Web design &developmentthat gets found.
- / design
- / development
- / SEO
- / local search
Stourbridge Web Studio is an independent web design, development and SEO studio based in Stourbridge, West Midlands. We hand-code fast websites with search planned in from the start for businesses across the Black Country and the wider region. For Your Local Mechanic, a mobile mechanic in Dudley, that took monthly Google visits from 65 to 514 within a year.
Chris Carswell, founder. 25 years building software products and digital platforms. Page updated .
Your business shouldn’t look smaller online than it is in real life.
Plenty of excellent businesses are still represented by dated, slow or generic websites. We fix that.
Project / 001 — featured
Your
Local
Mechanic
- Location
- Stourbridge / Dudley
- Scope
- Web design
- Custom development
- Local SEO
- Content
8×
Visits from Google, year on year
A father-and-son mobile mechanic on an old WordPress site that Google barely showed. We rebuilt it around the jobs and towns people actually search for. Visits from Google went from 65 a month to 514, call-button clicks from the profile rose 163%, and the Google rating climbed from 3.6 to 4.4.
View the case studySearch Console
Sep 2025 vs Sep 2026
Organic only
One website.
three disciplines.
Design decides how it looks and what it says. Development decides how fast and reliably it works. Search decides whether anyone finds it. We decide all three together, from the first conversation.
- / Brand-led art direction
- / Typography & layout systems
- / UX and conversion design
- / Mobile-first composition
- / Next.js & React
- / Core Web Vitals engineering
- / CMS & integrations
- / Accessibility by default
- / Technical audits & fixes
- / Search intent & content
- / Structured data
- / AI search visibility
- / Google Business Profile
- / Local landing pages
- / Reviews & citations
- / Map pack visibility
- / Local search intelligence
A beautiful website nobody finds is still a bad website.
Most agencies treat search as an add-on. Most SEO firms treat design as decoration. We think that split is why so many business websites look fine and do nothing. Every site we build is planned around how people search, what they need to see, and how fast it loads, before a single pixel is drawn.
SEO, treated as engineering.
Not mysterious marketing. A sequence of decisions, each one checkable, each one built into the website rather than sprinkled on afterwards.
- 01Search
- 02Structure
- 03Content
- 04Technical
- 05Local
- 06Measure
Specification / what is covered
- Technical SEO
- Crawlability, indexing, rendering, canonicals, redirects.
- Internal linking
- Every important page reachable, every link earning its place.
- Schema
- Structured data so Google understands who you are and what you do.
- Local visibility
- Map pack, service areas and location relevance, measured across the places you serve.
- Google Business Profile
- Set up, categorised, photographed, reviewed and kept alive.
- Search intent
- Pages planned around what people type, not what you want to say.
- Core Web Vitals
- LCP, INP and CLS treated as engineering targets, not afterthoughts.
- Content
- Useful answers, written by people who understand the trade.
- AI search visibility
- Clear, citable structure for answer engines and AI overviews.
Measured results from our work
7.9×
Google search clicks
+163%
Google call-button clicks
Your Local Mechanic, Business Profile call clicks, April–August 2026 vs the same months in 2025
4.4★
Google rating
Your Local Mechanic, March–August 2026: 3.6 to 4.4
These results describe one client over specific reporting periods. See the sources, dates and what each measure means in the case study.
Built in
Stourbridge.
Seen everywhere.
We’re based in Stourbridge and work with businesses across the Black Country, Worcestershire and the wider West Midlands. Local enough to meet for a coffee. Good enough that you would not need to.
Stourbridge Web Studio serves Stourbridge, Pedmore, Wollaston, Wordsley, Hagley, Kinver, Kingswinford, Dudley, Halesowen, Kidderminster, Bromsgrove.
No mysterious
agency process.
Six stages. Each one has a start, an end and something you can see.
- 01 /Talk
A proper conversation about your business, your customers and what a better website has to do.
- 02 /Plan
Search research, page structure and a written scope. You know what you are getting before we start.
- 03 /Design
Art direction first, then real pages. Typography, layout and content designed together.
- 04 /Build
Hand-coded, fast and accessible. Tested on real phones, not just a resized browser.
- 05 /Launch
Redirects, analytics, Search Console, schema and a launch checklist we actually follow.
- 06 /Grow
Content, local SEO and measurement so the site keeps earning its keep after launch.
What it costs,
in 2026.
Most of our website projects land between £3,000 and £10,000, with a fixed price after one conversation. Ongoing local SEO for a single-location business is typically £500 to £1,500 a month.
| Option | Planning estimate | What to expect | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| DIY builder (Wix, Squarespace) | £0–£500 + subscription | A template you configure and maintain. Check subscription costs, available features and the time you can commit. | Very early stage, no budget, willing to do the work |
| Freelancer | £1,000–£3,000 | A focused build from an individual. Confirm whether design, content, search planning and support are included. | Simple brochure sites with modest goals |
| Small studio (us) | £3,000–£10,000 | Bespoke design and development, with search structure, content and performance targets agreed in the scope. | Established businesses where enquiries matter |
| Larger agency | £10,000+ | A larger team for projects needing more disciplines, coordination or complex integrations. | Multi-site or enterprise requirements |
Ongoing SEO
£500–£1,500 a month
Planning budget for ongoing work on a single-location business. A narrower job may need less; scope determines the fee.
Studio estimates for planning a project, reviewed October 2026; not a market survey. Scope determines the quote. If a cheaper route would serve you better, we say so.
Questions
we get asked.
Straight answers, with the sources. Longer versions live in Knowledge.
How much does a website designer cost in the UK?
Anywhere from a few hundred pounds for a DIY template to five figures for an agency build. A freelancer typically charges £1,000 to £3,000 and a small studio £3,000 to £10,000. Most of our projects land in that studio band, priced as a fixed figure after one conversation.
Always ask what is included. Search planning, copywriting, hosting and post-launch measurement are where quotes differ most.
Do you only work with businesses in Stourbridge?
No. We are based in Stourbridge and most clients are within about ten miles, across the Black Country and north Worcestershire, but the work is remote-friendly. Local clients get the option of meeting in person.
Do you build on WordPress?
No. We build in Next.js and React, which give us control over rendering, performance and integrations without a WordPress plugin stack. Speed still depends on how a site is built and maintained; the framework alone does not guarantee a Core Web Vitals pass. If you need to edit content yourself, we connect a content editor.
You own the code outright. It lives in a repository in your name.
What results have you actually delivered?
For Your Local Mechanic, a mobile mechanic in Dudley, monthly visits from Google went from 65 in September 2025 to 514 in September 2026 (Search Console, organic clicks only). Call-button clicks from the Google listing rose 163% over April to August 2026 against the same months in 2025, and the Google rating climbed from 3.6 to 4.4 in five months. No advertising has run since April 2026.
Is a website still worth it in 2026?
Yes. A website gives customers a place to check your services, prices and work, and gives search engines information they can link to. Your Local Mechanic's Search Console report recorded 12,791 impressions in Google's generative AI features in August 2026, compared with 3,273 in June.
Those are appearances of the site's URLs, not unique answers, visitors or enquiries. The result followed several changes to the site and its content; it does not isolate the effect of any one change or guarantee the same result for another business.
Do you handle Google Business Profile and reviews?
Yes, as part of local SEO. That covers categories, photos, service areas, a review routine and monitoring map-pack visibility across each town you serve. Reviews feed what Google calls prominence, one of its three local ranking factors alongside relevance and distance.
How long does a website take to build?
Four to ten weeks from first conversation to launch is typical for a business website. Content is usually the pacing item, so we agree who supplies what at the planning stage. If you have photographs and text ready we move fast. If we are writing and arranging photography, allow the longer end.
What does ongoing SEO cost per month?
We suggest a planning budget of £500 to £1,500 a month for ongoing work on a single-location business. This is our estimate, not a UK market average: the right budget depends on the work needed, competition and who supplies the content. A smaller fee can cover a narrower job. Ask what will actually be delivered and measured.
How do I choose a web designer in Stourbridge?
Ask what the site will do, not just what it will look like. Run the designer's own website through PageSpeed Insights on mobile. Ask to see a site they built two years ago and what its Search Console looks like today. Check that you will own the domain, hosting and code. Then compare quotes on what is included rather than on price.
Useful things
we know.
Straight answers to the questions business owners actually ask us. No agency blog.
Got a website
you secretly hate?
From our Google reviews
Read them on Google“I’ve used Chris now for a number of years, he has built various websites for my company all of which have been exceptional, the latest taking my business to a Google ranking of number 1 in my local area for garage services.”
“Chris took care of every step with no loss of calls or enquiries throughout the changeover. Enquiries have increased by at least 50% on all of my websites.”
“What a great service from start to finish. Totally transformed my dull original landing page. I would recommend their services to anyone and will definitely use them again.”
Or just email
hello@stourbridgewebstudio.co.uk