Bespoke, fast, easy-to-edit WordPress and WooCommerce websites for businesses across Sussex and the UK. I'm Gary Simmons, a freelance WordPress designer and developer in Brighton, and I've been doing this long enough to know how to make the platform shine.
There are two ways to get a WordPress site: Assemble one from a purchased theme and a page builder, or design and build one properly. I do the second. Every build is a lean custom theme designed around your business, with editing screens tailored to your actual content, so updating the site feels obvious instead of terrifying. Design decisions are all human, all mine; the development is AI-assisted under close direction, which means I can offer a fully bespoke WordPress build for a more modest budget.
Page layouts built for what you actually publish: Services, projects, menus, team, guides. Not a generic theme fighting your material.
Clearly labelled fields and reusable sections in the CMS. Change text, swap images, reorder pages, all without touching code.
Lean code with no page-builder bloat, hardened logins and sensible updates. You own the site, the content and the hosting, outright.
WordPress earns its keep through what it can be extended to do, and loses reputations through what gets bolted on carelessly. My rule: As few plugins as possible, each one chosen deliberately, and custom functionality built into the theme where that's the better answer.
Yoast configured well, clean URL structure, schema markup and fast pages. The technical groundwork that decides whether content can rank.
Contact and quote forms that reliably reach you, with spam kept out and every enquiry tracked.
Email marketing, CRMs, booking systems, payment providers and analytics, connected seamlessly.
Projects, properties, courses, locations: Structured content modelled properly so it's easy to manage at fifty entries or five thousand.
Already on WordPress? I add functionality, fix what's broken and tidy what's slow, without a ground-up rebuild.
Updates, backups and small changes handled on request or on a light plan. No retainer required, no ticket queue.
I build on both, so you'll get a straight answer rather than a sales pitch for whichever platform I happen to sell. The rule of thumb is simple: content-led businesses belong on WordPress, product-led businesses belong on Shopify.
Somewhere in between, like a content-rich site that also sells a handful of products? Sometimes that's WooCommerce inside WordPress, sometimes a Shopify checkout behind a WordPress front, and the right call depends on the detail. Ask me and I'll walk you through it.
WordPress powers well over a third of the web, which means everyone knows someone who "does WordPress". The difference with a specialist is what happens under the surface: Proper theme architecture, performance that holds up, security taken seriously, and a site that's still easy to work on in three years.
The same person designs the site and writes the code, so nothing gets lost between the two.
The number we agree at the start is the number on the invoice at the end.
Inherited a slow, fragile or hacked WordPress site? I've unpicked worse. Bring it over.
Every decision explained in terms of what it does for your business, not in jargon.
I quote fixed prices from a clear brief, because “it depends” is only useful when it ends in a number. Costs scale with the size and functionality of the site: a focused brochure site is the entry point, and larger builds with custom functionality or integrations cost more. Tell me what you need via the contact page and I’ll come back within a day with a real figure.
No. Page builders are how sites end up slow, fragile and locked to a plugin. I build bespoke themes with clean, structured editing fields instead, which gives you more control with less to break, and much faster pages.
Usually, yes. Redesigns on an existing site, speed and SEO improvements, new features, plugin untangling and security tidy-ups are all regular jobs for me. I’ll audit the site first and say so plainly if a rebuild would serve you better.
Yes, that’s the point of WordPress. Every build comes with editing screens tailored to your content and a proper handover, so day-to-day changes never need a developer.
I’ll recommend hosting that fits your site and budget, handle the setup and migration, and can look after updates and backups on a light-touch plan if you’d rather not think about them. For most WordPress sites that recommendation is SiteGround: it’s what this site runs on, and where most of my clients’ sites live. I’ve written up how I choose hosting, and when SiteGround is the wrong answer. There’s no obligation, and no retainer required. Worth knowing in the spirit of openness: that’s a referral link, so SiteGround pays me a small commission if you sign up. It costs you nothing extra.
For most stores, Shopify: the checkout, hosting and admin are simply less work to own. WooCommerce earns its place when a store needs deep custom logic or must live inside a larger WordPress site. The WooCommerce store I designed for Harvey Maria is still live today. I build both, so the recommendation follows your requirements rather than my toolkit, and I’ve written more about the trade-offs on my Shopify page.
Yes. Most WooCommerce problems come down to hosting, too many plugins or updates nobody owns, and they can usually be fixed without starting again: speed, checkout reliability, product and stock management, or a redesign of the shop pages. I work with WooCommerce stores in Brighton and across the UK, and where moving to Shopify makes more sense, I’ll say so.
Still have a question? Book a quick 30-minute call
Location and airfield pages were getting lots of traffic but converting poorly, so after an SEO audit, I redesigned both templates to provide a much improved user experience, much faster load times and an improved conversion rate.
The website design involved translating Outrageous’ dynamic new brand identity into a range of vibrant, flexible layouts with a considered user experience. Use of large, bold type helps to reinforce the brand identity and impact of Outrageous’ services.
WordPress is one route among my wider web design services. If you’re still weighing up platforms, start there for the bigger picture, or come at it from the brand side with branding and print and UX/UI design.
Tell me what your website needs to do, or what your current one refuses to do, and you’ll have an answer ASAP, usually 1-2 working days: How I’d approach it, what it costs and how long it will take.
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