Bingo Web Design

My First-Hand Take on Web Design in Cheshire

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I’m Kayla. I run a small cake studio near Knutsford. I make wedding cakes for venues like Colshaw Hall and Merrydale Manor. Pretty ones. Tasty ones. But my old website? Yikes. It loaded slow. It looked dull on phones. Folks would DM me on Instagram instead. I needed real help.

If you’d like the blow-by-blow version of every planning, quoting and launch step I took, I’ve also published a companion checklist you can skim here: My First-Hand Take on Web Design in Cheshire.

Who I Hired (and why I picked them)

I went with Limely in Chester. We met at Jaunty Goat near Bridge Street. Casual chat. Clear plan. They showed me three local sites they built that felt clean and bold. The style had that “Chester Rows” vibe—classic, but not stuffy.

I also used Blue Whale Media in Warrington for a one-page landing page for my sister’s dog grooming van. I’ll share that too. Two projects. Same county. Different needs.

The Cake Studio Build: Before vs After

My old site

  • Load time on 4G: 7.4 seconds (measured with PageSpeed).
  • Bounce rate: 68% (people left fast).
  • Contact form spam every day.
  • No gallery filter. Brides scrolled for miles.

My new site (WordPress + custom theme)

  • Load time on 4G: 1.4 seconds on the home page.
  • Core Web Vitals: Pass. LCP was 1.8s on mobile.
  • Bounce rate: 41% after 6 weeks.
  • Enquiries: From 2 a week to 9–11 a week by month two.

You know what? That change felt huge.

Real Pages They Built (with real features)

Home

  • Hero line: “Modern wedding cakes for real life.”
  • One big button: Book a Tasting. It goes to Calendly. Works with Apple Calendar.

Gallery

  • Filter by venue: Colshaw Hall, Peckforton Castle, Merrydale Manor, Nunsmere Hall.
  • Tap-to-zoom photos. WebP images. Lazy load. Looks sharp on my iPhone.

Flavors and Pricing

  • Simple grid. Price range per tier. “Sample Box” checkout via WooCommerce + Stripe.
  • Apple Pay worked on my phone. No fuss.
  • A tiny “as seen at” row with venue names.

FAQ

  • Expand/collapse sections.
  • They added FAQ schema, so some answers show in Google.
  • Less email back-and-forth. Bless.

Contact

  • Gravity Forms with a honeypot (anti-spam thing).
  • File upload for inspo pictures.
  • Thank-you page with GA4 events. I can track form sends.
  • I also get a ping on Slack.

Blog

  • “How to book a tasting in Cheshire”
  • “Top 5 wedding cake trends at Colshaw Hall”
  • “The real cost of sugar flowers”
    These drive traffic. People read them. Then they book.

Design Touches That Felt… Local

  • Colors: soft cream and sandstone. Think Chester walls at golden hour.
  • Fonts: modern serif for headers, clean sans for body. No fuss.
  • Tiny lace detail on section dividers. It nods to bridal style without going full frilly.

The Nuts and Bolts (said plain)

  • CMS: WordPress. I can edit everything.
  • Builder: Light custom blocks. No heavy theme bloat.
  • Hosting: Their managed VPS. Daily backups. SSL.
  • Cache: Server cache + a small plugin.
  • CDN: Cloudflare. Set-and-forget.
  • Email: Kept my Google Workspace. They handled DNS.
  • Care plan: £45/month. Updates and fixes.

I can post new cakes in five minutes. It used to be a chore. Now it’s fun.

Real Results (numbers you can use)

  • Organic traffic: up 118% in 90 days (GA4).
  • “wedding cakes cheshire”: moved from page 4 to top 3 for me.
  • “cake tasting chester”: top 5.
  • Enquiries: 43 in the first full month after launch. It was 11 before.
  • Sample box sales: 17 orders in week one after adding Apple Pay.

We launched right before autumn wedding booking season. Good call.

What I Loved

  • They spoke human, not tech.
  • Design matched the area. It felt Cheshire, not cookie-cutter.
  • Speed and mobile layout. Smooth scroll. No jumpy layout (CLS stayed low).
  • Quick fixes. They squashed a Safari tablet menu bug in 24 hours.
  • They set up heatmaps. I saw where people clicked. We moved the tasting button higher. Bookings went up.

What Bugged Me (not a deal-breaker)

  • Extra design round cost me £250. I wanted a second hero layout. Fair, but I didn’t expect it.
  • Summer was busy for them. Replies took a day at times.
  • Hosting felt tied to their stack. They did offer help if I ever move.

A Second Real Example: Dog Grooming Landing Page (Warrington)

My sister runs a mobile dog grooming van. Blue Whale Media built a tidy one-page site.

  • Simple hero with “Book in Northwich & Winnington.”
  • Online booking via Fresha.
  • Price blocks for small, medium, large breeds.
  • Map shows the pickup spot behind Waitrose car park. People loved that.
  • They added a “matting fee” note. Less awkward talks.

Results after launch:

  • 28 bookings in week one.
  • 37% of clicks came from Google Business Profile.
  • PageSpeed: 92 mobile, 100 desktop on launch day.

Small thing I didn’t like: the stock dog photos looked too shiny at first. We swapped in real pups. Much better.

Curious how a totally different county tackled similar small-biz challenges? Read this honest, hands-on review of hiring web design in Norfolk for a side-by-side comparison of costs and outcomes.

Who Cheshire Web Design Fits Well

  • Wedding vendors
  • Trades (joiners, tilers, garden folks)
  • Cafés and bakeries
  • Salons and mobile services

For yet another set of real-world numbers—this time from the East Midlands—take a peek at this candid account of working with a team in Bedford.

Costs and Timeline I Paid

  • Cake site: £3,800 build + £45/month care. 7 weeks from kickoff to go live.
  • Grooming page: £950 one-page build + £25/month hosting. 2 weeks.

Prices change, sure. But that’s what I paid.

Tiny Tips If You’re In Cheshire

  • Gather your best photos. Real faces, real places.
  • Make a list of your top five pages. Keep the nav short.
  • Ask for a care plan. Saves time later.
  • Pick a launch date before busy season. Think Chester Races or Christmas markets.
  • Agree on one main action per page. Book, call, or buy.
  • For a quick crash-course on layouts and colour palettes, check out the free guide at Bingo Web Design before you sketch your brief.

Need to sharpen the one-liner text that sits on those hero banners or buttons? If you want inspiration on crafting super-short messages that spark curiosity—the same psychology that makes a flirty text impossible to ignore—browse this lively roundup of sexting ideas to study how word pacing, tease, and tone can be repurposed into magnetic copy for your site or ads.

On a related note, exploring how other service-oriented businesses keep visitors engaged can spark fresh ideas for your own copy. Check out the concise, attention-grabbing profiles showcased by Mauldin escorts—you’ll spot clever hooks, benefit-focused introductions, and clear calls-to-action that double as a mini-masterclass in persuasive micro-copy.

If you’d like to see these same principles applied in the South-West, have a skim of this real take on web design in Gloucester—the parallels (and differences) are eye-opening.

My Verdict

I’d hire both teams again. My cake site now feels like me. It’s fast. It’s tidy. People can book a tasting without tugging my sleeve on Instagram. And you know what? That peace of mind is worth more than the pretty fonts.

If you’re hunting for web design in Cheshire, you’ve got good folks here. Ask for simple words. Ask for real speed. Ask for results you can count. Then watch your phone light up.

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