Hello I'm Mark. A website designer & developer making the web a better place.
I specialise in providing website and email solutions for the Third Sector: local and regional charities, CICs, CIOs and Not for Profit groups based in the UK. My goal is also to put you in charge of your website and hosting to help you to reduce costs.
I also provide solutions to small businesses based in the UK.
my services
Website Design
I can design a website to meet your requirements including incorporating your branding in terms of colours, images, fonts and layout. If you do not have this defined, I will work with you to create a design and can also provide you with stationary and publications using your online branding.
Website Design
There are several paths available during the design stage. I can work from corporate style guides which larger organisations may use, particularly UK wide organisations that have branding requirements that are applied to local organisations.
Alternatively if no explicit guide is available or mandated, if there is a global site, I can emulate some of the features in that site, within yours so that share common themes.
Where there are no design requirements, I will work with you to define some. This becomes the basis of an agreement leading to the development of the site, and the creation of a style sheet unique to your organisation.
Branding & Logo
Your logo is an important element of your website. You will provide me with a high definition copy which I can use to set the colours for your site and feature it prominently in various places on the site.
Branding colours, images and graphical elements, fonts will be applied to maintain a consistent style across your website.
Content Strategy
Understanding your business goals, whom you wish to reach, and your key value propositions will lead to a content strategy. This mainly relates to the organisational structure of content in your site into logical flows based on the audiences you wish to reach.
This is particularly important for the third sector, because they are not all like a commercial business. As well as selling services or products, you will also be seeking volunteers and funding. These latter two requirements are not found on commercial websites.
Website Development
If you have an existing site, and need some amendments made to it, or you would like your existing site ported over to WordPress and redeveloped, I can provide this service and also provide training online to enable you to manage your own web presence.
Built From Scratch
On request I can build a site from the ground up using WordPress and a suitable template. Practically all of my work since 2017 has been based on a very flexible template called Divi by Elegant Themes. It allows you to consider your layout as a blank page, and you can position elements practically anywhere on the screen, and also take into account mobile users with adaptive layouts.
Choose a Premade Template
In addition to building a site from scratch I can also offer predefined themes which are available through the Divi template system, although these are not a complete solution in their own right. They are a starting point. But we can develop a site based on these.
For national charities with lots of local branches, I offer an off the shelf package as a starting point. This saves a lot of development time because 90% of the content is already relevant. Images, colours layouts are already defined.
For the past 6 years I have worked with two major charities in the UK; Home-Start and the National Association of Child Contact Centres. I host around 40 Home-Start’s regional sites and around 20 NACCC regional sites.
I also host 5 regional Parkinson’s websites as well many of which follow Parkinson’s UK branding.
Maintenance & Updates
If you decide to use my hosting I do not charge any annual maintenance fees. I am responsible for maintaining the infrastructure of your website. I also backup your website on an 8 week rolling basis to an off hosting location. If something goes wrong, I am responsible for getting you back online.
You are responsible for the content within the website. I provide online training to allow you to develop editing skills to maintain your website. It is not as dauting as it sounds, if you know how to use MS Word, you already have a lot of the skills necessary.
If you have any large changes required which you are unable to handle, or need help, I can provide PAYG support at £20/hr, or we can define the scope of work, and agree a cost.
My Process
Define
Collect requirements for the website, document them, and explore different solutions to meet the requirements, ultimately agreeing on the implementation approach.
Design
Design and implement example page layouts, discuss and decide on any approaches that need refining and testing.
Refine
Finalise on the implementation, page count, structure and relationships between elements in the site to ensure logical flows based on target channels the site is aimed at.
Build
Implement the site constructing and reviewing it at the page level only on the first pass. Aim to achieve 90% completion at the page level. Then review the site as a whole to complete the process.
Test
Check the operation of the site and invite the client to check through the navigation and site contents prior to release.
Training
Post release the last step is training. I provide detailed documentation on how to create news items in your site, and also carry out an online training session which is recorded. The video of the training is made available to the client along with training materials in the website.
In most cases I provide a turn key solution to the problem of getting on line, or simply developing a web presence. My services include WordPress optimised website hosting (unlimited size) and unlimited 10GB email accounts within the same hosting account. Hosting is provided within the UK. I fully appreciate that most of my clients do not know where to start. I explain the process to you, and walk you through the steps to get you online with a new website, and if you need it set up email accounts as well under the same domain name. I will also show you how to manage the email accounts, and edit your website.
Featured Work
Website Redesign
Home-Start websites
Home-Start is a charity supporting families with young children across the UK. I have been building Home-Start websites since 2011. The parent body Home-Start UK released new branding guidelines in April 2019. I developed a generic platform which could be adapted for local Home-Start organisations.
In this case an existing website was replaced with the rebranded version and content from the old site adapted for the new to bring the information up to date.
I have developed and host over 40 Home-Starts and currently maintain a further 40 sites on behalf of Home-Start UK
Website Development
Bradbury House
I have worked with Bradbury House, an Abbeyfield Care Home in Beaconsfield, several times over the past 8 years. The most recent development (2019) required the application of styles from a printed brochure to achieve the same look and feel on the website.
The brochure had captured the key messaging for the organisation, the website needed to be aligned with the brochure.
Website Design
Robin Elgar Gallery
An artist wanted to place her work online and offer some of it for sale. In this case I used one of the Divi templates to start the project and adapted the page design and layout for this project. There are over 100 images in this site displayed in 4 galleries. Each has a unique reference. Visitors can enquire to see if the items are still available directly with the artist.
Website Development
NACCC Websites
I have worked with around 20 satellite organisations from the National Association of Child Contact Centres. They run Child Contact Centres enabling separated families to meet in a mutually safe environment.
The NACCC updated their branding two years ago. I developed a template which was in empathy with their branding, then offered this to my existing client base. It has the benefit of reinforcing the branding of the NACCC.
I currently host more than 20 NACCC regional websites.
Ready to Make Your Idea Come to Life?
I'm Available for Hire or Freelance Get a Free QuoteMy PortfolioAbout Me
Hello! I’m Mark. I have 35 years experience in developing products and services
My background is in electronic engineering product design and development. I have worked in both embedded software and electronic hardware design for commercial companies developing data networking products for more than 20 years. I have participated in large project teams and managed them from both a program management and project management perspective. I have line managed up to 30 engineers, and project managed 3rd party relationships.
I led a £1M project to define and document the New Product Introduction life cycle with an external consultancy covering all of the aspects of engineering from concept to volume production for the company. The project goal; to improve life cycle predictability and quality for all new product developments.
I was Director of Engineering for a business unit turning over $100M a year from 1997-2002. I have also worked as a Professional Services Director for EMEA providing test expertise on all aspects of data communications.
Website Development
In late 2010 I had a career change, largely due to the economic conditions prevailing at the time.
I completed an Open University BSc degree. One of the areas covered was web design and development. I realised at the time I could bring together my experience in developing ideas from concept to production, applying many of the skills I have acquired in former roles including professional services.
I initially started developing sites for charities for free in 2010, but quickly learned that there are overheads to be covered, so doing everything for free was not really viable long term.
My charges are modest compared to many commercial developers and agencies.
“One of my goals is that by helping charities and those groups providing support to the community, they can apply more of their funds to the services they provide rather than to an external web developer or IT consultant. It is largely for this reason I do this work.”
Years of Experience
Independent Projects
Hosted websites
Experience
- Concept to delivery management
- Detailed knowledge of WordPress
- 100 sites built on the Divi Template
- Hosting management
- Site recovery
- Porting websites to WordPress
- Project and Programme Management
- Professional Services Management
- Website Development in HTML and CSS
- Getting your site to page one on Google
Education
- Bachelor of Science (OU)
- Project Management
- Prince 2
- Photography
Skills
- Understanding and defining requirements
- Providing multiple solutions to problems
- Training people
- Making things easier to understand
- Helping people to raise their confidence levels
- Working quickly
- Fast response times
- Helping you to become independent
- Patience
- Photography
What my clients say
“Wingrove Media have been a life saver for our small voluntary organisation. Mark has helped us with all of the technical side of developing our website but also offering invaluable advice on content and the look of the site. Mark has been brilliant at teaching us how to make changes on our website and is always responsive to our requests for support. This is a fantastic service at very affordable prices . We would highly recommend Wingrove Media”
We have been working with Mark for many years and I cannot recommend him highly enough. As a small charity with limited technical ability, Mark’s service has been invaluable to us. Apart from his excellent technical abilities, he is so helpful and responsive, always gets back and does whatever it takes to help us. He also writes a comprehensive newsletter which is very useful. We have learnt so much from him and it’s so reassuring to have him by our side. Mark provides an outstanding service, at an amazingly low cost, we wouldn’t go anywhere else!
“We have worked with Wingrove Media for many years now providing us with an extremely reliable service to ensure our website is always current and well maintained. Mark is always on hand to help update our website, which he does efficiently and cost effectively. He is also prepared to help and give training to assist you in maintaining your own site effectively. We have complete confidence in Wingrove Media and would highly recommend to any other business to consider using.”
