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Website Services

Your website is the foundation of your online presence. Whether you're starting from scratch, migrating an existing site, or looking to improve what you already have, we handle every layer of the technical stack — from choosing the right domain to keeping your site fast, secure, and legally compliant. We work with you to find the right tools and hosting for your budget and goals, so you're not paying for more than you need.

Domain & DNS

Your domain name is your address on the internet — it needs to be the right fit for your brand and properly managed. We help you choose, register, and maintain your domain, and handle the technical side so everything points to the right place.

  • Domain Name Registration: Guidance on choosing a domain that suits your brand, with support for .co.za, .org.za, .com, .org, and other extensions. Detailed pricing and explanations are covered in the full write-up.
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  • DNS Management: We manage your DNS records through Cloudflare or your cloud host provider, ensuring your domain correctly points to your hosting, email, and other services.
  • SSL Certificates: Free SSL via Let's Encrypt and Cloudflare is set up by default. Extended or organisation-validated certificates are available where required (e.g. for eCommerce or financial services).
  • DDoS Protection: Basic DDoS mitigation is included through Cloudflare's network. Additional layers of protection are available depending on your site's risk profile and traffic levels.

Hosting

The right hosting solution depends on your site's size, expected traffic, budget, and where your customers are based. We'll help you choose and set up the option that fits — and explain the trade-offs clearly.

  • Shared Hosting: A cost-effective starting point for smaller websites with moderate traffic. Good for brochure sites, blogs, and early-stage businesses.
  • VPS or Dedicated Server: For growing or high-traffic sites that need dedicated resources and greater control over the server environment.
  • Managed Hosting: We handle the server-side maintenance and updates, so you can focus entirely on your content and business. Often the best fit for WordPress sites.
  • Cloud Hosting: Scalable infrastructure via AWS, Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure — ideal for applications or sites with variable or unpredictable traffic.
  • Custom Multi-Domain Setup: If you manage multiple domains or clients, we can set up a private server with cPanel or Webmin to give you full control in one place.
  • External Hosting: If you already have a hosting provider or prefer to use one of your choice, we are happy to work with it. Please note that we cannot take responsibility for server-related issues such as slow load times, downtime, or other performance concerns that may arise with external hosting providers. Our involvement will be limited to deploying and maintaining your website within the constraints of the hosting environment you've selected.

South African Data Residency (POPIA Compliance)
All our shared hosting is based in Cape Town, ensuring your customer data stays within South African borders in line with the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA).

International & Non-Shared Hosting
For clients requiring non-shared hosting, we offer the flexibility to host in most regions worldwide. This allows us to comply with international data protection regulations — such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union — by hosting data in the appropriate jurisdiction. Our global hosting options help businesses meet legal requirements while optimising performance and proximity to their target audiences.

Website Build & Development

We build websites that work for your business — not just visually, but technically. From simple informational sites to complex platforms, we help you choose the right approach from the outset, whether that's a CMS you can manage yourself, a website builder for speed and simplicity, or a fully custom-built solution.

  • CMS (Content Management System): Platforms like WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla give you full control over your content without needing a developer for day-to-day updates. We build, configure, and train you on your chosen CMS.
  • Website Builders: Wix, Squarespace, or Shopify are a strong choice when speed-to-launch and ease of use matter most. We'll help you set them up properly and get the most out of the platform.
  • Custom Development: When your requirements go beyond what off-the-shelf tools can offer, we build bespoke solutions using modern web frameworks. See our Custom Development & Apps page for the full range.
  • eCommerce: From WooCommerce, Drupal Commerce and Shopify to fully custom online stores, we set up your product catalogue, payment gateway integration (PayFast, PayGate, Stripe, PayPal), checkout flow, and order management — built to convert visitors into customers.
  • Website Content: We help you plan and structure your content — pages, imagery, video, and messaging — so your site launches with a clear purpose and speaks to the right audience. We work with a network of skilled, experienced web content writers who understand how to write for the web and, importantly, how to carry your company's voice and brand personality across every page.
  • Multilingual Sites & Translation: We build multilingual websites using your CMS's native language tools — Drupal's built-in multilingual suite, WPML for WordPress, or similar — so content can be managed across languages without duplicating your site structure. We work with experienced web content writers and bring in specialist freelance translators as needed for specific languages, ensuring translations aren't just linguistically accurate but sound natural and on-brand. Whether you need English and Afrikaans, content across multiple South African languages, or a fully localised site for an international market, we coordinate the full translation, review, and publishing process.
  • Browser & Device Testing: We test across the browsers your visitors actually use — Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge as standard, plus privacy-focused browsers like Firefox Focus and Brave. Privacy browsers block certain scripts, tracking pixels, and cookies by default, which can break layouts or functionality that mainstream browser testing won't catch. Testing in them ensures your site works correctly for privacy-conscious visitors.

Website Migration

Moving an existing website — whether between platforms, hosting providers, or domains — carries real risk if not handled carefully. We manage the full migration process, minimising downtime and ensuring nothing gets lost along the way.

  • Platform Migration: Moving from Wix, Squarespace, or an older CMS to WordPress, Drupal, or a custom build. We handle content, media, and structure — and map redirects so your SEO rankings aren't affected.
  • Hosting Migration: Moving your existing website to a new server or hosting provider, with a clean cutover and minimal disruption to visitors.
  • Domain Transfer: Transferring your domain to a new registrar, with full DNS management during the transition to avoid downtime.
  • 301 Redirects & SEO Preservation: Any URL structure changes during a migration are mapped with permanent redirects to preserve your search engine rankings and avoid broken links.

Database

Most dynamic websites and applications rely on a database to store and retrieve content, user data, products, and more. We design, set up, and manage the right database solution for your project, whether that's a simple shared setup or a high-availability cloud database.

  • Database Setup: Design and configuration of relational (MySQL, PostgreSQL) or non-relational (MongoDB) databases, matched to your application's needs.
  • Shared Database Hosting: Cost-effective for smaller projects, running on your shared hosting environment.
  • Managed Database Hosting: Hands-off database management via services like PlanetScale or Amazon RDS — automatic backups, patching, and scaling handled for you.
  • Cloud Database Hosting: Fully scalable database infrastructure on AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud for high-demand applications.

Email Hosting & Setup

A branded email address ([email protected]) immediately adds credibility to your business. We set up your email hosting, configure your sending tools, and design templates that look professional in every inbox.

  • Business Email Setup: We configure branded email accounts via Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, or your hosting provider — whichever best suits your team size and budget.
  • Email Deliverability (SPF, DKIM, DMARC): A branded email address means nothing if your messages land in spam. We configure the three DNS-based authentication records that modern email providers require: SPF (which servers are authorised to send on your behalf), DKIM (a cryptographic signature proving the message hasn't been tampered with), and DMARC (a policy telling receiving servers what to do when an email fails those checks). Getting these right is the single most effective step you can take to ensure your emails reach inboxes reliably.
  • Transactional Email: Order confirmations, password resets, booking notifications, and account alerts need to be fast, reliable, and delivered separately from your marketing email. We set up dedicated transactional email infrastructure via services like Amazon SES, Brevo, SendGrid, or Postmark — so a spike in marketing bounces never affects your critical automated messages.
  • Mailing Lists & Campaigns: From setting up your subscriber lists to designing and scheduling campaigns, we help you reach your audience consistently and compliantly.
    • List management, segmentation, and clean-up
    • Sending infrastructure via Sendy, Amazon SES, or Mailchimp
    • Team training on managing and growing your lists
  • Custom Email Designs: Professionally designed, responsive email templates built using the MJML framework — consistent branding that renders correctly across all major email clients.

Security & Compliance

A compromised website can damage your reputation, expose your customers' data, and be costly to recover from. We take a practical, layered approach to website security — putting the right protections in place without overcomplicating things.

  • Backups: Automated regular backups with tested restore procedures, so you're covered if something goes wrong.
  • Security Plugins & Firewalls: Installation and configuration of platform-appropriate security tools — from WordPress security plugins to server-level firewalls.
  • Software & Plugin Updates: Keeping your CMS, themes, and plugins current is one of the most effective defences against known vulnerabilities. We manage this as part of ongoing maintenance.
  • Scraper Protection: Measures to prevent automated bots from harvesting your content, pricing, or contact data.
  • Legal & Regulatory Compliance:
    • POPIA — South Africa's data protection legislation. We help you implement the required data handling practices, privacy notices, and consent mechanisms.
    • GDPR — Required if your site serves visitors in the European Union.
    • WCAG Accessibility — Making your site usable by people with visual, motor, or cognitive disabilities. See the dedicated Accessibility section below for full detail.
  • Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy & Legal Documents: Having the correct legal pages is a POPIA and GDPR requirement — not optional. We help you draft or implement a Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, and Terms of Use that accurately reflect how your site collects, stores, and processes personal data — written in plain language rather than impenetrable legalese, and reviewed whenever your data practices or applicable regulations change.

Performance & Speed

Page speed directly affects your search engine rankings, bounce rate, and user experience. A one-second delay can cost you visitors and conversions. We audit your site, identify what's slowing it down, and implement targeted fixes that make a measurable difference.

  • Performance Audit: We identify slow-loading assets, bloated plugins, unoptimised images, and inefficient code — and give you a clear picture of where to focus first.
  • Core Web Vitals: Google uses three specific metrics as direct search ranking signals: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) — how quickly the main content loads; Interaction to Next Paint (INP) — how fast your page responds to clicks and taps; and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) — whether page elements jump around as the page loads. We measure all three, identify what's causing poor scores, and implement targeted fixes so your site meets Google's thresholds and delivers a stable, fast experience.
  • Technical Optimisation:
    • Minified and combined CSS and JavaScript files
    • Lazy-loading for images and media
    • Browser and server-side caching
    • CDN (Content Delivery Network) configuration for faster global delivery
  • Ongoing Monitoring: Regular speed tests with reports so you can track improvements over time and catch regressions early.
  • Load Balancing: For sites expecting high or unpredictable traffic volumes — events, product launches, or seasonal peaks — we configure load balancing to distribute traffic across multiple servers and keep your site responsive under pressure.

Analytics & Tracking

You can't improve what you don't measure. We set up the right tracking tools from the outset so you have accurate data on where your traffic comes from, how visitors behave, and whether they're converting into customers. Not all analytics tools are created equal — we help you choose what fits your privacy requirements, reporting needs, and budget.

  • Google Analytics 4 (GA4) & Tag Manager: Full setup and configuration of GA4 including goals, conversion events, and custom reports. Tag Manager gives you a centralised way to add or update tracking scripts — ads, pixels, heatmaps — without touching your site's code.
  • Privacy-Respecting Analytics: If you'd rather not send visitor data to Google, there are excellent alternatives. Platforms like Matomo (self-hosted, full data ownership), Plausible, and Fathom offer clean, lightweight analytics with no cookies required — fully POPIA and GDPR compliant out of the box.
  • Search Engine Webmaster Tools: Getting your site properly indexed across all major search engines, not just Google. We set up and verify your site in:
    • Google Search Console — indexing management, performance data, crawl issue alerts
    • Bing Webmaster Tools — covers Bing and also powers DuckDuckGo, Yahoo, and Ecosia, so one submission reaches all of them
    • Brave Search — operates its own independent web index, not powered by Google or Bing. Worth submitting to directly if your audience skews privacy-conscious, as it is growing rapidly among users who actively avoid data-tracking search engines
    • Yandex Webmaster — relevant if your audience includes Russian-speaking markets
    • Baidu Webmaster Tools — for sites targeting China
  • SEO & Competitor Intelligence Tools: Tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Moz go beyond basic analytics — giving you keyword rankings, backlink profiles, competitor gap analysis, and site audit reports. We help you set these up and interpret the data, or run audits on your behalf.
  • Heatmaps & Behaviour Tracking: Understanding where visitors click, scroll, and drop off is as valuable as knowing how many you have. Tools like Microsoft Clarity (free), Hotjar, and Mouseflow provide session recordings, scroll maps, and click heatmaps — helping you identify usability issues and optimise your layout and calls to action.
  • Social Media Pixels: Installing and configuring advertising pixels so your social campaigns can track conversions and build retargeting audiences:
    • Meta Pixel (Facebook & Instagram) — tracks visits, purchases, and events for ad optimisation and lookalike audiences
    • TikTok Pixel — conversion tracking and audience building for TikTok ads
    • LinkedIn Insight Tag — campaign tracking and B2B audience retargeting
    • Pinterest Tag, X (Twitter) Pixel — available where relevant to your channels
  • Conversion Tracking: Tracking form submissions, purchases, clicks, and other key actions so you know which channels and pages are driving real results — not just traffic.
  • A/B Testing & Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO): Analytics tells you what is happening on your site; CRO helps you understand why — and lets you test changes systematically to find what genuinely improves results. We set up split tests on landing pages, calls to action, headlines, and forms using tools like VWO, AB Tasty, or your platform's built-in testing features, then analyse the results so your decisions are based on evidence, not guesswork.
  • Reporting Dashboards: Multiple tools means multiple logins and no single picture. We consolidate your analytics into one view using Google Looker Studio (free) or similar platforms — combining GA4, Search Console, SEMrush, social media, and ad data so you can see everything in one place without switching between tabs.
  • AI Crawler Access & Control: AI systems (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and others) crawl the web to build their training data and answer user queries. We help you decide your position and implement it:
    • LLMs.txt / ai.txt: Emerging standards that signal to AI crawlers which parts of your site may or may not be used for AI training or retrieval — similar in concept to robots.txt.
    • AI Visibility: If you want your content surfaced by AI tools, we structure and mark it up so it's easy for AI systems to understand and cite correctly.
    • AI Blocking: If you'd rather minimise AI access to your content, we configure your robots.txt and server rules to restrict known AI crawlers (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, CCBot, etc.). For sites already using Cloudflare, their dashboard includes a one-click "Block AI Scrapers and Crawlers" toggle that covers a broad and regularly updated list of AI bots — no manual maintenance required.
  • Privacy-Compliant Setup: All tracking configured with cookie consent banners, data anonymisation, and retention settings in line with POPIA and GDPR requirements — so your analytics don't become a compliance liability.

Website Maintenance & Support

A website isn't a once-off project — it needs regular attention to stay fast, secure, and relevant. We offer flexible maintenance arrangements to keep your site in good health without you having to think about the technical side.

  • CMS & Plugin Updates: Regular updates to your CMS core, themes, and plugins, tested before deployment to prevent compatibility issues.
  • Content Updates: Adding new pages, blog posts, products, or making copy and image changes as your business evolves.
  • Bug Fixes & Change Requests: Responsive support for unexpected issues, layout fixes, and minor feature changes — handled promptly without needing a full project engagement.
  • Health Checks & Monitoring: Periodic reviews of your site's uptime, speed, security, and broken links — with a summary report so you always know the state of your site.
  • Retainer Arrangements: For clients with ongoing needs, we offer monthly retainers with a set number of hours, giving you priority support and predictable costs.

Accessibility

An accessible website works for everyone — including people with visual, hearing, motor, or cognitive disabilities. Beyond being the right thing to do, accessibility is increasingly a legal and commercial requirement. Sites that aren't accessible miss a significant portion of potential visitors and face growing legal exposure in regulated industries.

  • WCAG Compliance: We build and audit sites against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) — the internationally recognised standard. Most businesses should target WCAG 2.1 Level AA as a baseline.
  • Semantic HTML & Structure: Correct use of headings, landmarks, lists, and form labels so screen readers and assistive technologies can navigate your content meaningfully.
  • Keyboard Navigation: Every interactive element — menus, forms, buttons, modals — reachable and operable without a mouse.
  • Colour Contrast & Visual Design: Text and UI elements checked against WCAG contrast ratios so content remains readable for users with low vision or colour blindness.
  • Alt Text & Media: Descriptive alt text for images, captions for video, and transcripts for audio — ensuring content isn't locked behind a single sense.
  • Accessible Forms: Clear labels, descriptive error messages, and logical tab order — forms that are usable by everyone, including screen reader users.
  • Accessibility Audits: We audit existing sites using automated tools (axe, Lighthouse) and manual testing to identify issues, prioritise fixes, and produce an action plan.
  • Ongoing Compliance: Accessibility isn't a once-off task — new content and features need to stay compliant. We can include accessibility checks as part of ongoing maintenance or provide guidelines for your content team.