Web design in Barnsley: what to ask before you hire anyone

Hiring somebody local for your website helps a bit. It helps a lot less than finding somebody who can show you websites that bring in work, tell you the price up front, and still pick up the phone once it’s live. If they happen to be in Barnsley too, that’s a bonus.

I should say I’m biased. James Sheriff and I started Genius Division in Barnsley in August 2010 and we’ve built over 400 websites since, so obviously local’s worth something to me (I would, wouldn’t I?). I’ve written a longer, general guide on how to choose a web design agency if you want the full checklist. This one’s about hiring round here.

Does your web designer need to be in Barnsley?

No. Loads of good websites get built over Zoom by people who’ve never been to Barnsley market in their lives.

There are a few things a local company makes easier, though.

You can sit in a room with them. Sounds old-fashioned. Half an hour round a table with your old website printed out and a pen will sort things that take three weeks of emails, and if it all goes wrong later you know where they live. Well, where they work.

They know your customers. If you sell to people in Barnsley, Wakefield, Rotherham or Sheffield, somebody who lives here knows how those people talk and what they’re sick of hearing. Somebody three hundred miles away is guessing, and it shows in the words.

You can check up on them. It’s not a big place. Ask about and you’ll find somebody who’s worked with them, and they’ll tell you what it was really like, usually in more detail than you wanted.

Will they help you show up in local searches?

If most of your work comes from within half an hour’s drive, push hard on this one. When somebody types “roofer Barnsley” or “solicitor near me”, Google shows a map with a handful of businesses on it before the normal results. That map runs off your Google Business Profile, and your website feeds into it.

A web designer who knows local search should bring this up before you do. If they don’t, ask:

• Will every service get its own page, with the areas we cover mentioned where it actually makes sense?
• Will the business name, address and phone number on the website match our Google Business Profile exactly?
• Which page will the profile link to, and will we be able to see how many calls and enquiries come from it?
• We cover Doncaster and Penistone as well. How will the website show that without a pile of copy-and-paste town pages?

That last one matters. Some companies will knock out a page for every town in South Yorkshire with the same words and the name swapped. It looks busy and most of it is rubbish.

Can you ring someone they’ve worked with?

Screenshots in a portfolio don’t tell you much. Case studies that say what changed are better, and reviews from businesses you actually recognise are better still. A Barnsley owner will trust a review from a firm they drive past every morning over “Sarah, Marketing Director” with a stock photo. (Worth remembering for your own website too.)

So ask who they’ve worked with locally, then go and look at those websites yourself.

Two of ours, since I’m here. Rucklidge Law are family solicitors in Barnsley. Their old website was an off-the-shelf WordPress template that took over six seconds to load. We rebuilt it with photos of the actual team, cut the menu down to services and fees, and published their fees, which you hardly ever see from a solicitor. It loads in about two seconds now and conversion rates are up by as much as 35%. Jill’s review mentions us “explaining any technical and design issues in plain English”, which I’ll take.

The Business Village is a building full of offices in Barnsley. Its website talked all about office space and never told you how to rent one. We added a button that said “Book a tour”. That was it. Hardly rocket science, and nobody had thought to do it.

If a company can’t point you at anything like that from round here, ask why.

What will it cost?

Being in Barnsley doesn’t make a website any cheaper to build, because the hours are the same wherever the desk is.

Our websites start from £5,000, most land between £8,000 and £12,000, and fully bespoke work is £12,000 and up. It’s all on our pricing page, and I went through what pushes the number up or down in how much a website costs in the UK.

If someone quotes you a few hundred quid for a “fully custom” website, it’s worth asking what you’re really getting before you hand the money over.

Questions for the first meeting

• Can I come and see you?
• Who’s going to design and build it, and can I meet them?
• Which local businesses have you done this for, and can I ring one?
• What will I be able to change myself without paying you?
• Is the domain in my name, and what happens if we part ways?
• Who looks after it once it’s live, and what does that cost each month?
• If the contact form breaks at 4pm on a Friday, who do I call?

We look after about 70 websites, so I’m fairly used to that last one.

Red flags

• They can’t name a single local client, or they get cagey when you ask to speak to one.
• They promise you number one on Google for your trade plus “Barnsley”. Nobody can promise that.
• Nobody mentions your Google Business Profile at any point.
• The only person you ever meet is the salesperson.
• Their own reviews are all from people and businesses you can’t find anywhere.

Get out and meet a few

The easiest way to suss people out is to see them in the flesh. Go to local business events. I’ve done free marketing and video talks at the Astoria Centre with Caroline Allott and Storage Masters, and you can tell a lot about somebody from how they talk to a room full of business owners. That includes me, to be fair.

Then pick whoever shows you real results and tells you a price without faffing. If that turns out to be somebody in Leeds, fine. I’ll get over it.