AJ Web Design Verified Company

AJ Web Design builds hand-coded static HTML websites for trades businesses (plumbers, electricians, roofers, builders) across Cambridgeshire, UK.

The default for this market is WordPress, assembled from a page builder and a stack of plugins. It launches fine. Then it slows down, a plugin update breaks something, and a monthly maintenance fee starts arriving whether or not any work happened. The client ends up renting a liability.

Every site I build is written by hand in HTML and CSS. No page builder, no plugin stack, no database, nothing running that doesn't need to run. The result loads in under a second on a mobile connection, costs almost nothing to host, has no update surface to break, and has no attack surface worth mentioning. There is nothing to maintain because there is nothing bolted on.

Speed here is a conversion mechanism, not a vanity metric. Trades customers search on a phone, at the moment they need the job doing, and they call the first credible result. A site that loads instantly gets read. One that takes five seconds gets closed. That is the entire argument for the technical approach, and it is why these decisions matter to a business owner who has never thought about them and should not have to.

Behind each build is 20+ years of technical SEO. Structured data is correct rather than decorative, local entity signals resolve properly, and search engines can read exactly what the business does and where it operates. It also means I can say which optimisation work is worth paying for and which exists because it is easy to invoice.

Research background

I also run The GEO Lab (thegeolab.net), a measurement-first research operation studying how AI search engines retrieve and cite content. Experiments are pre-registered on Zenodo before data collection, run with stated noise floors and controls, and published whether the result is positive or null. Most claims in this field are asserted rather than tested. I test them, publish the method, and let people check the working.

That research feeds directly back into client sites: I deploy what survives measurement and ignore what does not, which in practice means a shorter list of interventions than most agencies sell.

Engagement model

Single-operator studio. You deal with the person building the site, not an account manager relaying messages. Small number of clients, no retainers for maintenance that does not happen.

Based in Cambourne, Cambridgeshire. Serving trades across Cambridgeshire and the surrounding area