I'm extremely happy with my new website. The design is modern, professional, and easy to navigate. The whole process was smooth, communication was excellent, and every detail I requested was taken care of. They were responsive, knowledgeable, and delivered exactly what I was looking for. I highly recommend their website design services to anyone wanting a high-quality website. Thank you for the fantastic work!
Fixed price
Quoted before work starts
Australian hosting
Sydney and Melbourne servers
SEO-ready
Every build, from day one
3 months
Complimentary post-launch support
Common Problems We Fix
Why Melbourne business websites underperform
The most common pattern we see: a Melbourne business paid between $2,000 and $5,000 for a website two or three years ago, built on a heavy page builder like Elementor, WP Bakery or Divi. It launched, looked acceptable, and then nothing happened. Organic traffic never arrived, mobile visitors left within seconds, and the enquiry form sat quiet. These are not design problems. They are build quality and technical SEO problems.
Slow load times come from bloated page builder output, unoptimised images and render-blocking scripts loading on every page. Poor Google rankings come from missing schema markup, duplicate title tags and no internal link architecture. Low enquiry rates come from pages that do not answer the visitor's specific question or give them a frictionless next step. All three are fixable at the build stage. Retrofitting them costs more than building correctly the first time.
Problem: Site loads 5+ seconds on mobile
Our approach: Core Web Vitals targets built into every project
Problem: Built on a page builder with 200+ plugins
Our approach: Clean code, minimal dependencies, documented codebase
Problem: Looks generic, not your brand
Our approach: Custom design matched to your industry and audience
Problem: Google cannot find or index the site
Our approach: Proper sitemap, schema, canonical tags and crawlability
Problem: Visitors read and leave without enquiring
Our approach: Conversion-focused layouts tested against real user patterns
Problem: CMS too complex for the team to update
Our approach: Trained admin dashboards with documentation handed over
What We Build
Melbourne web design services
Business Websites
Custom-designed sites for service businesses, professional practices and consultancies in Melbourne. Built to generate enquiries and establish credibility with your ideal client from the first visit.
5-20 pagesContact formsMobile-firstCMS included
E-Commerce Stores
WooCommerce and Shopify builds for Melbourne retailers. From product catalogue setup and payment gateways to shipping rules, abandoned cart recovery and checkout conversion optimisation.
Product cataloguesSecure checkoutInventory managementAbandoned cart
WordPress Development
Custom WordPress sites and theme development for Melbourne businesses that want full control of their content. You update your own pages without calling a developer every time.
Custom themesPlugin configurationTeam trainingOngoing support
Landing Pages
High-converting single pages for Google Ads campaigns, product launches or appointment booking. Purpose-built for one audience and one outcome, not a general-purpose page under pressure.
A/B testing readyFast loadLead trackingCRM integration
Website Redesigns
Full rebuilds of existing Melbourne business websites. We preserve your current Google rankings through a full redirect audit and content migration, and launch on a faster, better-structured platform.
301 redirect mapContent migrationSEO preservationSpeed audit
Next.js & Headless Builds
For businesses that need performance at scale, custom functionality or superior Core Web Vitals. Next.js with a headless CMS delivers the best speed ceiling for high-traffic Melbourne sites.
99+ PageSpeedCustom featuresHeadless CMSAPI integrations
Platform Guide
WordPress, Shopify, Webflow or Next.js?
Platform selection affects your speed, your ongoing maintenance cost, and which developers can work on your site in future. Here is an honest breakdown.
| Factor | WordPress | Shopify | Webflow | Next.js |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Service businesses, blogs, CMS-heavy sites | E-commerce up to ~2,000 SKUs | Design-forward sites, hospitality, creative | High-traffic, custom apps, performance-critical |
| Content editing | Full CMS, easy for non-developers | Good product/page editor | Good visual editor, some limitations | Requires developer or headless CMS |
| E-commerce | WooCommerce add-on (good, not native) | Native, best-in-class checkout | Limited native; integrates with Shopify | Custom build required |
| Speed (Core Web Vitals) | Good with proper setup | Good, hosted infrastructure | Excellent, edge rendering | Best-in-class with optimised build |
| SEO control | Full control with plugins | Good, some limitations | Good, some schema limitations | Complete control in code |
| Developer availability | Largest talent pool globally | Large, growing pool | Growing, smaller pool | Large (React/JS developers) |
| Monthly platform cost | Hosting only (~$25-80/mo) | $39-299/mo + transaction fees | $23-212/mo | Hosting only (~$20-60/mo) |
| Who should choose it | Most service businesses | E-commerce first businesses | Hospitality, studios, portfolios | Custom needs, scale, performance |
Core Web Vitals Standards
Google Performance Metrics Explained
Google uses three Core Web Vitals as confirmed ranking signals: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Interaction to Next Paint (INP) and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). They measure load speed, interactivity responsiveness and visual stability respectively. A site meeting the Good threshold for all three will outrank a site with equivalent content that fails one or more metrics, all else being equal.
Most Melbourne websites built on Elementor, Divi or WP Bakery fail Core Web Vitals benchmarks because page builder output generates excessive render-blocking JavaScript and CSS. Our builds target the Good range on every page template, not just the homepage, and are tested against real mobile devices on simulated 4G connections before handover to you.
LCP : Largest Contentful Paint
Target: Under 2.5 secondsWhat it measures: How long until the largest visible element in the viewport has loaded. Affected by server response time, image sizes and render-blocking scripts.
How we achieve it: We optimise hero images with next/image, use a CDN, prioritise critical CSS and defer non-essential scripts.
INP : Interaction to Next Paint
Target: Under 200 millisecondsWhat it measures: How quickly your page responds when a visitor clicks, taps or types. Replaced FID as a Core Web Vital in March 2024.
How we achieve it: We keep JavaScript bundles lean, split code by route, and avoid long tasks on the main thread.
CLS : Cumulative Layout Shift
Target: Under 0.1What it measures: How much the page layout shifts unexpectedly as content loads. Particularly problematic with images without defined dimensions and late-loading ads.
How we achieve it: Every image has a defined aspect ratio. Fonts are preloaded. No layout-shifting ads or embeds without reserved space.
Our Process
How we build a Melbourne website
01
Discovery and Scope
We talk through your business, your customers, what the site needs to do and what success looks like. We scope the project with a fixed price, platform recommendation and launch timeline before any design begins. No vague proposals.
02
Information Architecture
Before opening Figma we map out the page structure, URL plan, internal linking strategy and content requirements. This is the stage that prevents expensive revisions later and ensures the SEO structure is correct from the start.
03
Design
A custom design concept based on your brand, your audience and the conversion patterns that work in your industry. Built in Figma for accurate review. Desktop and mobile designs reviewed and approved before development starts.
04
Development and QA
Your approved design is built on the chosen platform. Every page is tested on real devices: iPhone Safari, Android Chrome, tablet. Speed is tested. Forms are tested. Google Search Console is configured before launch.
05
Launch
We handle the go-live process including DNS transfer, SSL verification, sitemap submission to Google and monitoring the first crawl. 301 redirects from any old URLs are verified and live before the switch.
06
Post-Launch Support
Three months of complimentary support for bug fixes, adjustments and questions. Beyond that we offer structured maintenance plans for updates, backups, security patching and ongoing content assistance.
What You Receive
Every Melbourne web design project includes
Fixed scope, fixed price. No surprises mid-project and no missing items at handover.
Design
Custom Figma design: desktop and mobile layouts for every page template
Two rounds of design revisions before development starts
Brand-aligned colour palette, typography and UI component library
Conversion-focused page layouts matched to your audience and industry
Development
Clean, documented code on your chosen platform (WordPress, Shopify, Webflow or Next.js)
Mobile-first responsive build tested on iPhone Safari and Android Chrome
Core Web Vitals targets met: LCP under 2.5s, CLS under 0.1, INP under 200ms
All forms wired and tested, including spam protection
SEO Setup
Keyword-mapped title tags and meta descriptions for every page
Schema markup for your business type and service areas
XML sitemap submitted to Google Search Console at launch
301 redirects from old URLs verified live before go-live (redesigns)
Launch
DNS transfer and SSL verification handled by our team
Google Search Console and Google Analytics 4 configured
CMS training session so your team can update content independently
Site speed tested on live environment before public handover
Post-Launch
Three months of complimentary support for bug fixes and adjustments
Uptime monitoring during the first 30 days
Crawl error review at 2 weeks and 6 weeks post-launch
Documented admin guidelines handed over with the project
Optional Add-Ons
Copywriting for any page (quoted per page)
Photography coordination with Melbourne photographers
Google Ads landing page builds
Ongoing SEO and content campaigns after launch
Client Results
What a properly built Melbourne website delivers
Professional Services (Melbourne)
The situation
A mid-sized accounting firm had a WordPress site built in 2021 on a premium page builder theme. PageSpeed mobile score was 31. The site had no schema markup, title tags were duplicated across service pages, and Google Search Console showed 47 crawl errors. Organic sessions were 280 per month.
What we did
Full rebuild on lean WordPress theme with custom block development. Schema markup for ProfessionalService and AccountingService types. Unique title tags and meta descriptions across 22 service pages. 301 redirects from old slugs. Sub-1.8s LCP on mobile after launch.
| Metric | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Mobile PageSpeed | 31 | 94 |
| Monthly organic sessions | 280 | 1,140 |
| Enquiry form submissions | 3/mo | 19/mo |
| Crawl errors | 47 | 0 |
E-Commerce Retailer (Melbourne Metro)
The situation
A Melbourne homewares retailer was running a Shopify store built from a free theme in 2022. Mobile conversion rate was 0.6%. Checkout abandonment was 74%. Product pages had no structured data, and the site had no suburb or category landing pages for organic search. Revenue was flat year-over-year.
What we did
Shopify rebuild using a custom theme with component-level performance control. Product schema and BreadcrumbList markup on every product and collection page. New landing pages for the top 12 category and suburb combinations. Checkout streamlined to 2 steps. Google Analytics 4 and enhanced ecommerce configured.
| Metric | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Mobile conversion rate | 0.6% | 2.1% |
| Checkout abandonment | 74% | 49% |
| Organic sessions (6 months post-launch) | 1,800/mo | 5,200/mo |
| Revenue (month 6 vs pre-launch) | baseline | +84% |
Results are from anonymised client projects. Individual outcomes vary based on starting point, industry competition and ongoing investment.
Mobile-First Development
Mobile-First Melbourne Web Design
67%+
Australian web sessions on mobile
More than two thirds of website visits to Melbourne business sites happen on a phone. If your site was designed for desktop first and adapted for mobile as an afterthought, you are losing the majority of your visitors to a degraded experience.
Mobile-first indexing
How Google ranks your site
Google uses the mobile version of your site as the primary source for ranking and indexing. A site that looks great on desktop but has content cut off, fonts too small or buttons too close together on mobile will rank lower than a site optimised for the device Google is evaluating.
3 seconds
Average patience before leaving
Research from Google and Akamai consistently shows that more than half of mobile visitors will leave a site that takes more than 3 seconds to load. For a Melbourne plumber, dentist or restaurant, that is a visitor who found your site and left before seeing your phone number.
Click-to-call
The most-used feature on mobile service sites
The most important conversion element on a mobile service business website is a tappable phone number. We make sure contact information is visible without scrolling, tap targets are large enough to be used with a thumb, and the user can call you in one tap from any page.
Thumb-zone design
Where interactions need to be placed
On a modern smartphone, the natural movement area of the thumb covers the lower two-thirds of the screen. Navigation that requires reaching to the top of a tall phone, buttons placed in the dead zone below the bottom edge, and CTAs that are only reachable by two-handed operation all reduce conversion rate.
Australian-hosted
Faster latency for Melbourne visitors
Where possible, we host Melbourne websites on Australian servers (Sydney or Melbourne availability zones). An Australian visitor reaching an Australian server typically gets a response 40-100ms faster than the same request going to US or European infrastructure. That matters for LCP scores.
Web Design and SEO Integration
Web Design With Built-In SEO
The optimal time to implement technical SEO is during the build phase, not as a retrofit after launch. When we design and build your website, we embed the structural elements that make organic search work from day one: a logical URL hierarchy mapped to target keywords, proper H1 through H3 heading structure, LocalBusiness or ProfessionalService schema markup, canonical tags, an XML sitemap, and dedicated pages for each service, location and audience segment you want to rank for.
Retrofitting SEO onto a poorly structured website requires rebuilding the URL architecture, migrating content, setting up hundreds of 301 redirects and correcting schema after the fact. It is more expensive and less effective than building correctly the first time. We treat SEO foundations as a non-negotiable build specification, not a billable extra.
SEO Melbourne servicesSEO foundations we build into every website
Keyword-mapped URL structure planned before development
Unique title tags and meta descriptions for every page
Proper H1/H2/H3 hierarchy matching keyword intent
LocalBusiness or ProfessionalService schema markup
XML sitemap submitted to Google Search Console at launch
Internal linking between service, location and industry pages
Image alt text optimised for both accessibility and search
Page speed and Core Web Vitals meeting Google Good thresholds
Canonical tags preventing duplicate content issues
301 redirects from any changed URLs (redesigns only)
Also available: ongoing Melbourne SEO, local SEO, technical SEO audits and content strategy as separate services that run after your website launches.
01
Ad lands on generic homepage
The most common Google Ads mistake: sending paid traffic to a homepage that was not designed for a specific audience or offer. Visitors see irrelevant content and leave. You pay the click cost anyway.
02
Purpose-built landing page
A dedicated landing page matches the exact search intent of the ad. The headline matches the keyword. The offer is clear. The CTA is the only action available. Conversion rates are 3-5x higher than sending traffic to a homepage.
03
Landing page speed matters for Quality Score
Google Ads Quality Score -- which directly affects your cost per click -- is partly based on landing page experience including load speed. A slow landing page means you pay more for the same clicks than a competitor with a faster page.
04
Conversion tracking wired correctly
We set up Google Tag Manager and conversion tracking as part of every landing page build. You see exactly which campaigns, ad groups and keywords are generating completed enquiries, not just clicks.
Web Design + Google Ads
Melbourne Google Ads Landing Pages
A well-run Google Ads campaign can still fail if the page it sends traffic to is not purpose-built for that audience. We design and build landing pages as a standalone service for Melbourne businesses running paid search, matching Google's landing page experience requirements while maximising conversion rate for the specific keyword and audience.
If you also need someone to manage the campaigns themselves, our Google Ads Melbourne team handles both strategy and execution.
Google Ads Melbourne servicesIndustry Experience
Melbourne industries we design websites for
Healthcare and Medical
AHPRA-compliant, appointment booking, patient trust signals
Legal and Law Firms
Authority signalling, practice area pages, secure contact forms
Trade Services
Local SEO integration, quote request forms, licence display
Dental Practices
Treatment pages, Google Business integration, patient reviews
Restaurants and Hospitality
Booking widgets, mobile-first menus, Google Maps integration
Real Estate
Property listing feeds, suburb landing pages, agent profiles
E-Commerce and Retail
Product catalogue architecture, checkout UX, speed optimisation
Cosmetic and Laser Clinics
Treatment showcases, before/after galleries, booking forms
Accountants and Finance
Service pages by specialty, trust signals, secure document portals
NDIS and Allied Health
Participant-focused UX, NDIS service pages, accessibility compliance
Removalists
Quote calculators, suburb coverage pages, Google Ads landing pages
Solar and Renewables
Rebate information pages, installer credentials, lead capture forms
Why Choose Us
Why Melbourne businesses choose Web Like Web
We design AND develop in-house
No outsourcing design to one freelancer and development to another. Our in-house team handles strategy, UX, visual design and development under one roof. This means the design is built as intended, not reinterpreted by a developer who was not in the client meetings.
Fixed price before any work starts
We quote a fixed project fee before design begins. No hourly billing that creeps beyond budget. No surprises at invoice stage. The scope is agreed in writing and that is what you pay. Change requests outside the agreed scope are quoted separately and approved before we proceed.
SEO is not an afterthought here
Most web agencies treat SEO as an optional add-on. We treat it as a build standard. Every site we deliver has a properly structured URL hierarchy, keyword-mapped page titles, schema markup, fast page load and no technical issues preventing Google from crawling the site. These are not extras -- they are included.
We work on your platform long-term
We do not hand over a finished website and disappear. We offer ongoing maintenance, hosting, content updates and SEO campaigns on the same platform we built. Your account manager knows your site's architecture and history, so ongoing work is executed correctly without the briefing overhead of a new relationship.
We explain the reasoning behind decisions
When we recommend WordPress over Webflow, or argue against including a feature you requested, we explain exactly why. You will not get vague agency-speak. You will get a clear explanation of the technical and business tradeoffs so you can make an informed decision, not just trust us blindly.
Post-launch monitoring included
The three months after launch are when most issues surface -- crawl errors in Google Search Console, a form that fails on a specific device, a speed regression caused by a third-party script. We monitor these and address them during the post-launch period as part of every project, not as a billable extra.
FAQ
Web design Melbourne: questions we hear often
Suburb-Level Web Design
Melbourne Suburbs We Serve
Start Your Project
Ready for a High-Performing Website?
Tell us what you need. We will scope the project, recommend the right platform, and give you a fixed price before any design work begins.