Web Design & Development Services in Calgary

It depends on four things more than anything else: how many pages there are and whether we write the content or you supply it, how custom the design is, what the site has to connect to — booking, payments, a CRM — and whether it includes application features such as customer logins. A small site built from supplied content and a site that takes bookings and payments are different projects, and one package price for both would be describing neither. We scope around what the site has to achieve and give a clear written proposal before any work begins. Ask any web developer for the yearly running cost — hosting, domain, maintenance and any paid services — alongside the build price, because that is usually where two similar-looking quotes differ.

Yes. We include strong technical foundations such as semantic markup, metadata, crawlability, mobile performance, internal linking, and structured data where appropriate. Rankings also depend on content quality, competition, authority, and ongoing marketing.

Yes. When regular content updates are expected, we can provide an appropriate content-management experience and training so your team is not dependent on a developer for routine changes.

Yes. A redesign plan can preserve important URLs, content, metadata, redirects, and tracking. We audit the existing site first so valuable search equity is not discarded accidentally.

It depends on the requirement, and the build itself is rarely the slow part. What stretches a timeline is content — the words, photos and service details only the business can supply — along with the number of feedback rounds and how many other systems the site has to connect to. A small site with its content ready moves quickly; a site with online booking, payments or a customer login is closer to a software project. We agree the schedule, and who supplies what by when, in writing before design starts, so a delay is visible the day it happens rather than at the end.

The domain should always be registered to your business, and everything else should be settled in writing before work starts. There are four things to account for: the domain name, the hosting account, the website’s code and content, and the services it depends on — analytics, search console, email, booking or payments. The most common trap is a domain or hosting account held in a developer’s name, which turns a change of supplier into a negotiation. For our client work, what you own and what you receive at handover — access, credentials and documentation — is set out in the project agreement. If a supplier cannot tell you plainly who will hold each of those four things, ask before you sign.

Website maintenance is the work that keeps a site secure, working and current after launch: applying security and software updates, keeping the security certificate valid, monitoring that the site is up, taking backups, fixing what breaks, and making small content changes. We offer it as an ongoing arrangement, with what is included and the monthly cost agreed before launch. Two questions separate real maintenance from a line on an invoice. When was a backup last restored? A backup nobody has ever restored is a hope rather than a plan, so ask how often restores are tested and how long one takes. And who applies security updates, how quickly after release? A supplier who answers both in writing is maintaining your site; one who cannot is invoicing for it.

Often, yes. Most slow websites are slow for a handful of reasons: images far larger than the screen needs, too much code loading before anything appears, third-party scripts such as chat widgets and trackers, and hosting that cannot keep up. Google measures speed with three Core Web Vitals, judged on real visits: the main content should appear within 2.5 seconds (Largest Contentful Paint), the page should respond to a tap or click within 200 milliseconds (Interaction to Next Paint), and the layout should stay put while it loads (Cumulative Layout Shift of 0.1 or less). We measure those on your actual pages, find what is causing the delay, and fix the biggest cause first. If the platform itself is the limit, we will say so rather than tune around it.

Yes. We start with a short assessment before changing anything: what the site is built on, where it is hosted, who holds the domain and account access, the state of its updates and backups, and whether anything is at urgent risk. That tells you whether the site is worth keeping and improving, or whether repairing it would cost more than rebuilding. The first thing needed is access — the domain registrar, the hosting account and any admin logins — so if a previous developer still holds those, recovering them comes before any other work.

Website integrations can connect most of the systems a business already uses: a CRM, so enquiries arrive as records instead of emails someone retypes; booking and scheduling; online payments and invoicing; email marketing; accounting; and analytics. Whether an integration is straightforward depends on the other system offering documented, supported access for software — worth checking early, because it is the usual reason an estimate changes. Two details are easy to miss. Form emails need correctly configured sending records (SPF, DKIM and DMARC), or they land in spam and enquiries go unanswered. And if a form adds someone to a mailing list, Canada’s anti-spam law requires their consent — a box they tick themselves, not one ticked in advance — and an unsubscribe must be honoured within 10 business days.

It has to: Google primarily uses the mobile version of a page to decide how it ranks, and for many businesses the phone is where most visitors arrive. Mobile optimization is more than a layout that shrinks. It means buttons large enough for a thumb, forms that bring up the right keyboard and ask only for what they need, text readable without zooming, phone numbers that dial when tapped, and pages that load quickly on a mobile connection. We design for small screens first and test on phones and mobile browsers, not only a narrowed desktop window.

A website mostly tells people things; a web application lets them do things — log in, book, pay, track an order, manage an account, or run part of your operation. Many businesses need a website with one application-like feature, such as booking or a customer portal, rather than a full application. The difference matters because it changes cost, security work and ongoing maintenance: anything with user accounts or stored customer data needs more care than pages of information. We scope to the smallest thing that does the job, and web application development that grows beyond a website is handled as custom software.

Yes, as one service. Web design decides how the site looks, how it is organized and how a visitor moves through it; web development builds it, makes it fast, connects it to other systems and makes it readable to search engines. Keeping both with one team avoids a design that looks right in a mockup but is slow or awkward once built, and a build that quietly drops what made the design work. We work with Calgary businesses and clients elsewhere in Canada through online reviews of working pages, so location affects meeting times rather than the work.

For most private businesses, no — Canadian privacy law does not generally require a website or its data to stay in Canada. Alberta adds one specific duty: if a service provider outside Canada collects or stores personal information for you — a form service, email platform or hosting company, for example — your privacy policy must say so, name the countries and purposes, and tell people who can answer their questions about it. Some organizations have stricter requirements through contracts, industry rules or public-sector work, and there the hosting location is chosen to meet them. We map where a site’s data actually goes — forms, analytics and email included — so the privacy policy describes what really happens.

It should be, and accessibility is far cheaper to build in than to add later. Alberta has no provincial accessibility law for private-sector websites of the kind Ontario has, but organizations operating in Ontario, and federally regulated ones, can be covered by rules that point to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) at level AA. Law aside, accessible sites work better for everyone: enough colour contrast to read comfortably, headings in a logical order, forms with proper labels, images with text alternatives, and pages that work with a keyboard alone. We build those foundations into every site from the start, and agree the level of accessibility with you during scoping — including full WCAG AA conformance and testing where your organization, customers or contracts require it.