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Senior web & app development · 20 capabilities
oakstone.digital
Websites & commerce / capability

Web development
built to be chosen.

Custom, WordPress and Shopify builds for teams who need a site that sells, not just one that exists.

This is for you if
  • Your site explains what you do but rarely creates conviction
  • Publishing a new page takes a developer and two weeks
  • The design has drifted into a dozen inconsistent templates
A sharper way forward

The work should
change the numbers.

Tools we reach for
ReactNext.jsAstroWordPressShopifyTypeScriptTailwind CSS

Most websites are built to describe a business. The useful ones are built to help someone decide. That difference shows up in the information architecture, the order of the argument on each page and the honesty of the copy — long before it shows up in the visual design.

We build in whichever stack fits the decision you are trying to influence. A content-led site with a marketing team that publishes weekly belongs in WordPress. A product-led site with complex logic belongs in a modern JavaScript framework. A storefront belongs in Shopify. Choosing the wrong one is expensive in ways that only become obvious in month nine.

Every build ships with the fundamentals handled: semantic markup, Core Web Vitals inside the green, an editing experience your team can actually use, and analytics that answer questions rather than produce dashboards nobody opens.

What's included

What the engagement
actually contains.

01

Positioning and message hierarchy

We settle what the site has to prove, in what order, before anyone opens a design tool.

02

Information architecture

A page structure and URL plan that search engines can read and buyers can navigate without a map.

03

Design system, not page mockups

Reusable components with defined states, so page fifteen costs a fraction of page one.

04

Senior front-end engineering

Semantic, accessible, fast markup — hand-built rather than assembled from page-builder debris.

05

CMS and editorial workflow

Content modelling and editor training so your team can publish without a developer in the loop.

06

Technical SEO foundations

Metadata, structured data, canonical rules, sitemaps and redirect mapping built in from the first commit.

What you get
  • Production website on your infrastructure
  • Component library and design tokens
  • CMS with modelled content types
  • Redirect map and technical SEO baseline
  • Analytics and conversion tracking
  • Editor documentation and handover session
Signals it is time
  • Your site explains what you do but rarely creates conviction
  • Publishing a new page takes a developer and two weeks
  • The design has drifted into a dozen inconsistent templates
  • Traffic is respectable and pipeline is not
Common mistakes we fix

What usually went wrong
before we were called.

  • 01Choosing the stack before anyone has decided who edits the site after launch
  • 02Designing twelve bespoke page layouts instead of one component system
  • 03Treating technical SEO as a launch-week task rather than a build requirement
  • 04Signing off copy written to describe the company rather than persuade a buyer
How we measure it
  • Qualified enquiries per month
  • Conversion rate on the top three templates
  • Time to publish a new page
  • Core Web Vitals on mobile
Typical timeline

6–10 weeks for a marketing site; 12–20 with migration or multiple languages

Practicalities

What week one
actually looks like.

First week

A working session on the argument the site has to make, a crawl of the current site, and access to analytics and Search Console. You leave week one with a page architecture and URL plan, not a moodboard.

What we need from you
  • Analytics and Search Console access
  • Brand assets and guidelines
  • A named approver for direction
  • Access to two or three recent sales calls
Not included
  • Brand identity or logo creation
  • Long-form copywriting beyond key pages
  • Paid media or SEO content retainers
  • Photography and video production

Scope boundaries stated up front rather than discovered in a change request.

How the work runs

Four stages, visible throughout.

01

Diagnose

Analytics, search data, sales conversations and a technical audit read together, so the brief is based on evidence rather than opinion.

02

Structure

Message hierarchy, page architecture and URL plan agreed before design starts — the decisions that are expensive to change later.

03

Build

A component system engineered by seniors, with technical SEO, accessibility and performance handled as we go rather than bolted on.

04

Prove

Staged launch, redirect and coverage monitoring, and conversion measured against the baseline we took before starting.

Questions buyers actually ask

Web development, answered.

It depends on who owns the site after launch. If marketing needs to publish and restructure pages weekly, WordPress or a headless CMS earns its keep. If the site carries product logic, gated content or complex integrations, a custom build costs less over three years. We make the recommendation in week one, in writing, with the trade-offs named.

A focused marketing site is typically six to ten weeks from kickoff to launch. Larger sites with content migration, multiple languages or integrations run twelve to twenty. We stage releases so something useful is live before the whole thing is finished.

Not if the migration is planned. We crawl the existing site, map every indexed URL to its destination, preserve or improve title and heading structure, and monitor coverage for the first eight weeks after launch. Redirects are part of the build, not an afterthought.

Yes. Most engagements extend an existing identity into a digital design system rather than replacing it. Where the brand is genuinely holding the business back, we will say so and scope that conversation separately.

A better brief starts here

Make web development useful.

Bring us the hard thing. We will bring a point of view, a senior team and a clear next step.

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