Web design in Bude
Bude is further from Truro than it is from Barnstaple, and that single fact explains most of how business works here. The county town is a long drive. Devon is next door. The season is short, intense and coastal, and the winter is genuinely quiet.
So a Bude website has two jobs that most Cornish sites do not: it has to answer searches in another county, and it has to hold a business together through six quiet months.
Where you actually are
- Holsworthy, Bideford, BarnstapleNext door, and searching in Devon
- Launceston, Camelford, WadebridgeComfortable, and searching in Cornwall
- Truro, Newquay, St AustellA long drive. Full days, not call-outs
- Penzance and the far westMost of a day each way
The top line is the one most Bude websites never mention, and it is usually the largest market they could reach.
Half your market is in Devon and does not know it is
Somebody in Holsworthy, Bideford or Barnstaple looking for a trade searches their own town, and Google answers with local results. If your site says Cornwall and nothing else, you are invisible to a market that is closer to you than most of your own county.
Name the Devon towns you will travel to. This is not a trick; it is a description of your actual business, and it is the largest single opportunity most Bude firms leave untouched.
It also means you are competing with Devon businesses on their own searches, which is a reason to be specific about what you do rather than general about how good you are.
A short season has to carry the year
Summer here is compressed and busy, and the money made in it has to last. That changes what the website should do in each half of the year.
In season, it should filter: what you take on, what you do not, how far out you are booking. In winter, it should sell the work that still exists, which is usually residents, second homes, maintenance and the jobs that get done while properties are empty.
Write both, on separate pages. A site that only describes summer trade tells a February customer they have come to the wrong place.
Distance is a genuine selling point here
Firms from the rest of Cornwall are a long way away and will often price accordingly, if they come at all. Being local is worth stating plainly, because a customer in Bude has probably already been let down by somebody driving up from mid Cornwall.
Say where you are based and what your usual radius is. In a corner of the county this isolated, proximity is one of the strongest arguments you have.
Surf and tourism searches are their own thing
If your customers are visitors, they behave like visitors everywhere: immediate, on a phone, deciding in minutes, with no local knowledge. Opening hours, prices, directions and a page that loads on a weak signal.
Most of the coast around here has patchy coverage, so the weight of the page is a practical matter rather than a nicety. Test it on mobile data at the beach, not on broadband at home.
Questions Bude businesses ask
- Should I target Devon towns on my website?
- If you work there, yes, and name them. From Bude, Holsworthy and Bideford are closer than most of Cornwall, and those searches are answered by place rather than county. It is the biggest opportunity available to most businesses here.
- How do I keep the site useful in winter?
- Give the off-season work its own page: maintenance, repairs, second-home and holiday-let jobs done while properties are empty. Those customers search in completely different words from summer visitors.
- Is it worth claiming I cover the whole of Cornwall?
- Rarely from here. Truro is a long drive and Penzance is a day. Claim what you will genuinely do, name the towns, and let being close be the argument rather than being everywhere.
- Does being this far from the rest of Cornwall hurt me?
- For search, not at all: searches are answered by place, and you are the local answer for a corner that has few competitors. It is only a disadvantage if your website never says where you are.
A website for a Bude business, £249.
Then £49.99 a month. Written to be found on both sides of the border, and to keep working through the quiet months.