Websites for service businesses across Essexhello@donroddigital.co.uk
About Donrod Digital
I work as an academic librarian in higher education, and have done for most of my career. Most of that job is explaining technology to people who have no interest in technology and need it to work anyway. You learn quickly to drop the jargon and answer the question that was actually asked. That turns out to be most of this job too.
I build websites alongside it, deliberately. It means I take on a handful of clients rather than chasing volume, and it means the person who answers your email is the person who built the site.
I started Donrod Digital because a lot of genuinely good local businesses either have no website at all, or one that makes them look smaller and newer than they are. The work is excellent. The first thing a customer checks isn’t.
I wanted to work directly with owners rather than through account managers and proposals, and to charge something a local business could justify without thinking about it for a fortnight.
No account manager, no ticket system, no proposal deck. You email me, and I’m the one who answers.
Most small businesses get offered one of two things. An agency that quotes thousands and takes three months, or a template that costs very little and looks exactly like what it cost.
Neither works for a roofer or a landscaper with a good reputation and no time. The first is out of proportion to the job. The second makes a well-run business look careless.
Donrod Digital is the third option. A properly designed website, built around your own work, at a price that makes sense for a local business.
The part people find odd
Rather than sending a proposal, I build a real working version of your website using your own photos, your own reviews and your own services, then send you the link. You can look at it, use it, share it with your wife or your business partner, and decide.
If you like it, the price is in the message and there’s nothing else to it. If you don’t, nothing happens, and you’ve lost nothing but the two minutes it took to look.
It’s a strange way to sell something. It’s also the only way I’ve found that respects your time. You don’t have to imagine what you’d be getting.
A website should look like the business it belongs to. If you do careful work, the site should look careful. If you turn up on time and clean up after yourself, the site shouldn’t be cluttered and slow.
That means real photographs of real jobs, not stock images of models in hard hats. It means your reviews shown in full. It means it loads quickly and works properly on a phone, because that’s where most people will see it.
I work across Essex, and I intend to keep it that way. I’d rather build twenty good sites for businesses I could drive to than a hundred for people I’ll never meet.
When I’m not building sites I’m usually in the gym or tracking down a decent coffee.
Email me and I’ll answer it properly. No sales sequence, no follow-up calls, no proposal deck.
