Web design in Rochester, where heritage meets the high street
More calls and enquiries, a website that makes you look the part, and none of the technical side to worry about.
Rochester trades on its cathedral, its castle and a high street full of independents. I build sites that do those businesses justice.
162 reviews across four sites, rated 5.0 on Google and WixGet your site online for only £199, £99 setup and your first month, then from £100 a month. 12‑month minimum. No VAT to add. SEO kept up every month.Live in as little as 2 weeks200+ projects10+ years building websitesWix Legend Partner
Covering the whole district rather than Rochester on its own? See web design in Medway.
Already have a site and want it found across Medway? See SEO across Medway.
Local knowledge
What a website has to do for Rochester customers
Rochester is the odd one out in Medway. Where Gillingham runs on trades and Chatham on retail and regeneration, Rochester runs on heritage and independents. The castle and cathedral bring visitors year round, the Dickens connection brings more, and the High Street is one of the few in Kent where independent shops still genuinely outnumber the chains.
That makes it the most presentation-sensitive town in Medway. A visitor choosing between two cafes on Rochester High Street is making an aesthetic judgement, often from a phone, often stood twenty feet from both doors. The same customer in Gillingham would be choosing on price and proximity. Here, looking the part does real commercial work.
The conservation area is the other constraint. Much of the High Street is listed or sits within it, which limits what you can do with signage, frontage and lighting. If you cannot differentiate physically, your website, your photography and your Google listing carry more of the load than they would anywhere else in Medway.
The seasonal pattern matters too. The Dickens Festival, the Sweeps Festival and the summer months bring significant footfall, and the weeks in between are genuinely quiet. A homepage that says exactly the same thing in February as it does on a festival weekend is leaving money on the table twice a year, and almost every local site does it.
- Photography that does the premises justice
- Naming Borstal, Wouldham and the villages
- Opening hours including festival weekends
- Parking, because visitors always ask
- Booking that works from a phone outside
- Reviews shown, visitors check first
What it costs
What a Rochester website costs
Get your site online for only £199
£99 setup and your first month, then from £100 a month. 12‑month minimum. No VAT to add. SEO kept up every month.
Custom design, hosting, SEO and small changes done for you within 2 working days, in one price.
From £800
Plus £25 a month hosting, rolling, 30 days' notice.
Taking bookings or payments through the site? That is from £150 a month on the monthly plan (card fees paid by you), or from £1,000 bought outright, plus £25 a month hosting.
162 reviews
Rated 5.0 on Google. Every one left by a real client on Google, Wix, Facebook or another public review site, where you can read them for yourself.
“Helped me build my website and i am very pleased and satisfied with it. Very good and professional”
My work
A few sites I've built
Picked from all my projects, so not only from Rochester. Each one has its own page with the whole story.
See all the work
Ollie Rastall Photography
A golf course photography site moved off Wix and rebuilt in code, built around the work itself: courses, greenkeeping teams and the machinery they run.
Source Office Supplies
QR code landing pages for Source's printed flyers: one page per campaign, a short survey, and every enquiry labelled with the flyer it came from.
Dubarry Events
A bilingual website in English and Simplified Chinese for an event, exhibition and AV production company near Heathrow, built in code on Astro.
What I do
What I build for Rochester businesses
A website that brings in work, and help getting it found on Google.
Web Design
A custom designed site for your Rochester business that looks professional, is fast on phones and makes it easy for customers to call. Built properly and looked after for you.
I built on Wix for years, until its limits kept getting in the way, so I now build in code, and your site can still come with an editor so you can change it yourself. I still fix Wix sites, and build new ones on Wix if that is what you want.
SEO across Medway
Already have a site and need it found across the five Medway towns? Advanced SEO is a one-off job, from £300, one off. If I build your site on a monthly plan, SEO is already included and kept up every month.
Who this is for
The Rochester businesses I build for
Hospitality & visitor trade
Cafes, restaurants, guest houses and pubs along the High Street and around the cathedral. Most decisions are made on a phone within sight of the door, so photos, hours and a booking link matter more than anything else.
Independent retail
Antique shops, galleries, bookshops and gift shops that make Rochester what it is. Conservation rules limit what you can do with a shopfront, so your website and Google listing do the standing out instead.
Heritage & specialist trades
Builders, decorators and specialist trades working on listed and period properties across Rochester and Borstal. A different sell entirely, based on proof of past work rather than on speed or on price.
Common problems
What I see missing on Rochester websites
Photography that undersells you
The most common fault on a heritage high street. Dark, badly lit phone snaps of a genuinely lovely interior lose you customers who were about to walk in. Good photography is the highest return spend here.
Nothing about parking
Most Rochester visitors arrive by car and have no idea where to park. Sites that never mention the nearest car park or how far the walk is lose people who give up and go to Chatham instead.
The same page all year
The festivals and the summer swing footfall enormously, yet almost every local site reads identically all year round. If your trade doubles on a festival weekend, your homepage should say so clearly.
Invisible by default
Conservation rules mean you often cannot fix visibility with signage. Businesses that accept that and then also neglect their website end up genuinely invisible to anyone who has not already found them.
Not sure how yours measures up? Tell me about it and I'll look at it with you
Rochester web design questions
Do you work with Rochester businesses?
Regularly. I'm in Gillingham, ten minutes up the road, so Rochester is very much home turf. Popping in to see the premises before I start is easy and usually worth doing.
We're in a listed building and can't change the frontage. Does that matter?
It makes your website more important, not less. If you cannot stand out physically, your photos, your Google listing and your reviews are doing that job instead, and all three you can control completely.
Do you arrange photography?
I can, and in Rochester it's usually the thing that makes the biggest difference. If budget is tight I'll show you how to take decent photos yourself rather than charge you for something you can do.
What does a website cost?
At WebOws Design in Gillingham, Kent, there are two ways. Get your site online for only £199: £99 setup and your first month, then from £100 a month. 12-month minimum. That covers a custom site hand built in code, hosting, SEO and small changes done for you. Or, if you want to edit it yourself, the same kind of site bought outright from £800, plus £25 a month hosting, with a fixed quote agreed before anything starts. No VAT to add either way.
Can I update the site myself for festival weekends?
Yes. The homepage is built so the headline, hours and a featured offer can change for festival weekends: on a monthly plan you tell me and it is done within 2 working days, or on a site bought outright you swap them yourself in the editor in a couple of minutes. In a town with this much seasonal swing that matters more than it does elsewhere.
Nearby
Areas near Rochester I also cover
I work right across Kent, not only in Rochester. These are some of the nearby towns with a page of their own.
By trade
Pages by line of work
The kinds of business above, each with its own page about what a website has to do in that line of work, in Rochester or anywhere else in Kent.
Worth reading next
Quick quote
Tell me about the business. I'll confirm the right plan and when you could be live.
I usually reply within a working day. Or call 01634 984929 and speak to me directly.
Let's talk about your Rochester website
Not sure yet what you need? Tell me about the business and I'll say honestly what would help and what wouldn't. Asking costs nothing.