If you are looking for a web site to be designed or need someone to manage your existing site, please read on.

Magic Beans has been creating websites for over 8 years have the technical capabilities to design you a fast and compelling website. We pride ourselves on sites that work, sites which are user friendly and a joy to browse.

At Magic Beans, we don’t just design sites, we design your marketing future. We can offer you a productive website, using the techniques we have learnt over the years. Yes, a lot of it is a form of dark arts magic, but wait and see what it can do for your business.

A website is never really finished, it is an evolving tool, a tool which needs oiling from time to time, improving its integrity through optimisation, and updating products and information. As the designers of your website, we can also manage any future up dates and optimisation for you. We only charge our hourly rate for updates, but most of the time, if it is something small, we will do it for free!

If you would like to have a talk about creating a new website or redesigning / maintaining your existing website then, please don't hesitate to give us a call on Tel: +44 (0) 1539 728 777.

See some more examples of websites we have created in our portfolio section. For more information about our web design service, please read down the section below, as we have illustrated some important topics for you to consider. Alternatively, please give us a call on Tel: +44 (0) 1228 532422, and we will answer any questions or querys you may have.

Case study
Click the bean for a web site case study!

How much does a website cost?
Our standard hourly rate is £15phr, unless it is a pre-arranged price. We can also offer you a fixed price limit if you are keeping to a budget. Our most basic websites, which are about seven pages worth, can start from around £200. We can also put single pages up, please phone for a quote. Most of our standard sites cost between £200 and £600 but can go on into the thousands, depending on the depth of content and whether you require us to design any of your products or continue with optimization. (see below.)

What other technical information do I need to know?
One important factor about our websites, is that they are all built using CSS. What is CSS? Well let me tell you. CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets, it's web standard coding that is clean, fast and reliable. Moreover, search engines like them for their simple accessibility. CSS has even more powerful properties. When we'Il create a website for you in CSS, We can maintain total control over the whole look of the website, with just one file. You want to change something on your site? Easy! One alteration in the code and every page, across your entire website, is amended. This really is a good tool, so when you are looking for a web designer, make sure they write your site using CSS and not tables or layers!

Learn more about CSS

Optimizing my website to improve its search engine rankings.
Magic Beans can offer an optimizing service on top of your website design. This will enable your website to attain better search engine rankings. As part of the service, we will first diagnose your current site, if you have one, and analyse and fix its potential faults. We might have to change aspects of your current site but it will be nothing too drastic, mostly it will be behind the scenes stuff. Secondly, we apply the main part of the optimization, which can take some time, around two weeks to two months. Essentially, what we are doing is creating depth and interest into your website, making it look tempting and desirable to the search engine spiders which scan your site. Sometimes, we will need a little input from you to do this second part, so be prepared to get involved.

What guarantees do I have that optimizing will work?
Results are not guaranteed, as the web and the way it ranks websites is constantly in flux, nothing remains certain. Although, from my experience, it is well worth the effort, I have seen companies shoot up the rankings in a matter of weeks, after optimizing their site, defying all wide-spread myths. As long as the optimizing is done correctly, you will see your site climbing the ladder.

If you have a new domain name, it may take several months to see your website ranked in the search engines. Mostly, it’s a time game and you will need to be patient. Existing sites can expect result more quickly and will probably get away with opting for the smaller optimizing packages we offer.

How much does it cost to optimize my site?
It all depends on how far you want to go with it. It can take perhaps a month or longer, depending whether you supply the literature or if it is left to Sue our copy editor. Our basic optimization package starts from around £650 but generally the best results come from our larger packages. Please phone for pricing on Tel: +44 (0) 1228 532422.

How else do I prepare for getting better search engine results?
To start with, it all begins with how you prepare your copy for us and how clearly and concisely it is laid out. It helps to contain relevant information, topics and links which relate to your services. You can also improve the search engines interest in you by bullet pointing important information or emphasising relevant points, such as subheadings with italics or bold formatting. It is important to identify keywords. Keywords help search engines identify your site. More information about creating your content and improving your accessibility, can be found at this Google page. We will also implement other strategic devices to improve these techniques, which will be explained at a later stage.

Search engines listing.
A lot of search engines charge you to list your site with them and some of them are very expensive. There is no need to do this, as there are tons off free search engine lists. There are 3 main engines which, I’m sure you have heard of, such as Google, Yahoo, MSN. You can also submit your site to Dmonz, which most of these and other engines use to gather information. It is well worth your trouble, if you have not already done so.

How do I know who's looking at my site?
When you use Magic Beans to build a website for you, we automatically open you a Google account. A Google account enables you to get vital statistics about your website, like; how many people visit, what page did they come in on and on which page did they leave your website. You can also see from where in the world people are viewing your website from. Furthermore, it gives you detailed graphs and charts of direct links and indirect links to your website and a whole load of other stuff. Part of this Google service also facilitates how well Google sees your site, so it is well worth finding out a little more about this service!

This service also provides the ability of starting an Adwords account, where you can start advertising on Google. With this Google account you really are ready to go, and to start advertising your business on the web. If you require more information please do drop us a line. on Tel: +44 (0) 1228 532422.

Learn more - Get a Google account

I don't know what I want from my site and I'm confused as to how I want it to look?
Many of your answers can be found from the link below. Design Meltdown it is a site which catalouges many website designs. It covers various page layouts and color schemes and will help you to define and refine any ideas in undertaking the first steps of your webste creation.

www.designmeltdown.com

I will need server space / hosting space, do I come to you for this?
Magic Beans offer a fantastic hosting package (details below) which would be perfect for your new website. This package is offered to you as a completely hassle-free service where we, not you, will deal with all the set up and managing of your hosting system. Alternatively, you may source your own hosting system, some details are listed below of hosting companies we have used and know are reliable. See Details.


Below are a list of some web sever companies we have used, some are better than others, so have a read through and choose the one best suited to you. If you are unsure of what to do and require some help in choosing and setting up your server, please don't hesitate to give us a call on Tel: +44 (0) 1228 532422.

Newnet - Tested
www.newnet.co.uk - Newnet have won countless awards for their internet service. They have one of the best and simplest control panels I have seen with a web server provider. They have a call centre if you have any problems but most these issues can be resolved from you account control panel. Although, they are a bit more expensive, they do offer a very reasonable package for this cost.
Servage One Solution - Tested
www.servage.net - Servage are one of the cheapest web hosting service providers I have seen. They offer massive packages for very little cost, perfect if you require a huge amount of space for your new website. Survage also operate only over the internet!
123.Reg Web Hosting - Tested
www.123-reg.co.uk - 123.Reg Web Hosting, offer very attractive packages, on their web hosting service. Although, untested by us, we have use their domain registry side of their service, and it is very easy to use. What is exception about their offers are, including a great hosting package, that they off you £70 worth of Google Adwords Vouchers and MSN AdCentre Vouchers, when you buy a hosting package from them. These vouchers will give your business a great start when launching your web career.
If you are considering buying your domain name, check with your web designer first, as there is important information to consider!

123.Reg - Tested
www.123-reg.co.uk - 123.Reg offer very cheap domain name registry and have one of the most user-friendly interfaces I have seen. 123.Reg is perfect if you want to buy multiple domain names and manage them with ease.