Fully-custom Squarespace website
Best for those who want something completely bespoke!
I will design a completely custom website in Squarespace to reflect your business perfectly. We will explore your vision, inspiration, business and requirements in detail and I will then translate this into a website design. There will be lots of touch points along the way to make sure we are in full alignment and you are super happy with the design.
If you don’t have any branding yet, I can optionally design a simple word-mark logo and choose fonts and colours for you.
Perfect for busy entrepreneurs who have specific requirements and want a one-of-a-kind website, either as a website redesign or a brand new website.
So what’s the difference between a semi-custom and a fully-custom website?
With a semi-custom website, you choose one of my pre-designed Squarespace templates and I customise it for you, adding your content and adjusting the design to suit. This includes things like changing the fonts and colours, adding or removing sections, or changing image layouts to better suit your images. The final website will look different to the template, but will still follow the same structure and layout. This is the most cost-effective and quickest option.
With a fully-custom website, I will start from scratch to design a completely unique website that meets your needs. We will spend more time exploring your requirements and your business goals and looking at inspiration. Choose this option if none of the templates are suitable for your content or business, or you don’t like the designs or layouts, or if you want to have something that is completely unique to you. This option costs more than the semi-custom website as it takes longer to create.
Who is the fully-custom website for?
This service is best suited to small service-based businesses who are looking for a professional website that is custom-designed to meet their needs, business goals and style exactly.
You may be starting a new business or you may have outgrown your existing website and it no longer looks or sounds like you and you just aren’t getting the right leads through the door.
You need a website that accurately reflects your expertise, experience and value, builds trust, and tells your unique story, so that your right people can find you and work with you.
You have a very clear idea of who you are, who your clients are, and how you best serve them, and you’re seeking a canvas to showcase this to the world.
Sounds good? Read on to find out more about how it all works.
The fully-custom website design process
Discovery phase
After you get in touch, we’ll schedule a discovery call to talk through your requirements and make sure we’re a good fit for each other.
I’ll then send you a proposal and quote and suggested build dates for the work to be completed.
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Strategy & content
Once you accept the proposal, we’ll schedule a 1 hour strategy call to talk through your business, requirements, goals, vision and inspiration.
We’ll map out all the pages for your website and discuss the content and images.
You’ll then go away and prepare all the content (words/images/branding) by an agreed date. I’ll give you some content guides to help you write your content.
2
Website build & launch
I will design and build your website using your content and branding. We will be in touch regularly throughout this process via email and video calls so you can review the designs and give me feedback.
We will make your website live once you are happy by the date agreed.
I’ll create some videos showing you how to update your website and will be available to support you via email for 30 days after you go-live.
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What’s included in the fully-custom website:
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I will design a website to meet your needs and content, including up to 5 or 8 main pages as standard, depending on the package you choose. If you require any more pages, these will be charged as extra (see add-ons below).
To give you an idea, most websites will include the following main pages: Home, About, Services (can be several pages), Contact, Blog. Other pages often included are: Testimonials, Portfolio/Case Studies, and Book a Call.
I will set up your blog and create and style up to 3 blog posts with the content you provide as standard. I will also provide some training for you so you can add blog posts yourself.
If you have an existing Squarespace blog with lots of posts that you need importing into your new Squarespace website, then I can do this for an additional fee - see add-ons section below for details.
For Portfolios and Case Studies, I will create up to 3 pages as standard. If you require more than this, then these would be charged as extra, or I can show you how to add them yourself.
I will also add the following pages without extra charge: legal pages, Instagram links page, 404, and a standalone subscribe to your newsletter page.
I will add the content (text and images) and branding (colours, fonts, logo) that you supply. If you don’t have any branding, you can purchase my basic branding package for a small additional fee (see add-ons below).
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I will send you a questionnaire to complete, then we’ll have a 1 hour+ strategy call to talk through your business, requirements, goals, vision and inspiration, so we are crystal clear about everything.
We’ll map out all the pages for your website and discuss the content and images you will be supplying.
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I will provide you with some content guides to help you write the content for your website. Each page is broken down into small sections to make it more manageable, with detailed instructions about what information to include, plus links to example pages for you to reference.
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I will tweak and adapt content where necessary and make suggestions for the structure/layout of your text.
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Throughout the design and build process, I will ask you to review your website and let me have your feedback and amendments.
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I will make sure all your pages have good SEO titles and descriptions and all images have ALT tags to make sure search engines can find your content.
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I will connect your custom domain to your Squarespace website and will help you purchase one if you don’t have one yet.
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I will connect any newsletter blocks to your existing mailing list and connect your social media accounts.
If you don’t have a mailing list provider yet, I can optionally set up Squarespace Campaigns for you for an additional fee - see add-ons below.
I will also create a social sharing image for your website if you don’t have one. This is an image that is displayed when a link to your website is shared on social media or in text messaging apps.
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I will make sure your website works beautifully on different sized screens and on mobile devices.
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Squarespace includes analytics so you can see how many people are visiting your website, how they have found you, what they are searching for and much more. I can help you connect your website to Google Search Console for more in-depth insights.
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You need to pay an annual charge for hosting your website on Squarespace. You will receive a 10% discount off your first year of hosting costs. Please note this hosting charge is separate and in addition to the one-off cost of me creating your website.
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I will provide support via email for 1 month after I complete your website (this includes help with technical questions, but does not include making more changes to your website). If you need help beyond this, you can always purchase support by the hour.
I will also provide training videos showing you how to make simple edits to your website.
Introductory prices:
5-page website from £1,890
8-page website from £2,390
Please note that any optional add-ons requested will be in addition to the prices above.
What’s NOT included:
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You will need to pay for an annual or monthly hosting plan with Squarespace. Pricing and Plan details. I will walk you through this process.
You will receive a 10% discount off the first year of your annual subscription by working with me.
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You will need to pay the annual cost for your domain name (your custom website address, e.g. zoepowerdesign.com)
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There are a good range of fonts available within Squarespace at no extra charge, but if you want to use a specific font that is not included in the Squarespace collection, you will need to pay for a licence for it.
You will also need to pay for the cost of licensing images from stock photo sites if you don’t have your own, and for any third-party plugins if you choose to use these.
What YOU need to do/provide:
You need to provide all the content (words and photographs) for your website, including professional headshots of yourself. I can recommend a copywriter and/or photographer if you need help with this. I can also source images for you from stock photo sites if needed.
You also need to provide all your branding (logo, colours, font choices). If you don’t have any, I can create these for you for a small additional fee (see below).
Any questions? Just let me know
Optional Add-ons
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If you need extra main pages, these are charged at £150 - £200 per page (price depends on the length and complexity of the content).
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If you have an existing blog on another Squarespace website with lots of posts that you want to keep, I can import this into your new Squarespace website for you (although please note comments cannot be taken over) for £100-250.
Please note that this does NOT include checking each post and making amendments. If you need me to do this, it would be chargeable at my hourly rate.
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I can design a simple word-mark logo (with several variations, suitable for different applications/orientations), and choose fonts and colours that represent your brand for £350. I will also design a Favicon (browser icon) and a Pinterest cover template that you can use to share and advertise your blog posts. Please note this does NOT include the costs of any fonts used.
I will send you a questionnaire to capture all the key information about your business and brand and you can optionally create an inspiration board on Pinterest to share your ideas with me.
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I can create a mailing list for you and set up Squarespace email campaigns for £250. This includes designing a default email template and a short series of welcome emails (you provide the content for this). Please note that this requires a separate subscription from Squarespace, which you will need to pay for. See Squarespace Email Campaigns Pricing.
Meet Zoë
Simplicity always
Hi, I’m Zoë, and I’m passionate about creating calm, clear websites that hit all your business goals AND look beautiful in the process. I’ve been creating and organising content, managing systems and projects, and solving problems for more than a couple of decades now and simplicity remains a guiding principle of mine across all aspects of my life. If you like a calm, organised, straightforward approach, with clear communication, then I think we’ll get on well.
I would love to guide you through my clear structured processes to help create and design a website that represents you and your business beautifully, generating leads and attracting your dream clients.
FAQs
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With a semi-custom website, you choose one of my pre-designed Squarespace templates and I customise it for you, adding your content and adjusting the design to suit. This includes things like changing the fonts and colours, adding or removing sections, or changing image layouts to better suit your images. The final website will look different to the template, but will still follow the same structure and layout. This is the most cost-effective and quickest option.
With a fully-custom website, I will start from scratch to design a completely unique website that meets your needs. We will spend more time exploring your requirements and your business goals and looking at inspiration. Choose this option if none of the templates are suitable for your content or business, or you don’t like the designs or layouts, or if you want to have something that is completely unique to you. This option costs more than the semi-custom website as it takes longer to create.
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I work solely on the Squarespace platform.
I chose this specifically as it is easy and intuitive to use, so customers can update their websites themselves after launch, without needing to pay me to do it for them (unless they want to, of course).
Squarespace also keep everything updated, so there are no updates to install.
It is a joy to design in and there is a lovely community of users who share their knowledge generously and are always happy to help others.
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Yes, I require staged payments throughout the project, as follows: a 30% deposit upfront to book in your dates, then another 30% when I start building your website, then the final 40% when I have completed your website.
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That’s not a problem. I can create a new website for you and we can switch your domain over to the new website when we are ready to go live.
If you already have a Squarespace website, you will need to take out a new subscription when we make your new site live and you will then need to cancel the subscription for your old website.
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You can purchase a domain through Squarespace (your first year is free) or via another provider. I would recommend doing this very early on in the process to ensure all your branding is aligned. I can help you with this.
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I can create a simple work-mark logo for you and choose fonts and colours that represent your brand for a small additional fee. See Optional Add-ons above.
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I can source stock photos for you, although you will need to pay for the cost of licensing the photos (this is usually about £7 per photo). However, I would strongly recommend getting some professional headshots done for your website, as well as photos of you working in your business, as photos can make or break a website. I can recommend a photographer in your area if needed.
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No, I’m not a copywriter, but I can recommend some good copywriters and some courses to help you learn how to do this yourself. I will also provide you with some content templates, which break down each page into manageable chunks with helpful pointers about the content needed for each section.
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It depends on my work queue and on how quickly you can provide the content. We will discuss dates and availability in our discovery call.
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We will discuss potential dates during our initial discovery call.
Once you have confirmed you want to proceed and have signed the contract, we will lock in those dates and have a strategy call, usually within a week, to discuss and agree all the content and pages needed.
You will then have a period of time to create your content, this could be weeks or months, depending on the dates we have agreed.
Once you have supplied your content, the build usually takes a few weeks. The time varies depending on the length and complexity of your content and any extras you have requested.
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The reason I work with the Squarespace platform is that it is very easy to use, so you will be able to update your website yourself. I will provide you with some training videos showing you how to update your website.
If you don’t want to do it yourself, you can also book me by the hour to do it for you.
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In addition to the one-off cost of me designing and building your website for you, you will need to pay an annual or monthly hosting charge to Squarespace. If you use your website to sell products, you will need to pay a payment processing fee (this depends on the processor you use, e.g. Stripe or Squarespace Payments) and a transaction fee. You will also need to pay for your domain name (usually annually), plus the cost of any custom fonts, stock photos or third-party plugins, if you have used these.
Ready to work together?
Fabulous! I’m looking forward to chatting with you. Here’s what to do next:
Fill out my contact form and let me have a bit of information about your website project.
I’ll be in touch via email to arrange a free discovery call if I think we might be a good fit for each other. I’ll also send you a questionnaire to fill in before our call so we can have a more informed conversation. We can discuss your project in more detail, talk through any questions you have and I can explain the process and next steps.