I have spent years building websites, and shooting photography, for businesses around Cambridge. Long enough to see the same thing happen to them again and again.

Most of the people building these sites, whether a freelance designer, an agency, or someone offering it cheaply online, follow much the same pattern. They build the site, hand it over, and that is more or less where their part ends. From there you are largely on your own. Changes tend to cost, your domain or hosting can stay tied to whoever set it up, and moving on is rarely as simple as it should be. It is not that anyone sets out to trap you, it is just how the standard arrangement tends to work, and when a business comes to me from one, I am often the one helping to untangle it.

The alternative is to build it yourself. I understand the temptation, but it usually means giving up your evenings to a page builder, wrestling with plugins and settings you never asked to learn, and still ending up with a site that looks passable yet does little for the business it was meant to help.

I always felt small businesses deserved a fairer deal, especially on cost. A few thousand pounds up front is a serious sum, and that money usually does far more good kept in the business, easing cash flow, taking on an extra pair of hands, keeping things running, than spent on a website that never quite earns its keep.

So I work differently now. I design and build the site, take the photography myself, handle the SEO, and then look after it month to month for one simple fee. It is built to be found on Google, to earn trust the moment someone lands on it, and to make getting in touch easy. And it looks the part, the kind of polished, high-end design most businesses only get by paying thousands.

And I take all of that off your plate. Nothing to learn, no updates to chase, no lost evenings, no call-out bill when something breaks. You tell me what you need, and it gets done, so you can get on with running your business.

There is no large sum to find up front, no contract to sign, and your domain sits in your own name from the very first day. If the arrangement ever stops working for you, you are free to leave, with no fuss and nothing held over you.

Because I build everything up front and you pay as you go, I am invested in you from the very start. This is not a numbers game for me, so I am selective about who I take on, and it works best with owners who are serious about their business and happy to let me lead on how the site should work. You focus on what you do best, and I make sure the website holds up its end. I want the people I work with to do well, and a site that quietly does its job is part of that.

I was born and bred in Cambridge and have spent my whole life around here. When I am not building websites, you will usually find me out with my corgi, Riley, lost in a bit of local history, or listening to far too much music. I am also a working photographer, and I run Richard Howell Photography across the city and beyond, which is where the eye for how your site should look comes from. More than anything, I like building things for the people and businesses that make this place tick, and I want the ones I work with to do well.