Lake District · Working anywhere
See your new homepage before you pay a penny.
I build websites that bring in work, for owner-run businesses that look smaller online than they are on site. Websites start at £2,497 for a small company, every price in writing first.
Where the work goes
The quote that went quiet.
Last month you priced a big job. The visit went well. You measured up, talked it through, shook hands on the drive.
That night the customer did what everyone does now: they typed your name into Google. They found a page from 2016, three photos and a Hotmail address. Nothing that looked like the firm that stood on their drive. They rang someone else. You never found out why.
The work went to whoever looked the part online.
What you have already tried
You have probably paid for this already.
The £500 template that shares a skeleton with ten thousand other sites.
The designer who took the deposit and went quiet.
The £600 a month that buys a traffic report and no phone calls.
The blog posts written to please Google, on a website that still never rings.
All of it chasing people who were only browsing, never the one ready to hire.
For the money
What your money actually buys.
A film on the front of your site
Not stock footage. A film of your business: the yard, the kit, the finished jobs. On screen, your firm finally looks the size it is on site.
Words your customers already use
Every page says what the job is, what it costs and why you, in the words your customers use when they praise work like yours. I get those words by reading the reviews in your trade before I write a line.
Built so Google can actually find you
Most websites chase one big search. Every builder in the county is fighting over "builder Penrith", and nobody wins that fight without years and a small fortune.
The searches that win jobs are smaller. "Cracked render repair Penrith." "Extension cost Kendal." Only a handful of people type those in a month. But almost every one of them has a problem, money set aside, and a job they want done this week. Almost nobody has built a page for them. That is why they are winnable.
So that is how your site gets built: one page for each job you want more of. You tell me the work you want, the extensions rather than the leaky taps, and the site is aimed at exactly that. Five job pages are in the price. More cost £150 each, whenever you want them.
Each page is short on purpose. Someone ready to hire does not want three thousand words. They want the job, the place, the price and a button.
It is also how AI ends up recommending you. Ask ChatGPT for a plasterer in Carlisle. The firms it names are usually the ones with a page answering that exact question. Most of your competitors have not built those pages.
Fast enough that people stay
Loads in under two seconds on a phone. Most of your competitors take five.Run the test yourself.
The research behind it
75%
of people judge whether a business is credible by its website.
Stanford Web Credibility Research
0.05s
is how fast a visitor makes up their mind about your site.
Behaviour and Information Technology 25(2)
53%
of phone visitors give up if a page takes more than three seconds.
Google, The Need for Mobile Speed
7%
of sales lost when a page slows by just a tenth of a second.
Akamai, Online Retail Performance 2017
In writing
Six things no other web designer will put in writing.
Every one of them is there because somebody got burned that way.
See your homepage before you pay a penny
You look at the real thing first, not a proposal. If you do not want it, you walk away free and owe nothing.
Every price in writing, first
Small business builds and the monthly number are published on the What it costs page. Bigger businesses are priced properly and put in writing before anything starts. You will never be asked to pay a price you have not already seen in writing.
You own everything from day one
Domain, site, code and analytics sit in your name from day one. Leave any time and take the lot with you.
Live in days, not months
Agreed design to live site in days. There is no long dark middle where you wonder if I am still working.
A human replies within one working day
Email tom@madebymatanah.com and I reply within one working day. No ticket queue, no chatbot, no account manager standing between you and the person who built your site.
One monthly number says what the site earned
No promises about getting your name out there, no dressed-up traffic reports. Every call and lead through the site is tracked. Once a month you get the only number that matters: what it earned. Judge the site like any other hire, on what it brings in.
Before you take my word for any of it, open ten other designers' websites and count how many print a price.
The numbers, measured
1.6s
To load on a phone
0
Jumps while the page loads
100
Accessibility, out of 100
Measured on the most recent build, for Dinsdale Contracts, on 31 August 2026, with Google's own speed test, four runs. Speed scored 90 to 99 out of 100 on a phone and 98 on desktop. The phone score moves a little run to run, so the range is printed, not the best one.
The page you are on was measured the same way on 6 September 2026. All 10 of its pages scored 100 for accessibility. Speed came in between 93 and 100, and nothing jumps while they load.Run it yourself.
There are two parts to this
One build. Then the part that keeps working.
The Flagship Build
The website itself. Eight pages, a film of your business, words your customers use, and your sample homepage before you pay.
From £2,497 · bigger businesses priced in writing first
→02The Growth Retainer
Being found locally. Your Google listing run properly, reviews arriving automatically from every job, hosting and care, and one report a month.
£500 a month, six-month minimum
→In your words
The four questions you ask once you have been burned.
What happens if you disappear like my last designer?
You lose a supplier, not a website. The domain, site, code and analytics are in your name from day one. Any decent developer could pick it up tomorrow without asking me. Nothing of yours lives in my accounts. And while I am here, I reply within one working day.
Who owns the site if we fall out?
You do, and you did before we fell out. Ownership moves to you on day one, not at the end as a reward for good behaviour. You can leave at any time and take the lot. There is nothing for me to switch off, and nothing to charge you for on the way out.
Why does it cost more than a template?
Often it does not. A decent template job done for you, plus a photographer, is not far off £2,497. The difference is what you get for the money. A template is a layout you fill in yourself, shared with ten thousand other sites, and it stops the day it goes live. This is a site built around one business: yours. A film of your work on the front, a page for every job you want, and a monthly number that says what it earned. And you do not hand over a penny up front. You see your finished homepage first, and the price is in writing before anything starts.
How do I know it's actually bringing me work?
Every call and lead through the site is tracked. Once a month you get one number: what the site earned. Not traffic, not impressions. Money. If that number stops justifying the site, stop the retainer and keep everything: site, domain, data, the lot.
Start here
Tell me about the business.
Three fields. I read every one myself. You get either a straight yes and a date, or a straight no and who to ask instead.
Or write to me directly
tom@madebymatanah.comMon to Fri, 9am to 5pm. Based in the Lake District. I work with businesses wherever they are.