What a £5000 to £10000 website project should include
A client got in touch a few months ago wanting a new website. The conversation started well – they had a clear sense of their business, a rough idea of the pages they needed, and a budget in mind. What they didn't have was any sense of what the process actually involved. Not because they hadn't thought about it, but because there's no obvious reason to know. You hire a web designer the same way you hire a plumber – describe the problem, they fix it, you pay them. Except it doesn't really work like that, and the gap between expectation and reality is where most project frustrations live.
That conversation happens regularly. So this is an attempt to explain what's actually involved in a website project at this price point – particularly the parts that don't always make it into a quote.
Brand, content and SEO aren't separate things
Most people think of a website as a design project. What it actually is, when done properly, is a communication problem. Who you are talking to, what you do need to say, in what order, and how you make them trust you enough to get in touch.
That means thinking about brand before a single layout is sketched – not just a logo and a colour palette, but tone of voice, the way you describe what you do, the impression you want to leave. It means thinking about content not as words to fill the design but as the substance of what the site is trying to communicate. And it means thinking about SEO not as something bolted on at the end but as a set of decisions that shape how every page is structured, titled and written.
On a project at this scale, these three things are all happening at the same time, informing each other. That's a significant part of what you're paying for.
The design phase
Once the thinking is done, the design phase is where it becomes visible. Page layouts, visual hierarchy, typography, how the eye moves through a page, what appears above the fold, where the calls to action sit and why. These decisions aren't aesthetic preferences – they're the result of everything established in the work that came before.
At this budget level you should see high-quality designs for every key page before a line of code is written. This is the point where changes are quick. The same changes made during development take considerably longer. A designer who skips straight to building is either very confident or not leaving enough room for your input.
The development details that often get left out
This is the part worth paying close attention to. A site can look good and still be missing a significant amount of work underneath. Here are the things a project at this level should include that don't always make it into cheaper quotes.
Page speed and image handling — A slow website costs you visitors and search rankings. Proper performance work means images are served in modern formats like WebP, sized correctly for the device they're being viewed on, and loaded lazily so they don't block the initial page load. It means render-blocking scripts are deferred, CSS is loaded efficiently, and the server is configured to cache static assets. The difference between a site that's been optimised and one that hasn't is often several seconds on a mobile connection – which is the difference between someone staying and someone leaving.
Technical SEO — Every page should have a unique, descriptive title tag and a meta description written for humans, not stuffed with keywords. Headings should follow a logical hierarchy – one H1 per page, subheadings that actually structure the content. Canonical URLs should be in place to avoid duplicate content issues. An XML sitemap should be generated and submitted to Google Search Console. Redirects from any old URLs should be set up before launch so existing search rankings aren't lost overnight.
Schema markup — This is structured data that helps search engines understand what your content is about – not just the words on the page but what type of content it is. A local business schema on your homepage tells Google your name, address, phone number and opening hours in a format it can use directly. A service schema on your services pages, FAQ schema on any question-and-answer content, article schema on blog posts. None of this is visible to visitors but it contributes to how your site appears in search results and how well search engines understand it.
Internal linking — The way pages on a site link to each other tells search engines which content is most important and how it all relates. A services page should link to relevant blog posts. A blog post about a topic should link to the relevant service page. Related projects should link to each other. Done deliberately, internal linking distributes authority across the site and makes it easier for both visitors and search engines to navigate. Done carelessly – or not at all – it's a missed opportunity on every page.
User journey — Every page on a site should have a clear next step for the visitor. What do you want someone to do after reading your about page? Where should they go from a service page if they're not quite ready to enquire? A well-structured user journey thinks through these paths deliberately – not just for the visitor who's ready to buy, but for the one who's still deciding. Calls to action, related content, secondary actions for people who aren't ready for the primary one – these should be designed, not assumed.
Accessibility — A site that only works well for visitors without visual impairments, motor difficulties or low-bandwidth connections isn't a finished site. Practically, this means sufficient colour contrast between text and background, keyboard navigation that works throughout, image alt text that describes what's actually in the image, form labels that are properly associated with their inputs, and no content that relies on colour alone to communicate meaning. This is increasingly a legal consideration as well as good practice, and it shouldn't require asking for separately.
The CMS
If you're spending this much on a website, you should be able to update your own content without calling a developer. A good CMS setup for a project at this level is straightforward and matched to what you actually need to edit. I build with Kirby CMS for most projects – a flat-file system with no database, which makes it faster by default, more secure than most alternatives, and simpler to maintain. The admin panel is customisable, so clients see only the fields relevant to their content rather than a cluttered interface full of options they'll never use.
After launch
Launch day feels like the end of the project. In some ways it is. In others it's the beginning of something. The site needs to be found, which takes time and consistent effort. It needs to be maintained – what happens when it isn't is something I've written about. And it will need updates as the business evolves.
A good handover means leaving with the ability to manage your own content, a clear picture of how the site works, and an understanding of what ongoing support looks like. I offer monthly management plans for clients who want someone to handle that.
A few things that aren't included
It's worth being honest about what this budget doesn't cover, because finding out mid-project is worse than knowing upfront.
Most clients provide their own text, or we agree to scope copywriting separately. Writing for the web is a discipline in its own right – the same information structured differently can perform completely differently in search results and convert at a different rate. If you need help with it, I offer SEO copywriting as part of the wider project, but it changes the timeline and the cost.
Photography is similar. I can work with what you have, and stock imagery covers a lot, but if you need original photography that's a separate budget conversation.
Ongoing SEO and content strategy sits outside the build entirely. A well-made site is the foundation, not the result – traffic builds through consistent work after launch, not from the launch itself.
And if your project involves something genuinely complex – a booking system, a membership area, e-commerce beyond a basic shop, integrations with third-party platforms – that shifts the scope considerably. I'll always flag it early if it's relevant to your brief, but it's worth knowing that these things add time and cost in proportion to how custom they need to be.
Making it worth it
The client I mentioned at the start ended up with a site they're very happy with. The process took longer than they expected and involved more conversations than they'd anticipated. That's usually how it goes when it's done properly.
If you're working out what your project should look like, the website design brief is the best place to start.