Development
Built by hand, so nothing is left to a plugin.
A website is only as good as what happens after the design is signed off. This is the part clients never see and always feel.
Web development at Werehouse Media means building the site with the right tool for that particular job rather than forcing every project through one stack. Astro, Tailwind, React or Next.js are used where a build genuinely calls for them, Shopify or WordPress where a client needs to run the thing themselves, and hand-written HTML, CSS and JavaScript where that is lighter and faster than any framework. Every build is version-controlled in Git, deploys automatically to Netlify, and is checked against Google's Lighthouse performance standards on a throttled mobile profile before it ships. There is no page builder deciding the layout and no plugin stack quietly breaking in eight months. Clients own the domain, the code and every account outright.
What does web development involve?
Development is turning a design into something that works everywhere, loads quickly, survives being edited, and can be read by machines as well as people. It covers the markup that gives a page its structure, the styling that makes it responsive, the JavaScript that makes it interactive, and the deployment that gets it online safely.
Most of the cost is not in making it work once. It is in making it keep working: on old phones, on slow connections, after content changes, and two years from now when somebody needs to add a page.
Which technology should my website be built with?
The honest answer is that it depends on the job, and any developer who gives you the same answer for every project is telling you about themselves rather than about your business.
| Situation | Usually the right tool | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Brochure or marketing site | Hand-written HTML, CSS, JS, or Astro | Fastest possible pages, nothing to maintain, no build weight |
| Content-heavy site with many pages | Astro with Tailwind | Components without shipping a framework to the visitor |
| Genuinely app-like interface | React or Next.js | State that would be painful to manage by hand |
| Client needs to run the shop | Shopify | Payments, tax and inventory solved properly |
| Client needs to publish constantly | WordPress or a CMS | Editing without a developer in the loop |
The Werehouse Media site itself is hand-written, because for a site this size a framework would have added weight without adding anything. That is a decision about this project, not a rule.
Why does website speed matter so much?
Speed is a ranking factor, but that undersells it. Speed is a conversion factor. A visitor on mobile data who waits four seconds for a page has usually gone before it arrives, and you never see them in your enquiries.
Google measures three things in particular: how long until the main content appears, how quickly the page responds when tapped, and whether the layout jumps about while loading. Every build here is checked against those on a throttled mobile profile on real hosting before launch, not on a fast laptop with everything cached.
What about accessibility?
Proper heading structure, real button elements, labelled form fields, sufficient colour contrast, and keyboard operability. This is not a separate line item; it is what correct markup looks like. It also happens to be most of what technical SEO is, because search engines and screen readers read a page the same way.
What you get at the end
- The code, in your name. In a Git repository you own, with a full history of every change.
- Automated deploys. A change goes live in seconds and can be rolled back just as fast.
- No lock-in. Hosting is optional from £9 a month. Move it elsewhere whenever you like.
- Search groundwork built in. Structure, structured data, sitemaps and speed, done as part of the build rather than sold as a separate retainer.
- Thirty days of fixes after launch, included.
Straight answers
Common questions.
Yes. The tooling is picked per project: Astro, Tailwind, React or Next.js where a build genuinely needs them, or hand-written HTML, CSS and JavaScript where a framework would only add weight. Either way the page structure is deliberate rather than inherited from a template, and that structure is what search engines read.
For a brochure or marketing site, usually yes: it is faster, there is no plugin stack to maintain, and nothing breaks when a plugin updates itself. WordPress is the better answer when somebody needs to publish constantly without a developer, and Shopify when there is a real shop to run. The right question is who has to edit it and how often.
Every build is checked with Google Lighthouse on a throttled mobile profile, on real hosting rather than a local machine with a warm cache. The standard applied here is 90 or above on mobile performance, or it does not ship.
Every version of the site is kept in Git, so rolling back to the last working state takes seconds rather than a rebuild. Thirty days of fixes are included after launch, and ongoing website care is available from 49 pounds a month with no contract.
Often yes. Whether it is worth it depends on what it was built with and how much of it can be saved. A one-off audit at 495 pounds will tell you honestly, including when the answer is that rebuilding is cheaper than repairing.
Next step
Tell me what it has to do.
Including the awkward parts: the booking system, the stock feed, the thing your current site cannot handle. Those decide the tooling, and I would rather know now than halfway through.