As part of our exansion into the Iberian peninsula, we present a new website for the Algarve and Southern Spain’s leading chandlery. We created the original design, e-commerce setup and outline of the site on our development server so the client could populate it with products and tweak the design. It is now live (Dec 2025), and the client continues to add products.
Good web design is a means to an end
Form should follow function. Too many designers are dazzled by their own brilliance and forget about functionality. A site should load quickly, be easy to navigate and impossible to get lost in and should be full of relevant and well-presented content. It must be simple to find what you are looking for and it must be search engine friendly. If search engines like the style of your website, they’ll list you higher, and index your site more frequently.
Identity and Navigation
The two most important considerations are identity and navigation. Your site should look distinctive, and the design should be consistent throughout. A good designer will help you create a corporate logo or complete corporate identity, or ensure continuity of your existing corporate identity by modify your existing logos and printed materials for the web.
Navigation systems
These may involve drop-down menus, rollovers or multi-layer navigation. They should be easy to use and easy on the eye, and they should not distract from the content. Have you ever ‘got lost’ on a website? That’s bad navigation. Your visitors should always know where they are and how to get to the information they want next. Menu systems also need to be search engine friendly – too many sites with fancy menus have pages that are invisible to search engines.
Bells and whistles
You may think you need videos, music, animations. Perhaps these would enhance your site, perhaps they would only distract and obscure the content. Your website is about your business, not about how impressive your website is as an artefact in its own right, and a balance has to be struck. Don’t let any web design company sell you fancy stuff you don’t need. Although striking design is important, Content is King.
In a nutshell
Good web design is web design that brings you business and makes money. You need a web designer who will build you a clean, distinctive looking site that is both affordable and effective, and that reflects your corporate identity. It should load quickly, comply with modern web standards and look good at different screen resolutions and in all browsers. Good design should be as future-proof as possible and allow for for the growth and maintenance of the site. The projected lifespan of a site can be greatly extended if sufficient thought is given to the original design.
A unique yearly music festival that takes place in the river town of Alcoutim, in the Portuguese Algarve but enjoying a very special relationship with the Spanish town of San Lucar across the river. We took the site over from the existing developer in August 2025 at their request, and have really enjoyed extending its content and functionality.
Atlantic Bay Cottage
e-sails is the online-only arm of world-renowned Kemp Sails. It is a great way of buying top quality sails and accessories online. Clear easy to follow information helps the customer choose the right product,
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Boating in the sheltered waters of Loch Leven with its magnificent mountain backdrop is a truly wonderful experience! This site was built to create a central contact point and information centre for the club.
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Skipper and wildlife guide Sean Rowan skippers Ocean Pearl II into the Corryvreckan whirlpool to view the wildlife and spectacular scenery of the Sound of Jura and Firth of Lorn. Bookings are all taken online via the website.
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A hard working website created for a company offering popular boat trips and charters up Loch Etive and around the Firth of Lorn, departing from Dunstaffnage Marina near Oban.
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MOCRA was formed in 1969 to encourage and foster sailing of cruising and racing multihulls. Webcraft created a new site for the group in 2018, and has hosted and maintained it since then.
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We also helped the Association recover their domain name after is was maliciously purchased and used by spammers.
Webcraft originally took over the management,, hosting and SEO of this site in 2006, and it quickly became the main source of bookings for the business, which prospered and grew. In 2011 the site was migrated to WordPress. In 2018 the owners retired and LeBoat took over the business and the website, which we still maintain for them.
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