Custom Web Design

Fast, SEO-Friendly Websites That Convert

Hello, I’m Bryan. And here at Storyteller Media, we create fast, SEO-friendly WordPress sites. If you want to sell more, reach more people, and generate more leads, we can help.

Web design for businesses, creators, and publishers is one of the services we offer.

  • Who this is for: Our web design service is for small and medium-sized businesses.
  • What we do: We build fast, beautiful, and well-structured websites. We focus on speed and user experience, two factors favored by search engines.
  • How we work: We build custom sites on WordPress. We use a select set of premium plugins and tools to add function, speed, and conversion optimization to every site.

Web Design: Fast WordPress Sites

We custom-build all sites on WordPress. Every site is fast, responsive, and SEO-friendly. And built to accomplish specific objectives.

Objective Determination

What’s the purpose of your new site? It’s critical to determine its specific objective(s).

A lead-generating site looks very different from an ad-supported site and from an e-commerce store.

Once the objective is determined and clearly identified, we can move to the site design pillars.

5 Pillars of Site Design

We follow five pillars of site design. As you’ll notice, these are related and must be developed together. Each design pillar focuses on the specific site objectives.

Site Speed

Site speed is required for a site that converts well and ranks well in search. The majority of visitors won’t wait for a slow site to load.
We employ caching, minification, image optimization, and lazy loading to improve site speed. And we develop clean, light code for the fastest sites possible.

SEO

Organic search traffic is valuable for every business. Every site is created with search engines in mind. This includes technical, on-page, off-page, schema, and metadata. Plus, every site is integrated with Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and Bing Webmasters Tools.

UX

While speed is a factor, it is just a small part of the user experience. We build with logical navigational and contextual links, readable font (size and color), and no content shift.
Every site is designed with mobile-first experience in mind.

Appearance

While often the first detail that comes to mind, site appearance must be chosen with other factors in mind.
Images, videos, pricing tables, and other site features must be carefully chosen and designed.

Updateability

Many sites are beautifully designed but can be almost impossible to update. We build sites that can be updated and changed by your staff or other developers. We know that you don’t want to call us every time something needs to be updated or added. We follow best practices for layout and design, making it easily updatable.

To accomplish these goals, we are careful when choosing the tech stack that your site is built on.

We always build as lightly as possible, avoiding needless plugins and custom code that don’t contribute directly to the site objective. We avoid excessive plugins, resource-heavy widgets, sliders, and features.

Other factors affecting site design include security, user intent, content plans, and site architecture.

The Design Process

We follow the following steps in every new site design.

Step 1

Strategy Call

The first step to a new project is determining specific objectives for the site.

In a 30-minute Zoom call, we’ll determine needs and answer your questions.

Step 2

Design & Develop

Next, we’ll get to work creating some layouts and drafting site structure.

In this phase, you’ll prepare the text and images you want included on the site.

Step 3

Revise & Optimize

In this stage, we’ll present our draft design for your review. We’ll review any adjustments.

Once approved, we’ll optimize the site for speed, SEO, and user experience.

Step 4

Go Live

With the site approved and optimized, it’s time to go live.

We’ll transfer the site to your hosting and make it live. Once launched, we’ll make the final CRM and SEO integrations.


All Packages Include

Every Storyteller Media site design package comes fully equipped with the following features:

  • Built on WordPress CMS
  • Code Free Editing
  • Responsive Mobile-First Design
  • Site Speed Optimized
  • SEO Best Practices and Integrations (Analytics, Search Console, RankMath)
  • Functions: Blog, Contact Form, Maps, Gallery, Video, XML Sitemap
  • Page Templates to easily add additional pages
  • 4 Weeks of Post Launch Email Support

How Much Does a Custom Website Cost?

Our web design packages offer a fully custom and managed website. The cost ranges from $1400 to $3200 for a custom-built, SEO-friendly website, and it is dependent upon several variables.

Web Design Packages by Storyteller Media

Here are our three popular site design packages.

Single Page

$1400

The single-page site is perfect for businesses with a concise message.

  • Strategy Call
  • Single Page Site
  • Fast, Responsive Design
  • Lead Generation Form
  • Features: Map, Contact Form, Gallery
  • SEO-friendly design
  • SEO optimization
  • 2 Rounds of Revisions

While the site is minimalist, it has all the features of a larger site and new pages can be easily added in the future.

Starter Site

$1800

Our starter site is great for new and small businesses.

  • Strategy Call
  • Up to 10 Pages
  • Fast, Responsive Design
  • Lead Generation Form
  • SEO-friendly design
  • SEO optimization
  • Integrations: Email List, CRM
  • Extra Pages: $150 each
  • 2 Rounds of Revisions

The most common pages include products, services, FAQ, blog, home, about, gallery, contact, and privacy.

Empire Builder

$3200

This robust site package is the foundation for your growing business.

  • Strategy Call
  • Up to 25 Pages
  • Fast, Responsive Design
  • Lead Generation Form
  • SEO-friendly design
  • SEO optimization
  • Extra Pages: $150 each
  • Keyword Research
  • 4 Rounds of Revisions

This design allows for many product, service, and sales pages.

*Prices are in Canadian dollars (CAD). Canadian clients are subject to sales tax.

Site Package Add-ons

Here are features and add-ons for our site design packages.

Need something different? Get in touch, and we’ll create a custom plan for your new website.

Web Design FAQs

Most custom websites will launch within 4 weeks of the initial strategy call.

Of course, there are factors affecting this timeline. The most significant factor is client response time. Delays in receiving approvals and site content may delay launch time.

Our current workload and project complexity also factor into the timeline. We’ll advise during the strategy call what our current timeline is.

Maybe. Depending on our current workload and your site requirements, we might be able to rush your project. Additional fees may apply.

We build all sites on WordPress.

And most sites are crafted with the Kadence theme. We are familiar with the majority of WordPress page builders and theme designers.

For sure. Once we complete your site design, you can create an unlimited number of pages. We build every site so site owners can create new pages and manage content on exisiting pages.

The page count in our design packages refers to the number of pages that we’ll create, optimize, and create navigation for.

Custom-built WordPress sites cost between $1400 and $3200 with our site design packages.

Of course, not all sites will fall within these ranges. Please contact us to get a proposal for your project.

Every site we build is optimized for search engines.

We optimize site structure, page speed, and on-page details so Google, Bing, and other search engines can easily crawl and then rank your site content.

We also offer ongoing SEO campaigns to grow your organic SEO traffic even more. We’ll create and optimize more content and build incoming links to help improve your rankings, lead generation, and sales.

Reach out to me at bryan@bryanhaines.com or schedule a call and we’ll put the project in motion.

Absolutely. Upon final payment, we transfer full site ownership to you. You are free to manage, move, and host the site as you wish.

No, we don’t sell hosting services. We strongly believe that you should have full control of your website. With your own hosting account, you can hire any developer or designer to work on your site.

What Our Clients Say

It’s really a complete service: SEO, site structure, design, and our website content.

In Bryan and Dena we found that, in addition to all their technical knowledge, they put themselves in our clients shoes to understand their needs.

Just great to work with people of such a great values.
Hernan Rodas
Blu Galapagos, Red Mangrove (Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos)
We are very pleased with the results and we highly recommend them.

We sought someone to help us out to design a webpage and we could’ve not found someone better than Bryan and Dena.

They understood our needs, gave us advice and helped us make our website accessible, efficient and easy for our patients.
Dr. Pamela Acosta
Ecuador Dental Care (Cuenca, Ecuador)
Thanks a lot for all your good work with our web page, we really appreciate your good ideas. You have been a great professional assistance.

It is good to know we are working with people who really care about doing their job right.

It is a pleasure working with you.
María Fernanda Pareja V.
Latin Roots Travel Co. (Quito, Ecuador)

How We Work

We build from scratch and do full site rebuilds. And we can migrate your site from one platform to another.

Custom Built Website

We’re happy to build your site from scratch. In many cases, the cost will be the same (or even less) to start from scratch.

We can usually import your site database (page content) and put that into the new page and site structure.

After an interview or questionnaire, we’ll draft your site structure.

You’ll be involved in each step, approving site colors, fonts, and images.

Site Rebuilds

If you want your site to remain the same, we can adjust page and site structure as part of optimizing for search engines, page speed, and user experience.

We’re also happy to rebuild your existing site. We can even migrate your site from another content management system.

The development process is similar to a fresh build, with client involvement at each stage.

Here’s how our pricing works.

Next Steps

Ready to Grow Your Business?

We are eager to help you grow your business by developing a fast site that generates leads and sales.

The next step is to schedule a strategy call.

Schedule a Call

Design & Develop

Revise & Optimize

Go Live

web design service

About Storyteller Media

At Storyteller Media, we focus on creating and optimizing web properties for traffic and conversion.

Dena and I are long-time creators operating several large authority sites (in tech and travel). Our content reaches about 300,000 monthly readers.

We’ve been web designers since 2007 with our first online business – a promotional products company based in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley. I’ve also covered online business for a New York Times property for four years.

About Bryan and Dena

We are both Nova Scotians. We were both born here and after some years abroad, we returned to our home province and put down roots.

We’ve been doing web design in Nova Scotia for many years.

bryan and dena haines

Ready to Increase Site Earnings?

To get started, visit Work With Us. Then select SEO audit, new site build, or SEO services on the order form.

After our strategy call, we’ll get to work growing your site traffic and earnings.