Affordable web design for small business
I'm a web designer, so you might find it odd that I'm writing this. But I talk to a lot of small business owners who are in a genuinely difficult position: they need a website, they don't have much money, and the quotes they're getting from designers, including me, are more than they can justify right now. A simple one-page site with your services, contact details and a bit of background about the business shouldn't cost £1000. And sometimes the honest answer is that you shouldn't be spending that money yet.
The template trap
The first thing most people do is sign up for WordPress, Wix or Squarespace, find a template that looks roughly right, and spend the next several weeks trying to make it look like something they actually want. I've seen this go wrong more times than I can count.
The problem isn't the platforms themselves – they're fine for what they are. The problem is that templates are designed to look good in screenshots and work for everyone in general, which means they work for nobody in particular. You'll spend hours adjusting colours and fonts, uploading images that don't quite fit the layout, trying to remove sections you don't need and add things the template wasn't built for. The result is usually something that looks like a modified template, because that's exactly what it is, and the whole process takes far longer than it should.
There are also costs that aren't obvious upfront. WordPress on its own is free, but the theme you actually want costs £50, the plugin you need to make the contact form work costs another £30 a year, and then there's hosting on top. Wix and Squarespace bundle everything together more cleanly, but you're looking at £15–25 a month for a plan that doesn't show their branding on your site, which adds up to £180–300 a year for a one-page website. And if you ever want to leave, you can't take your site with you – you'd be starting from scratch on a new platform.
The AI website builder trap
There's a newer category of tool that's been heavily marketed at exactly the audience I'm describing here: AI website builders, often bundled with hosting plans from companies like GoDaddy, Hostinger and various others. The pitch is appealing – answer a few questions, and AI generates your website in minutes.
The reality is more complicated. Many of these tools lock you into their specific hosting platform from the start, meaning the site you build can't be moved elsewhere without rebuilding it completely. The first-year pricing is often heavily discounted to get you in the door, then rises significantly at renewal. Some charge separately for SSL certificates – the basic security that makes your site show as secure in browsers – which should really be included as standard. And the content they generate is generic by definition: the same stock phrases and filler text that every other business using that tool gets, with your name dropped in.
The deeper problem is that you don't own anything. You're renting a website on someone else's platform, and if they change their pricing, change their terms, or simply close down, you're starting over.
What I'd actually recommend
Here's the thing that's changed in the last couple of years: the AI tools that are genuinely useful – Claude, ChatGPT and similar are very good at writing code. And a simple one-page HTML website is exactly the kind of thing they can produce cleanly, in one go, ready to upload to a web host. No platform lock-in, no subscription, no template that looks like everyone else's. Just a file you own.
I'd suggest opening Claude or ChatGPT and using a prompt along these lines – adjust the details for your own business:
"Build a complete one-page HTML website for my business. Everything should be in a single HTML file with the CSS included in a style tag at the top – no external files, no frameworks, no JavaScript libraries. The business is called [your business name]. We are a [brief description of what you do] based in [your location]. Our main services are [list your services]. Our phone number is [number] and email is [email address]. I will add my logo later as a file called logo.png – please include an img tag for it at the top of the page. Use a clean, professional design with a white background and [your preferred colour, e.g. dark navy] as the accent colour. The page should have a header, an about section, a services section and a contact section with our details. Make it fully mobile-responsive."
What you'll get back is a complete, working HTML file. You can paste it into a plain text editor, save it as index.html (or ask AI to do it for you), and that's your website. You can double click on the file and it will open in your browser. If you have a logo, save it as logo.png and keep it in the same folder as your index.html file – that's what tells the browser where to find it. If anything looks wrong or you want to adjust something, ask the AI to change it and it'll give you an updated version.
It won't be perfect. The AI doesn't know your business the way you do, so you'll need to read through the copy it generates and rewrite anything that sounds off. But as a starting point for a small business that needs something online quickly and cheaply, it's genuinely good.
Getting it online for almost nothing
A plain HTML and CSS website doesn't need database hosting or a complex server setup – it's just files. That means you can host it for free.
Netlify is what I'd recommend. You sign up for a free account, drag your HTML file into the browser, and it's online in about 30 seconds. SSL is included automatically, there's no monthly fee, and you can connect your own domain name. The only thing you'll pay for is the domain itself, which costs around £10–15 a year from a registrar like Namecheap or 123-reg.
Once your site is live on Netlify, connecting your domain takes a few extra steps. In your Netlify account, go to Domain settings and add your custom domain – Netlify will give you a couple of nameserver addresses. You then log into wherever you bought your domain, find the DNS or nameserver settings, and replace the existing ones with the addresses Netlify gave you. It sounds more complicated than it is, and Netlify's own documentation walks you through it clearly. Changes usually take effect within an hour or two, sometimes a bit longer.
That's it. A working website, your own domain, no ongoing subscription costs, and complete control over your files.
When this stops being enough
This approach has limits, and I want to be honest about them. A one-page HTML site won't rank particularly well in search results on its own, it can't handle a blog or a content strategy, and it won't grow with you as the business gets more complex. When you're ready to invest in something more considered – a site that's actually built around how your business works and what your clients need to see – that's when it makes sense to talk to a web designer who builds custom websites for small businesses.
But if you're at the stage where you just need something online that looks decent and tells people what you do, this will get you there without spending money you don't have yet.
If you get stuck at any point – the file won't upload, the domain connection isn't working, something looks wrong – feel free to get in touch. I'm happy to point you in the right direction, no strings attached.