web technologies, marketing, business consultancy and the psychology of web users. That makes for an almost unique blend of talents and skills which we can bring together to work for you and your business. It may sound arrogant but, if you’re prepared to tell us about your business and what you want to achieve then take our advice and guidance, we will make you a great looking website that is actually an asset to your business and not a liability.

We are proud to be a lean, agile little firm with over 60 active clients at this time and most are in and around Kent. However, we do have clients as far afield as Dubai!

A website has just one purpose

… and that purpose is to encourage people to choose you to do business with above anyone else. It really is that simple and yet it’s estimated that over 80% of business websites don’t cut the mustard. A good website is an investment and, if it’s not doing the business, it’s just a liability.

Strip back all of the fancy graphics, the stock photos of cool, young people in a funky urban-chic office and all of the predictable marketing-speak, that’s all just vanity, and ask yourself the question “Is my website winning me more customers?”. If the answer’s ‘no’ then it certainly should be but, at least you’re in the right place now.

Anyone can make a business website, right?

These days anyone with an ounce of creativity, using modern tools, can make a website in minutes and for little money which, on the face of it, is all that you need. Job done.

Not so fast though. There’s a lot more too it. We’ve been making websites for customers since 2001 and we’ve learned a lot about how website visitors interact, we know what they want to see, we know what compels them and what antagonises them. Most of all, we understand what a website needs to do in order to convert a visitor to a customer.

The website iceberg

The way your website looks, its design and layout, is only around 20% of the full picture. Below the waterline there’s a whole bunch of stuff that needs attention if your website is going to consistently generate business. In terms of the time it takes and the skills required, that’s the 80% most people never see. It includes your legal obligations (you did know you had legal obligations?), SSL certification, keeping up to date with the the ever-changing Google ranking algorithms, analytics and performance tracking, keeping the website safe from hackers, maintaining and keeping software updated. That’s why people pay us to make things happen and that’s the real value we deliver.

How well do you know your website?

If you have a website currently and it’s anything over about 18 months old and it’s not really doings its stuff, here’s some things you may find helpful.

No matter whether you're a sole trader, limited company, partnership or some other entity, you have legal obligations to display certain detail on your website.
Is your website mobile friendly? These days you can expect around 70% of visitrs to your website to be using a smart phone or tablet. If your site isn't properly responsive to those devices then your Google rankings will suffer. Google expects your site to display correctly, have easily accessible menu items and flexible content.
You have a legal obligation to tell visitors to your website about your policies relating to privacy of information, cookies and other GDPR realted details.
It may not yet be a legal requirement but does your website have an SSL Certificate? Usually this is indicated as a padlock symbol in the browser address bar. It tell visitors to your website that your website is safe but, it also plays a big part in being found by Google and well ranked. Google de-ranks websites with no SSL certificate.
How fast is your website? Maybe you've never thought about it but a slow website will not only discourage would-be customers but also can hurt your search engine rankings. You can test the speed of your website by visiting https://gtmetrix.com and entering your web address. Generally, you should be concerned if it's over 3 seconds. Anything over 7 seconds would be serious cause for concern.

Our services

We don’t do ‘fire & forget’ websites. All of the websites we make come with a full service maintenance agreement built-in. We give you a fully costed proposal detailing what we’ll do for you, when we’ll do it and at what price. The cost we give you is all inclusive for the first 12 months, after which, you have the option to continue with us on a ‘hosting & maintenance’ plan or take your website elsewhere. We hope though that in the first 12 months, the value of the website we’ll make for you has more than earned its keep!

FREE Current website evaluation

We offer a free analysis of your current website. We’ll evaluate mobile friendliness, loading speeds, relevance, search engine optimisation, content, quality and performance. We’ll make some recommendations and deliver these to you by email in an easy to read, easy to understand format. No obligation, no nonsense, no hype, no pressure, just the facts.

What our customers say

Grass Media were recommended to us. We'd been looking for a new website for some time as we were frustrated with our old site. It seemed unnecessarily cluttered and it was nowhere to be seen on Google so, naturally, we didn't receive any enquiries. To be honest, I tried to haggle about the price they quoted but now, just two weeks down the line, I understand the value - we have received 7 good quality new enquiries from the website already and, even if we get no more, the website has already paid for itself several times over.

Nigel (Grass Media Web Design) has made us a number of sites in recent years for our core building business and also our specialist roofing and loft conversion divisions. He has always been responsive to our needs, quick to react and always delivers on time, if not sooner. We are very happy with the number of good quality leads generated from our websites and the way our businesses are achieving top rankings in Google.

We've worked with Nigel for a number of years now and we're delighted with everything he's done for us. We initially engaged him after a very bad experience with our previous web designer who was both expensive and elusive! We have no hesitation in recommending Nigel and Grass Media Web Design.

We are a specialist FORS Compliant Haulage firm. It's no exaggeration to say that Grass Media have been a major part of our expansion and growth and the level of business we get from our website alone is extraordinary. The website has paid for itself many times over.

Nigel (Grass Media) has proved himself to be far more than just a web designer. We are a global publishing firm and our web platforms are our primary product. From the initial designs through to publication, Nigel has proved himself to be an invaluable asset to our business, helping us with our web based strategies and mentoring my team on best practices.

We are a local florist shop here in Herne Bay and we rely on our website for online sales & deliveries. We had a bad experience with our previous web design firm who, little known to us, had allowed our site to become vulnerable to hackers and, of course, the inevitable happened and our site was badly hacked. We turned to Grass Media who rescued us in just a few hours and than began building us a whole new site from which to sell our 200+ products. I've just checked and we're still #1 for the search term "Florists Herne Bay" 🙂

We're totally reliant on our website for airport bookings so, imagine our distress when one morning we checked the site and were greeted with nothing more than a page of gobbledegook. We phoned a number of local web firms and most weren't able to help but Nigel took on the challenge and within literally an hour, had rescued the situation and then went on to make us a brand new site. We're delighted with its performance and the way in which Grass meia help us to keep on top of the rankings in what is quite a competitive market.

If you’d like to take up a reference, we’d be delighted to put you in touch with any of our 60+ customers. Just ask for details. We’ve nothing to hide and everything to be proud of!

We make websites that really work for your business