Web Consultancy

Most website spend is committed too early — on the wrong brief, the wrong diagnosis, or the wrong supplier. Web consultancy gives you senior, independent judgment before that money is committed, so you can see what needs doing, what doesn't, and where the real commercial risk exists.

It appears at two key moments:

1. When something isn't functioning correctly, and you haven't identified the cause.
2. When you're preparing to build and want to avoid investing time and resources in the wrong direction.

In both, you get a considered view before the money goes out. I'm independent of whatever the work turns out to be — I don't take on your competitors, and I'm not trying to sell you a build.

That independence is the point of paying for it. The people closest to the decision — the agency pitching the redesign, the developer quoting the build — can't give you a neutral answer because they're selling the thing you're asking about. I'm not. If the honest answer is that you don't need the work, that's the answer you'll get.

When businesses need a web consultant

Before you fix it

You have a website that's underperforming, and the temptation is to fix whatever's most visible. I'd sooner find out what's actually wrong first.

This is the larger part of what I do: a paid diagnostic review that establishes where the problem really sits before you spend anything correcting it.

I've set out how that works and what the review leaves you with in a separate guide. If that's your situation, start there.

Before you build it

The other half is advice before a new site exists. Most of it comes from established clients changing direction — planning a new website, outgrowing their current one, or about to commission an agency or developer. Occasionally, it's a business I haven't worked with before in the same position.

I've done this kind of work throughout the thirty years I've been at it; it's often where a finished project leads next. The point is to avoid expensive wrong turns before the project starts.

Depending on what you need, that might mean:

• Reading the brief before it's signed off and testing the assumptions behind it.

• Naming the risks no one else has raised.

• Deciding what's better kept in-house and what isn't.

• Giving an honest view on which supplier to trust.

The work happens before the build is shaped, while there's still room to change direction cheaply. It isn't project management, and it isn't the build. It's the experienced second opinion that keeps a large piece of spending honest.

Both are the same thing at heart: judgment before commitment.

I give you an opinion; your own people, or the supplier you choose, carry it out. The credit for the result is theirs, and that suits me. It's the work I'm interested in, not the recognition.

If you're at either point — something's wrong and you're not sure what, or you're about to spend on a build and want a clear-eyed view first — tell me what's going on. I'll tell you honestly whether it's something I can help with.