Website Design Aberystwyth, Wales

Pixelwave Web Design is pleased to have started work on a brand new website for Mike’s Aerials, a Sky TV, Satellite and Aerials installer based in Aberystwyth. Most people in Aberystwyth will have seen the Mike’s Aerials van around and about town as will those in the wider area of Mid Wales that his company serves.

Until now Mike has had a very limited web presence so recently approached Pixelwave Web Design askin me to change that for him. I’ve since started work on a new CMS-based website that will allow Mike and his staff to keep the site up to date with all of the latest Sky TV offers and projects they are working on. He is even beginning to diversify a little into things such as home automation, CCTV and other new technologies for the modern home and business.

The new website will be a clean, easy to use affair built around a mobile-responsive design. It will showcase the services that Mike’s Aerials offer and provide all of the latest news from the company. As an approved Sky TV installer it will also include all of the latest Sky TV packages and offers available.

Work is already well underway on the new website so hopefully once I get the last few bits of content it will be ready to go live soon. Her’s a sneak preview:

Mikes Aerials Website Design

Pixelwave Web Design is pleased to announce that our latest website design is now live. This is a brochure style website for a holiday cottage in Borth, Wales. My local village so a location that is well known to me. I was given virtually a free reign with the design, layout, construction and even much of the content for this site. I organised the information architecture and advised the client on what should and shouldn’t be included in the website so as to keep it interesting yet simple and easy to use.

The website is built using a mobile responsive design so that it is accessible across a wide range of devices from the largest desktop screens to tablets, phones and other mobile devices. It is full of glorious photography that really showcases the area and is one of my favourite designs to date. I hope you like it. The clients do, saying

It looks really great, many thanks. It’s good to go and I’m quite nervous!!!

…

Many thanks you’ve really excelled yourself.

Cottage on the Beach Website Design

Pixelwave Web Design is pleased to have started work for a local holiday cottage. Based right on the beach in Borth and owned by Borth locals, it’s always nice to be working for people from my own community. It also means that I know the area well and know the attractions of a holiday cottage in this beautiful part of the world so I have been given a fairly free reign on both the design and some of the content for the site.

The plan is for a mobile responsive website design that is attractive, simple and easy to use. The site will highlight the attractions of the area and be full of gorgeous photography. Check back here for updates soon.

Cottage on the Beach

Pixelwave Web Design has recently started work on a new website for Aberystwyth author and former TV producer David Lloyd.

The website will be a simple brochure style website show-casing his books and his past career in Television. It will be easy to use, attractive to look at and should reflect his lively, engaging personality. It should be ready soon, but here’s a sneak preview.

David Lloyd Website Design

Pixelwave Web Design is pleased to announce (albeit a little late) that the websites for the Rhayader Vibrant Towns project are all completed and live.

I have been working on three different websites through the Rhayader Vibrant Towns project which has been helping with the funding for business websites in and around Rhayader in Mid Wales. Once the businesses in need of a website had been identified and funding put in place the projects were passed over to Pixelwave Web Design. I then liaised with the business owners to produce a site that suited their needs. Initially these were all to be based on the same theme / layout but once I’d had a chat with the business owners I decided that each site should be individual in order to reflect each businesses unique character and requirements.

The first site was for a Camenna Clothing, a small shop selling clothes in Rhayader. Their site includes a fully-feature eCommerce system. The second site was for ‘The Lost Arc‘ who have been busy converting the old Tannery building in Rhayader, with the intention of taking it back to its musical roots – re-establishing the main hall as a music venue and a cinema. There will also be a cafe in the building serving  seasonal quality food using locally sourced produce. The third site was for The Bear Inn which  provides luxury guest accommodation and a traditional bar with a contemporary feel.

All are now live and fully functioning and helping to increase the presence of Rhayader Businesses on the web.

Many of the new sites I’ve built recently have been responsive, mobile friendly sites – that is sites that respond to the size of screen they are being viewed upon and change accordingly. Not only does the overall layout scale to fit the screen but images scale, various elements get moved to accommodate the smaller screens of phone and tablets and menus and such like are often altered to make it easier to interact with them on touch screens.

‘Back in the day’ we used to build separate mobile websites (and even WAP sites) in addition to the main desktop website. I was never really an advocate of this, thinking (rightly so) that the technology would soon catch up and we’d be able to view full websites on mobile devices. That is now the case and I for one tend to want the full desktop version of a website even when I’m presented with a mobile version on my phone. Modern, responsive design is better than this though and is all about making a site usable no matter what device it is being used upon.

Google have got in on the act, stating that on April 21, 2015,

“Google’s mobile ranking factors will not only label your site as mobile-friendly, but will also use that to determine if your site should rank higher in the search results. Google said this algorithmic change will have a “significant impact” in the mobile search results, impacting all languages worldwide.”

This means that if your site isn’t deemed mobile friendly then it won’t rank anywhere near so well in search engine results pages on mobile devices. With that in mind I thought it was time to revamp a few of my sites to make them more responsive. It’s always my own sites that get the attention last!

Google have a handy developer tool that allows you to check if your site is mobile friendly or not: PageSpeed Insights, provides you with a report on your web-page and some tips on how to fix any issues. I’ve recently made the Pixelwave Web Design site into a responsive design so that sidebars get out of the way as the screen size decreases, font sizes are larger than they used to be to aid legibility on smaller screens and some images are removed from certain sized screens. Images also scale to fit the viewport and tap targets are changed so as to be easier to use on a touch screen rather than with a mouse and pointer.

I’m pleased to say that the site now scores highly on Google PageSpeed Insights test and should therefore continue to rank highly in search engine results pages, even on mobile devices. It scores 90/100 for speed and 100/100 for user experience.

Responsive Website Design

I’ve also done a complete website re-design of my personal weblog, not only making it responsive in nature, but also changing the entire feel to a more modern upbeat kind of design with more emphasis on the photos and encouraging people to click through to read individual blog posts and hopefully comment more on them too. Here are the before and after shots.

Website Re-design Before and After

Pixelwave Web Design is pleased to say that the re-design and re-branding of the website for Aberleri Cottages is now live for all to see. I built their original website many years ago – in 2007 to be precise. It was still functioning well and doing the job it was intended to do, but a recent re-decoration and re-vamp of the cottages themselves meant that they were now appealing to a wider market, and were especially being marketed at families into the Great Outdoors. Mountain Bikers and Walkers are being specifically catered for with a new drying room, bike wash facilities and workshop. With this in mind it was time to update the website, and make both the content and the look and feel more appropriate to the new market demographic.

The new website is more modern in design but hopefully with a timeless appeal, it is also a little more refined and up-market than before and now really lets the photos do the talking. My clients love it which is always a god thing, and I’m pleased with it too.

Website Re-design

I have been busy these last few weeks. Lots of new websites built and plenty of updates for existing customers too. The latest of which was adding a shopping cart feature to an existing site so that my client could sell Klikety Klik boxes online.

“The “Klikety Klik” is a gift box handmade in South Africa entirely from recycled plastic drink bottles, although these Eco-chic boxes are beautiful enough to be the gift themselves. Add potpourri, jewelry or your favorite delicacy and you have a totally unique package that will delight anyone.”

I did offer to add a full-blown eCommerce solution to the existing site but also explained how my client could easily add PayPal ‘Add to Cart’ buttons to the site herself using the Content management System that controls her site. She decided not to go with the full-featured eCommerce site and was going to save money by adding the buttons herself. However, in the end she commissioned me to add the buttons and build the shop page for her and set up her PayPal account, postage options and such like so that everything would work smoothly.  The shop page is now ready to go so hopefully her ‘Klikety Klik’ boxes will be flying off the shelves.

Klikety Klik Shop

Pixelwave Web Design is delighted to have recently started work on the second project as part of the Rhayader Vibrant Towns project. A project to help businesses local to Rhayader in Mid Wales. Hot on the heels of the website for The Lost Arc, the first site I started work on as part of this project, I’ve now started work on a second website for a clothing retail company in the town

Camenna Clothing sell is a family run business selling quality designer children’s clothing. They started out with a small market stall and and now run from a shop in the market town of Rhayader. Their new website will launch them to the world on the internet.

The website’s originally commissioned for these projects were to be fairly simple website built to certain specifications, but for this project an eCommerce solution was necessary so the site being built will contain an online shop catalogue and full eCommerce shopping cart facilities. There will be a few additional pages but the majority of the site will be geared towards the presentation and selling of their clothing products. The shop owner’s will of course be able to add and edit products and categories via an easy to use admin panel. The admin panel will also allow them to adjust setting such as shipping rates, create discount coupons and of course track orders and customers. It will also allow them to add and edit pages and new posts too.

Once again I’m working to a fairly tight deadline on this project, so have already developing the main parts of the website. I’m now waiting for suitable content and photos from the clients so that I can get the site ready for release sometime soon.

Pixelwave Web Design has just completed work on a new website for property rental. Based just outside Aberystwyth, Nanteos Farm Lettings comprises of a courtyard of sympathetically converted 2 bedroomed cottage type properties in a quiet picturesque setting. These attractive properties are well presented, and are available furnished or partly furnished, with ample safe parking for all vehicles.

The new website is a brochure style website that reflects the character of the buildings and the nature of the intended clients. It is modern, clean and easy to use and provides a description of each of the properties available, along of course with contact details and some information about the local area.

It’s always nice to do repeat work for clients and this is the second website I’ve built for this client, who once again seems over the moon with the results.

Nanteos Farm Lettings Website Design