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Freelance Web Design, Edinburgh.

Web design in Edinburgh.
Built to bring you enquiries.

I'm Martin. I build websites for small businesses across Edinburgh, structured so Google finds them and written so your customers get in touch. One person, start to finish.

Book a free consultation See recent Edinburgh projects
37 five star Google reviews Wix, WordPress and Shopify You deal with me
5.0 37 reviews on Google
"Within a few minutes of conversation it felt like I had known Martin for 30 years."
Mike Neighbours, MCK Catering
"They listened to my ideas, offered great advice, responded quickly to every question, and made sure everything was perfect."
Richard Gamidovs
Read all 37 reviews

In every build.

The parts nobody shows you.

Most sites I'm asked to look at were built to look nice and nothing else. No heading structure, no location signals, no alt text, nothing telling Google what the business does or where it does it. A customer can't see any of that, and it is the most common reason an Edinburgh business doesn't show up. It's still the difference between being found and not.

Across the city.

Where the work actually is.

Plenty of web designers list every district in Edinburgh on a page and hope you don't check. These are real businesses I've built for, in the parts of the city they trade in.

Corstorphine and the west.

  • D & A LawrenceCommercial cleaning contractor
  • Pinkk Hair DesignHair salon

South Gyle.

  • 21 Health and Social CareCare sector recruitment and training
  • Intelligent Heating & GasHeating and gas engineers
  • Your Waste AwayWaste clearance

Kirkliston and Winchburgh.

  • Birth Prep with JoyAntenatal education and birth support

Leith and the shore.

  • RG LocksmithsLocksmith and security

Currie and Balerno.

  • Ayton ElectricalElectrical contractor
  • Currie FCLocal football club, built free of charge

Holyrood and Duddingston.

  • Fyvie ContractsGrounds maintenance
  • Lochs & LinksGolf tour operator

Beyond the city. A fair bit of my work sits outside Edinburgh too, in Kirkcaldy and across Fife, in Livingston and Linlithgow, out to Prestonpans and Port Seton in East Lothian, over to Grangemouth, and through to Glasgow. If your customers are spread across more than one town, that changes how the site is structured, and it's worth saying so early.

Who it's for.

Different businesses, different jobs.

A barber and a care provider both want a website, but they don't want the same thing from it. Here's what tends to matter, and who I've built it for.

Trades and service businesses.

You need to be found for each job you do, not for one word that covers everything. An electrician who wants calls for rewires, EV chargers and fault finding needs a page for each, or Google has to guess.

The other half is credibility in about four seconds. Real photographs of finished work beat any amount of copy about quality and reliability.

Built forAyton Electrical in Currie, Intelligent Heating & Gas in South Gyle, D & A Lawrence, Your Waste Away, MacMac Cleaning.

Salons and appointment businesses.

Almost everyone lands on you from a phone, often in the evening, and the only question they're really asking is whether they can get booked in. So booking goes above everything, prices are visible, and the site loads before they lose interest.

It also has to look like the place. That's the one type where the design is doing a job rather than decorating.

Built forPinkk Hair Design in Corstorphine, Movement Barbershop.

Care, health and charities.

The person reading is often anxious, or reading on behalf of someone else. Plain language matters more than polish, and so does accessibility, which is usually treated as a checkbox and shouldn't be.

Registrations, staff and process need to be easy to find, because trust is the whole decision.

Built forDr Tint's eye clinics in Edinburgh and Glasgow, 21 Health and Social Care in South Gyle, The Neuro Therapy Place.

New businesses getting started.

You need to exist online and look like a real business, without spending money you haven't made yet. Usually that means one page, done properly, rather than five pages half done.

Worth knowing the limit up front: a single page can only really rank for one thing. When you're ready to be found for more, you add pages rather than start again.

Built forWattabout Executive Travel, Kevin Anderson Fresh Fish, and a technology business that needed a site inside a week.

The evidence.

Judge me on this.

Thirty seven reviews, not one below five stars, and none of them written by me. Read the lot on Google if you would rather not take a website's word for it.

"I was looking for a freelance designer rather than an agency because I wanted that personal touch, and Martin was the right fit. He revamped the whole thing and it now looks the part and ranks well in search, which is what I was after."
T Dr Tint, eye clinics in Edinburgh and Glasgow
5.0 Averaged across 37 Google reviews Not one below five
"Within 10 mins of the new page going live, we had our first estimate."
A Angela Mackay, M K Auto Repairs, Edinburgh
"He has completed one website for me & we are currently in the process of designing a second for another company of mine."
J Jordan Fyvie, Fyvie Contracts
"We are an Edinburgh based charity and are really pleased with the final website. One aspect we especially appreciate is the thoughtful consideration given to accessibility, particularly for clients with neurological conditions."
N The Neuro Therapy Place, Edinburgh
"The advice and support provided by Martin not to mention the price point were first class."
S Steven More, 21 Health and Social Care, South Gyle
Read all 37 on Google Every one written by a business owner who worked with me directly.

If this isn't your world.

You don't need to understand any of it.

Most people who call me start by apologising for not being technical. You're running a business. There's no reason you should know what a meta description is, and no reason anyone should make you feel daft for asking.

So here's how it actually goes. You tell me about your business in plain language. I ask the questions, and if I use a word you haven't met I explain it once and move on. You never have to sit through a slide about our process.

I don't need a brief, a brand document or a content plan. Once we've agreed to go ahead I send you a short form with a link of your own. Everything I already know about your business is filled in, so you're checking it rather than typing it, and the rest is questions anyone can answer about their own business. It takes most people about ten minutes, and you can stop halfway and come back to it.

That form is the whole of your homework. After it, I need your photographs if you have them and half an hour of your time. I write the rest, and you tell me where I've got you wrong.

You don't have to describe what you want, and you certainly don't have to know the words for it. I'll design the first version and then we go through it together, and you tell me what you don't like. That is far easier than starting at a blank page, and it's how every site I build gets there.

"I made it clear to Martin that I was in no way tech savvy, and that I was a little apprehensive of what would be involved."
Gerri Burgess
"Martin was fantastic from the off, explaining things clearly, and not too much jargon. He was very patient with us."
Stephen
"Nothing ever felt like too much trouble, and he never made me feel silly for asking questions."
Joy Cassidy

The build.

What the next few weeks look like.

Every stage is me. The person you meet on the first call is the person who builds it, launches it and answers the phone two years later.

01

A call, about half an hour.

Free, and no pitch. What your business does, where the work comes from now and what you need the site to bring in. I look at where you currently rank and who is sitting above you, so we're talking about your actual position rather than a guess.

02

The plan and a fixed price.

Which pages you need, what each one is trying to be found for and how they link together. You get a fixed price before any work starts, so there's no hourly billing and nothing appearing at the end that wasn't agreed at the start. Say yes and I send you a short form of your own, already filled in with what I know, which is the only homework you get.

03

The first design, then a proper look at it.

I go away and design the first version, then we sit down and go through it together. That meeting is where the real design happens, because I find out what works for you and what doesn't, and why. Very few people can describe what they want up front. Almost everyone can tell you when they're looking at it.

04

Live, and then still here.

Tested on real phones, Search Console and Analytics connected, sitemap submitted and schema in place. Then I show you how to update it yourself, and stay reachable for the things you'd rather not.

4 to 6 weeks for most sites, and the only thing that ever stretches it is waiting on content. That's why I draft it for you.

A close crop of a client's website, showing service cards for graffiti removal, gutter cleaning, shopfront cleaning and surface cleaning

Recent work.

Real businesses. Real customers finding them.

See all projects
D and A Lawrence commercial cleaning website, full page

D & A Lawrence.

Corstorphine

Commercial cleaning contractor working across Edinburgh. Built so each service stands on its own page rather than being buried in a list.
Fyvie Contracts grounds maintenance website, full page

Fyvie Contracts.

Edinburgh

Grounds maintenance across Edinburgh, Fife and the Lothians. Structured so the regional coverage is obvious to a customer and readable to Google.
Dr Tint eye clinic website, full page

Dr Tint.

Edinburgh and Glasgow

One site covering eye clinics in two cities, built when a second clinic opened in Glasgow. He came to me for a freelancer rather than an agency.

Cost.

What a website costs in Edinburgh.

Every job is different, so these are starting points rather than packages. You'll get a fixed price before anything starts, no hourly billing and nothing appearing later.

Single page site.

from £600

One page, built properly. Works on a phone, contact form, and the on-page SEO done from the start. An affordable first step for a sole trader or a new business.

Small business site.

from £1,500

Up to five pages. You can edit it yourself, lead capture forms, a blog if you want one, and the local SEO foundations that get you found in your part of Edinburgh. This is where most businesses land.

Growing business site.

from £3,000

Up to ten pages, customer accounts, online booking, taking payments, subscriptions, and connecting the systems you already use.

Bespoke.

Let's talk

Full online shop, area pages across the city, or anything the three above don't cover. Scoped and quoted on the job.

The Edinburgh pricing guide goes through what actually moves a quote up or down, if you want the long version.

Questions.

Before you get in touch.

The things people ask me on a first call. If yours isn't here, the full FAQ page covers how I work, and you're welcome to just ask.

What platform do you build on?

I build on Wix Studio, WordPress and Shopify. Wix Studio suits most small businesses, because there's nothing to maintain and you can change a price yourself without breaking anything. WordPress is the answer when you want to own the files outright, or the site has to do something a hosted platform won't. Shopify is for when selling is the job rather than a page with a few products on it.

Which one you end up on follows what the site has to do rather than what I'd rather build. If you already know which you want, say so on the first call. If you don't, that's a short conversation and I'll tell you which fits.

How much does a website cost in Edinburgh?

Most small business sites are £1,500 to £3,000, single pages start at £600, and larger builds go up from there. What moves it is how many pages, whether you need bookings, payments or customer accounts, and how much of the writing you want me to do. You'll always get a fixed price up front.

The Edinburgh pricing guide sets out what changes a quote.

How long does it take to build a website?

Four to six weeks for most small business sites, from the first conversation to going live. That covers planning, design, content, revisions and testing.

The one thing that stretches a timeline is content. If photographs and service details are slow to arrive, the build waits. I can draft most of the writing for you, which is usually what keeps a project moving.

Do you redesign or fix an existing website?

No, and that's deliberate. I build every site new, from the foundations up.

Most sites that need rescuing have problems in the structure rather than the surface, so patching over them means inheriting someone else's decisions and charging you to work around them. A fresh build usually costs less than people expect. Single pages start at £600 and most small business sites are £1,500 to £3,000, and it leaves you with something I can stand behind.

Who will I actually be dealing with?

Me. Power On is one person, so the person you meet on the first call is the person who designs it, builds it, launches it and picks up the phone two years later.

That's the main difference between working with a freelancer and working with an agency. There's no account manager in the middle and no junior doing the actual build, and my name is on the result either way.

Will my website show up on Google?

Every site I build is structured to be found: a page for each thing you want to rank for, proper titles and headings, location signals that line up with your Google Business Profile, and Search Console connected at launch.

Nobody can promise you a position, and be careful of anyone who does. What I can say is that the foundations will be right, which is where most local businesses are losing before they start. If you want to push visibility further, that's what local SEO is for.

Do you only work with businesses in Edinburgh?

Most of my clients are in Edinburgh and the Lothians, but I also work across Fife, in West Lothian and through to Glasgow.

Where you trade matters more than where you are. If your customers come from several towns, the site needs to be built for that from the start rather than adapted afterwards.

Come in for a coffee.

You're welcome to come to the office in South Gyle and talk your project through properly. Give me a call first, as I'm often out at client meetings.

I'm part of the Midlothian and East Lothian Chamber of Commerce and the FSB.

Power On Web Design
4 Redheughs Rigg, South Gyle, Edinburgh EH12 9DQ
0131 392 8692

Ready to be found in Edinburgh?

No pitch and no obligation. A quick call to work out whether I can help, and what it would take. About thirty minutes.

Not ready to talk yet? Get a free website audit instead and see what's holding your site back.

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