Customized website design and development for small businesses in Raleigh, NC and beyond
When was the last time you looked at your website and thought, “Yep, this is definitely helping us win business”? For many companies, the answer is somewhere between “a while ago” and “please don’t make us look at it.”
No matter if you’re in Raleigh, NC or elsewhere, your website is the always-on, digital face of your business. For manufacturers, home builders, architectural firms, restaurants, and other businesses, that first impression shapes how buyers judge your credibility, quality, and the customer experience.
Conversion Fox Marketing provides website design and development for companies in Apex, Cary, Holly Springs, the greater Raleigh, NC area, and beyond. If you need a customized, SEO-friendly website that reflects your brand, connects with your audience, and is easy to edit, you’re in the right place.
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Tell us about your website goals
A combination that many website agencies can’t offer
Conversion-focused web design
We design customized websites around your business, branding, customers, and the way buyers actually make buying decisions. The end result is a professional website that builds trust, highlights what sets you apart from the pack, and guides visitors toward a conversion.
SEO-friendly web development
With more than 15 years of experience in SEO, we know what works and what’s bull. Get a new website that gives search engines a better understanding of your business and helps local customers find you when they look for your products or services.
Easy-to-edit websites
We build websites on a user-friendly software called WordPress. A WordPress website lets you easily update text, add images, create new pages, and make simple changes without needing coding skills or ongoing developer support.
Budget-friendly for small businesses
When it comes to the cost of a small business website, our websites tend to be a great option for small companies who need a professional online presence but lack a massive website budget. Rather than locking clients into a 12-month contract, we charge a one-time fee for website design and development, and clients can select an optional monthly support plan.
Industry-specific knowledge
We focus on a few industries because we prefer to know a handful of businesses extremely well than claim to be experts in everything. That helps us build websites around the questions, buying habits, and pain points of your ideal customers.
Local insights
We’re an Apex-based web design agency that understands the challenges small businesses face throughout Apex, Cary, Holly Springs, Raleigh, and the surrounding area. As a result, we build sites with local customers, local search visibility, and the competitive Wake County market in mind.
Web design for targeted industries
We design industry-specific websites for small businesses that need more than a run-of-the-mill online presence. Whether you’re a manufacturer explaining complex products, a construction or home remodeling company showcasing completed projects, a professional services firm building credibility, or a B2B company navigating a longer sales cycle, your website needs to answer the questions prospective customers have before they’re ready to contact you.
Our WordPress websites are tailored to the way your customers research, compare, and choose businesses like yours – including specialized solutions such as HVAC web design, contractor website design, landscape web design, manufacturing website design, professional services websites, and restaurant website design.
What we mean by “SEO-friendly websites”
There’s a lot that goes in to making your website easy to find in the organic search results. As you’re evaluating web design agencies, you might notice that nearly every firm has their own definition of what makes websites search engine-friendly.
The way we build SEO-friendly websites is by applying the foundational pillars of SEO. To us, this includes the factors outlined below:
Performing keyword research
Writing SEO-relevant page titles
Developing enticing meta descriptions
Optimizing on-page headers
Building an intuitive site structure
Creating an XML sitemap
Naturally interlinking from page-to-page
Creating relevant image “alt text”
Integrating Google Search Console & GA4
Built on a user-friendly Content Management System
A Content Management System (CMS) is the platform that powers your website and how you edit website pages, articles, imagery, and other types of media. There are many platforms available today, each with their own pros and cons based on the needs and capabilities of every business. We build websites on WordPress CMS due to its customization, ease-of-use, and open source technology (which means YOU own YOUR website).
WordPress web design
A flexible website that you own
Powering more than 43% of websites worldwide, WordPress is one of the most popular Content Management Systems around. It’s easy for non-tech folks to edit, allows you to own your site, and perfect for many small businesses.
Like any software, WordPress needs occasional updates to its core software, themes, and plugins to stay secure and run smoothly. Conversion Fox Marketing offers an optional monthly WordPress maintenance plan so businesses don’t need to worry about keeping the software up-to-date themselves.
Our process for quickly launching marketing-driven websites
When your choose Conversion Fox Marketing to build your new website, we guide you through a structured process meant to eliminate surprises, keep your project moving on schedule, and launch a website that reflects your business. For an in-depth look at the step-by-step process, our article on how we build WordPress websites walks through the entire process.
Discovery and planning (Week 1)
Every successful website redesign starts with a thorough discovery process. We learn about your business, ask about your products or services, review your target audience, and evaluate any systems your website needs to connect with, such as CRM platforms, scheduling tools, or online bookings/reservations.
Whether you’re a home remodeling company looking to showcase completed projects or a manufacturer explaining complex products, this discovery process gives us the foundation to build a website that reflects your business and supports your sales process.
Design and development (Week 1-3)
With a clear strategy in place, we start customizing your new website. This includes selecting a WordPress design foundation and setting up hosting so your new WordPress website has a place to live.
Every page is built to reflect your brand, communicate what makes your business different, and guide prospective customers toward taking the next step. Along the way, we apply SEO best practices to help search engines understand your website. This gives businesses like consulting firms, architects, restaurants, and manufacturers a stronger foundation for attracting qualified visitors over time.
Website testing (Week 2-4)
Before your website goes live, we carefully test every aspect of the site to ensure it delivers a smooth experience for your visitors.
We verify that forms, links, integrations, navigation, and mobile layouts all work properly so potential customers don’t encounter unnecessary obstacles when they’re ready to contact you. We also make final refinements to ensure the website looks polished and performs reliably across today’s most common devices.
Training and launch (Week 4-5)
Once you’ve approved the finished website, we launch it and provide hands-on training so you feel comfortable managing your content through the website’s content management system (CMS). We’ll show you how to update text, replace photos, publish blog articles, and make other common changes, allowing you to keep your website current without relying on a developer for every update.
Whether you want to add photos of your latest remodeling project, publish a new case study, or announce a new service, you’ll have the knowledge to keep your website working for your business long after launch.
Case study
Website redesign for components supplier near Raleigh, NC
Hawk & Bear Tactical needed a modern website that better showcased its products and strengthened its online presence. See how Conversion Fox Marketing redesigned the entire site in a mere 4 weeks, switching from a GoDaddy template to a new platform. The end result: a better navigation, SEO-friendly foundations, and a streamlined user experience.
Website hosting recommendations
A reliable, secure hosting provider plays an important role in keeping your small business website online, fast, and accessible around the clock. If you choose a new WordPress website, we’ll recommend a hosting provider based on your needs.
Rather than host your website ourselves, we suggest you to keep the keys to the house by setting up you own hosting account (a process that usually takes a few minutes). We also explain the differences between several of our recommended WordPress website hosting platforms so you can make the right choice for your company.
Hostinger
Hostinger provides several options that are generally suitable for many small business websites. Hostinger’s Premium hosting option may be sufficient for many small business websites, though you’re welcome to browse all of their options.
WP Engine
Another hosting option is WP Engine, which has been around for quite some time. While WP Engine’s plans are relatively pricier than some of Hostinger’s plans, it still gives small businesses another option to consider for WordPress website hosting.
Let’s talk numbers
Pricing for web design and development
Not all web design agencies publish prices, but we believe it’s better for you to at least have a general sense of how much a new website might cost if you’re considering working with us.
Our new websites typically start between $4,000 – $4,500 for the cost to design and develop a marketing-driven 5-10 page, SEO-friendly website with blog functionality. As the scope of the website project grows, so too does the overall project cost.
Get a ballpark estimate for a new website by using our Website Cost Estimate Calculator, or request a consultation so we can better understand your business and website goals and put together a detailed quote.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who owns my website once it's built?
Because WordPress is open source, you own your website and have the freedom to choose a hosting provider that best fits your needs.
How involved is a website design project?
Since you know the ins-and-outs of your business, industry, and customers’ burning questions, we’ll lean on you to understand these things so that we can put together a site plan (i.e. the pages that will be on your website) and provide guidance on what type of content to include on the primary pages of your site. If you’d like for us to develop the content (i.e. text and imagery) for your new website then we’ll include that in the proposal. We’ll need your approval on how your new website looks and functions before launch, and of course we’ll do a 1-hour training session to familiarize you with how to manage the content on your new website (e.g. adding pages, updating text, replacing images).
All in, for a 5-10 page website where the client creates content, we’d estimate most clients should expect to invest about 10 hours into the project.
Why don't you host websites?
We prefer you have total control over your website, and that includes hosting. Given how accessible hosting options have become, we think it’s better for our clients to have their own hosting account so they aren’t “locked-in” to their web design company.
What are some ways to keep website costs low?
We get it – a new website can seem like an expensive investment for some businesses, especially if this is your company’s first professionally designed, new website. A few ways to keep costs managable include:
- Writing page content yourself and then use a third-party tool for copy edits
- Taking photos of your business and/or incorporate professional photos from free stock photo sites like Unsplash
- Getting the pages and functionality you’ll actually use (developers can create some amazing functionality, but ask yourself if those features will be worth the additional expense)
- Choosing a design template that fits your overall style to avoid lots of revisions
Do you design custom websites or use templates?
We start with a WordPress design foundation (i.e. WordPress child themes) and customize it to your brand as a way to keep costs manageable for our clients, both in the short and the long-term.
Since many companies get a new website every 3-5 years, it can be easier to digest the cost of a new website when the design fees are lower as a result of using a template (which can be customized to match your branding) versus creating a brand new design from scratch.
What's the process for getting started?
Once you’ve decided you’re ready to pursue a new website, fill-out the form on our Contact page to tell us a bit about your needs. We’ll schedue a pressure-free, no-hassel consultation to better understand your goals and determine if we’re the right fit. If everything sounds good, we’ll send over a proposal with a detailed quote for you to review. Once we receive a signed copy of the proposal, we’ll get things moving by scheduling a kick-off meeting to map the path forward.
Do I have to purchase a website maintenance plan?
No, your website belongs to you and you’re free to manage updates yourself or work with another provider.
If you’d rather have someone else handle WordPress updates and monitoring, we offer optional monthly maintenance plans designed to keep your website secure and running smoothly.
Jeremy Abel
15+ Years in Marketing | Award-Winning Websites | College Football Fanatic
Hi, I’m Jeremy 👋 Founder of Conversion Fox Marketing.
I’ve spent 15+ years making marketing work better. I began at a digital marketing agency advising small businesses on websites and SEO, then led marketing at B2B manufacturing and UX research firms. Along the way, I applied my knowledge in website strategy, SEO, conversion rate optimization, and LinkedIn Ads to help companies grow revenue.
Those experiences, coupled with a desire to enjoy more time with family, led me to start Conversion Fox Marketing – a one-person agency in Apex, NC that gives small businesses access to experienced marketing without needing an in-house marketing team.
Still comparing web agencies? Good.
You should compare your options before investing in a new website. If Conversion Fox Marketing ends up on your shortlist, let’s talk. If we’re not the best fit, we’ll tell you. That’s how this should work.