A small studio in a small market town.

Malnor designs and builds websites for local businesses. We are based in Malton, in North Yorkshire, and most of the people we work with are within about half an hour of here.

What we actually do

We build the website a business should have had five years ago. That usually means replacing something that was thrown together in a hurry, or built by someone who has since disappeared, or made on a builder platform at eleven o’clock at night by an owner who had already done a twelve-hour day and did not have the time to learn typography as well.

The work is the whole thing: the design, the words, the build, the setup, and getting it live. Not a template with your logo in the corner, and not a shell you then have to fill in yourself.

What we think a business website is for

A website is not a brochure and it is not a badge. For most local businesses it does three jobs, in this order.

It settles the question of whether you are any good. Someone has your name from a neighbour, or from a van, or from a search. They look you up before they ring. In about four seconds they decide whether you are the safe choice or the risky one, and they are deciding on how it looks as much as what it says. That is not fair, but it is what happens.

It answers the questions that stop people ringing. Do they cover my village. Do they do this specific thing. Roughly what does it cost. Have they done it before. Every unanswered question is a reason to close the tab and try the next firm.

It makes getting in touch easy. One tap to call, a form that works, a number that is visible on a phone without pinching. Obvious, and constantly got wrong.

How we work

We ask a lot of questions at the start and very few after that. You should not have to project-manage us, chase for updates, or explain the same thing three times.

The prices are published because we would rather not spend an hour of your day getting to a number you could have read in ten seconds. If the budget does not work, you have lost ten seconds instead of an afternoon.

And we will tell you when the answer is no. If your existing site only needs tidying up rather than replacing, we will say so, even though it is the smaller job. If what you want is genuinely outside what we do well, we will say that too.

Who you are dealing with

Malnor is a small independent studio, not an agency. There is no account manager, no sales team and no office with a table-tennis table paid for out of your invoice. The person you speak to about the website is the person building it.

The practical upside is price and directness. The honest downside is scale: if you need forty pages by Friday, or a team on retainer, we are not the right fit and we will point you at someone who is.

What we can do besides websites

Web design is the main thing and most of what we do. Alongside it we take on logo design, brochures, business cards, wider design and print, and ongoing SEO where a business wants to keep pushing after launch.

They are on the website because people ask, not because we are trying to sell you a bundle. A good website and a matching set of business cards is a sensible combination; a package of nine things you did not ask for is not.