Website design Port Stephens, NSW

We understand that no two businesses are the identical, so while we provide the same dedication to all our clients, we always guide and help you develop your unique digital presence.

We’ve been developing websites for over 23 years, giving us intangible experience.

With over 1,500 websites (and counting…) developed through us, we are not only confident in our ability but we can decisively say that we know what we’re doing! Our operations are always across all the newest technologies and trends. Our website developers, SEO experts, UX designers and content marketing specialists are constantly developing their skills to create the safest and most modern sites.

Unlike other website developers in the web design space in Port Stephens, we’re here your long term success.  Even after your site is up and running, we stay right by your side. Our digital marketing professionals devise and apply all types of strategies and campaigns to increase traffic on your new website. We keep you from juggling different agencies because take care of your marketing and creative content!

Why is Redback different? In contrast to other digital web design agencies in Port Stephens, our team can be depended on even after your website is active. We won’t abandon you because we stick by you for the long haul. With our recent acquisition of a marketing agency, our professionals can guide your brand-specific marketing strategies. Why outsource to several different agencies when all your needs are covered under one roof at Redback?

Learn our more about our history, our company values and our team here.

Selecting the Redback website development and design crew in Port Stephens gives you access to flexible and experienced specialists. Redback’s team (all Australia-based) can help you with:

• Custom website design: Get more than just a stylish website. We can carefully develop goal-focussed, mobile-responsive and quick designs customised to your individual needs.
• Landing pages: These are a means for accessing your website, and generally a customer’s first impression of your business. This is why we ensure that your landing page is captivating and motivates user engagement.
• Ecommerce development & integrations: Is your company selling online? Do you organise and manage event bookings? Do you need your website to integrate with your other company operations? No matter how big or small your needs are, our team is so experienced that we’ve probably already done it. Our development specialists are experts in assessing your needs and helping you to get the most high-performing solutions on the market.
• Digital marketing support: Remember that your digital brand presence doesn’t finish with just a website. We keep the momentum rolling with optimised data-driven strategies, unique ideas and management for social media, Bing and Google.
• SEO: Our SEO specialist apply functional and practical solutions, from content strategies to technical execution, and ensure that your website will be on course for durable search engine success.
• Brand development: You deserve more than just brainstorming a brand name for your brand strategy. With Redback’s professional team of video production creatives, graphic design specialists, logo designers and more, we will maximise your digital brand recognition.
• Website maintenance: Don’t be plagued by fears over the speed and security of your website, with website management and hosting locally in NSW, we take care of all the stress.

Since being founded 1999, Redback has constantly evolved and improved our processes to ensure our customers’ websites are developed efficiently and to highest standards possible. Check out the overview of our process for building custom designed websites below (note: the process is a little different/simpler if you’re looking to build your site using a third party template or WordPress theme with no custom design or extra functionality required):

1. Scoping: When you first contact us, we’ll arrange a scoping call (or in-person meeting) so we can discuss your needs and figure out the right solutions to suit those needs. Our scoping calls normally take between 30-45 minutes and are free of charge. We run through a carefully crafted briefing questionnaire which helps us gather as much information as possible about your audience, the vision for your website, competitors, design direction and more. After this call, we’ll go away and prepare a proposal with an itemised quote. This scoping process is important because it gets everyone clear on the deliverables and costs up-front, which helps to avoid unpleasant surprises (i.e. additional costs) midway through your website project.

2. Strategy: If you approve our proposal, we do a little dance and start the ball rolling! In the strategy phase, we’ll take the time to really understand your market online and develop a specific plan of attack. This phase involves a block of research and planning time, where we analyse your competitors’ websites, understand the search volumes for your target keywords and get all the necessary pieces in place to set your website up for success.

3. Design: A formal design call or meeting will allow us to reverse-engineer your user journeys and confirm your Sitemap, discuss design inspiration, features and more. Soon after this meeting, you’ll also receive a series of interactive design prototypes for further approval before we move into the development phase.

4. Development: Now it’s time to bring your new website to life. Strategy, content, design and code come together as we build your new site on a private staging URL. This allows for content entry, final revisions, SEO, integrations and testing before we launch.

5. Delivery: We’ll ensure a smooth launch for your new site, handling necessary hosting and domain configuration, search engine requirements and other integrations. 6 weeks after launch, you get a report with insights on the progress of your new site and recommendations for future growth!

Growth marketing: This starts from the discovery phase, all the way through the project. Search Engine Optimisation, marketing and content. Depending on the scope of your project, our search engine specialists, digital marketers and content creators can be involved throughout each phase of the project and beyond, making sure your new website is designed and developed in a way that enables long term growth.

Really, it’s all down to you! Determining what you want pay for your new site depends on what you want out it, the amount of pages you need it to have, its features, design and level of complexity.

While you could build a website for free by yourself, we strongly recommend that you don’t place your digital brand presence in unskilled hands! DIY approaches to website development can be extremely limiting, also they can potentially cause detrimental effects to your company and its performance.

Just stop and think about all the cost considerations:

• Marketing strategy
• CMS platform
• Themes
• Premium plugins
• Web hosting plan
• SEO
• Digital advertising
• Branding / graphic design
• Content creation

Don’t feel daunted by that list though, Redback has got all those bases covered and can do it all in one simple package.

Our pricing table below was put together to give a rough overview of what website design and development in Port Stephens might cost.

Specialising in UX design, a web designer’s job is to create an engaging site that guides viewers to follow your CTA and convert.

Designers do more than ensure Port Stephens web applications look professional; they make sure they work well. Straddling two fields, they’re both expert programmers and knowledgeable graphic designers.

If you’re looking for web design in Port Stephens, don’t hesitate to get in touch. Our designers will work with you from the very beginning, handling everything from initial planning to finally launching your site.

Web design and development are often used interchangeably. But they’re actually totally different processes that require different skill-sets.

Web design is the process of creating the aesthetic and user experience of a website. Web designers use (graphics nerds) Figma, InVision and other graphic design tools to create the layout and visual elements of your website.

Web development turns a web design into a functioning website. Web developers (coding nerds) use code such as HTML, CSS and Javascript to bring your website to life. Web developers take the “prototype” of your website and make it dynamic, adding interactive links, buttons, Ecommerce features and more.

From incorporating logos to creating seamless conversion pathways, web designers ensure your website is easy to use and navigate while presenting your brand and offerings effectively.

On the other hand, web developers are expert coders that make sure your site is responsive to the technology of today and tomorrow. A development company specialises in the functionality of your site, handling everything from integrations to load times.

At Redback, our designers and developers will manage both aspects for you, creating a unique and effective website for your business.

Every web design and developer offers something unique. So if you’re stuck deciding between the top web designers, consider what you want for your money.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• What type of website do you want? (check out our past work for some inspiration!)
• Do you want to use a CMS platform?
• Are you planning to use Shopify or WooCommerce?
• Do you want your website developed from scratch?
• Do you want all the added frills e.g. marketing strategies, SEO, and content creation?
• Do you want branding advice e.g. on logo designs?
• Do you need someone to manage your website for you once it’s up and running?
• Are you keen to run some online marketing activity after launch?

Redback offers all of this and more. And if you’re here, you’ve already typed something like “web design Port Stephens” into Google and found us, so we must be doing something right!

WordPress is often considered the best web design platform, with more than 64 million websites currently using it. That said, it’s not the only platform out there.

The platform you use for your Port Stephens website design project depends on what you want to do with your website. For example, if you want an Ecommerce store, it might make more sense to join the 2.1 million Shopify users!

Our web solutions services help you every step of the way. If you have a seed of an idea, we’ll help you turn it into a thriving fully-fledged website. Or we can complete ad hoc digital jobs as and when you need us.

Our services include:

• Website design and development.
• SEO strategies.
• Ecommerce eg. Shopify and/or WooCommerce support.
• Website hosting support.
• Digital marketing.
• Google Ads.
• Website growth, converting leads into sales.
• Social media marketing.
• Online advertising.
• Copywriting.
• Branding and graphic design.
• Photography and videography.
• Content creation marketing.

A CMS (content management system) is a platform that enables users to build, edit, and manage their websites without needing to know any code. In other words, it’s perfect for anyone with basic computer skills. For example, WordPress is just one of hundreds of content management systems available today.

But the real question is what makes a good platform for content managers? When it comes to CMS development, you want a platform that is:

Flexible, with multiple integrations;
Made with clean, fast and SEO-friendly code; and
Highly secure.

Our custom designs can integrate with WordPress or any other CMS of your choosing.

Responsive Web Design (RWD) is an approach of laying-out and coding a website such that the website provides an optimal viewing experience — ease of reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling — across a wide range of devices (from desktop computer monitors to mobile phones).

Recent changes to Google’s search algorithms now mean that if your website provides a great user experience on mobile devices you will rank higher in search results.

ALWAYS. Mobile responsiveness is crucial for user experience and, in turn, SEO. That’s because more and more people browse the internet on their phones rather than turning to a desktop. And there’s nothing more frustrating than losing customers because your website doesn’t work on their phones!

And that’s exactly why our Port Stephens web design team will ensure your site is responsive to every device for optimal viewing. To optimise your website for all the panning and scrolling on mobile, we focus on factors like readability, navigability, layout simplicity, and image and font size.

A custom-designed website is styled and developed from the ground up to meet your business’ unique needs. While WordPress themes look awesome and offer heaps of flexibility, nothing quite beats the user-friendliness and professionalism of a custom website design (if you’ve got the budget).

Our Australian web design agency specialises in custom-built websites, which means you’ll have the freedom to build your brand’s online identity from scratch.

How does custom website development with Redback work? First, we’ll discuss your business needs and digital goals. Then our web design agency team will create and implement a tailored strategy for your custom site, including full integration with any required external platforms.

In other words, we’ll handle the technical side of things so that you can focus on your business.

Custom designed websites give you freedom to craft your website to your business’s unique brand identity, products and services.

If you’re looking for ultimate flexibility, scalability and performance, then a custom design approach may be the way to go. Custom web designs can be fully integrated with leading CMS platforms like WordPress, Shopify and Craft.

One of the key advantages with our custom websites is that they make content management simple for non-technical people.

Here’s a little video we prepared to explain the difference between how you can manage your own content with the flexiblocks we use for custom WordPress sites, compared to using third party themes with multipurpose page builders.. (You can set the play speed to 1.5x to get through the video quicker)

Third party themes or templates can be a great option for businesses looking to get their site up and running quickly.

Building your site using a third party template (eg. a WordPress or Shopify theme) can be a great lower-cost solution for smaller websites.

We can still customise themes to suit your business’ brand, but with a few limitations.

Not sure whether you need a custom-designed website or a theme-based site? We’ll assess your needs, talk through the pros and cons and come up with the most appropriate solution together.

Here’s a little video we prepared to explain the difference between how you can manage your own content with the flexiblocks we use for custom WordPress sites, compared to using third party themes with multipurpose page builders.. (You can set the play speed to 1.5x to get through the video quicker)

There are as many web hosts as CMS platforms and website builders. Knowing which is the right solution for you is challenging, but speak to our team about your Ecommerce needs today and we’ll be happy to recommend a few options within your budget.

High-quality hosting is vital for website speed, security, UX and SEO. That’s why we’re committed to ensuring your website loads as fast and performs as best as possible.

Offering fully-managed local hosting in NSW, we can provide you with a personalised plan that ticks all the boxes. Our hosting plans start from just $49 per month.

Major search engines like Google consider hundreds of ranking signals to determine which content will appear in search results. Some signals you can influence, others require additional effort, time and resources.

With every website we build, there will be some standard SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) work included.

If you’re looking to maximise results from your website, you can choose to engage our SEO services.

SEO stands for search engine optimisation. The higher you rank on Google, Bing, or other search engines, the more visitors you attract to increase leads and sales through organic traffic (rather than paid ads).

Google has an algorithm for ranking websites based on technical performance, and the relevance and quality of content. In short, your website should be expert, authoritative and trustworthy when it comes to the topic in question. It’ll also need to be fast and responsive.

Thankfully, there are several strategies to improve your website’s SEO. Our digital marketing agency will be happy to help you devise and implement the best SEO strategy for your business.

As a complete creative agency, we offer copywriting services to help you communicate your message effectively, encourage action and climb Google’s rankings. Weaving in all the right keywords, you can trust us to reel in organic traffic with strategic blog articles and optimised website pages.

Having already worked with over 500 businesses to curate SEO-friendly content for their websites, we’ve got a proven track record in copywriting. Plus, we can also spin up engaging ads, emails, video scripts and social media posts to cover all your bases if needed!

Great question! Marketing lingo can often become a little confusing.

A website conversion is when a visitor to your website takes an action you desire. This can include clicking the call button, signing up for a newsletter or purchasing a product. Conversions are unique to every client and website, and there can definitely be more than one!

A conversion, however, is different to your website conversion rate. This is the number of desired actions taken (conversions), divided by the number of visitors to your site. This number can change frequently, especially if you provide a product or service that is seasonal in nature.

In online marketing, conversion rates refer to the number of site visitors who complete the desired action. Say you want visitors to buy a product — the more visitors who purchase your product, the higher your conversion rate.

Conversion rates depend on the user experience. If you create a fast, well-performing site that fulfils your visitor’s needs, chances are you’ll naturally increase your conversion rate.

However, if your site is sluggish or difficult to navigate, users will get frustrated and leave before converting. And it’s no good attracting loads of visitors if they don’t convert.

Our top web designers will ensure your website performs optimally and guide users to convert with clear CTAs.

By now, you’ve likely heard the SEO community abuzz with all things Core Web Vitals. With today’s website visitors wanting quality content presented seamlessly on all devices, this recent Google algorithm update puts an emphasis on user experience.

It’s long been known that the easier a website is to navigate and interact with, the greater its user engagement. And the greater a website’s user engagement, generally the more likely it is to rank higher on Google!

But the Core Web Vitals trio is just the latest addition to many UX-focused ranking signals. These metrics are not only relative, but also nowhere near the most important factors for your positioning on this mighty search engine’s results pages. In other words, there’s a lot more to consider than these page speed scores.

In this article, we explain how this algorithm works, its influence on your website and what you can do to improve performance moving forward.

It depends. A custom designed website typically takes anywhere between 3-4 months from go to “woah!”.

A theme-based website can be built a little quicker, because there is much less time and effort involved in the design and development phases.

Of course, the exact time frame will depend on the various aspects of your unique project. We’ll be able to confirm timelines once we’ve sat down and worked out the specifics with you.

We’re glad you asked!

Without gathering data, it’s pretty much impossible for your website to take enquiries, sell products and/or provide online services. But in the wrong hands, this information could be mishandled with serious consequences. That’s why website owners need to display clear and concise agreements that protect visitors’ data and lets them know exactly how it will be used and stored.

Ultimately, it is your responsibility (as the owner of your website) to make sure your website Privacy Policy and Terms of Use are correct and up to date. Even if you’re enlisting the help of a web developer, an employee, or a lawyer to write and/or publish these documents – the buck stops with the Directors of your organisation / the business owners.

However, we have created this Guide to Website Privacy Policies & Terms of Use in Australia which should help you understand how to approach these things.

Disclaimer: on the off-chance you think this guide has been written by lawyers, we’re flattered but that’s not quite the case! So while we’ve included plenty of helpful recommendations below, please double check the facts by doing your own research. When it comes to documents as important as these, it’s always a good idea to consult legal professionals before you post.