B-02 — Web design · Selection guide
What separates the top web designers in Ottawa
A portfolio of pretty screenshots is easy. A portfolio of sites that rank, load fast and generate work is not.
Fixed-scope proposal. No obligation. We reply within one business day.
- Designing for Ottawa businesses
- 10 yrs
- Brands served worldwide
- 250+
- Templates used
- 0
- Reply time on enquiries
- 1 day
Designing for Ottawa businesses
Brands served worldwide
Templates used
Reply time on enquiries
Overview
Ottawa has no shortage of web designers. The variable that matters is whether the studio treats the website as a marketing asset with measurable output, or as a one-time visual deliverable.
Below is the checklist we would use if we were hiring an agency — and the standard we hold ourselves to on every project.
What you get
Everything below is included in a standard engagement — no line items that appear later.
Ask to see live sites, not mockups
Open the portfolio on your phone. If the pages are slow, the layout breaks, or the phone number is hard to find, the same will happen to yours.
Ask how they handle migrations
A redesign that drops existing rankings is a net loss. Any serious agency will talk about URL inventories and redirect maps before design.
Ask what the site is measured on
Sessions are vanity. Enquiries, calls, booked jobs and cost per lead are the numbers worth reporting.
Ask who writes the content
Design without content strategy produces beautiful pages that rank for nothing. The two are the same job.
Ask what happens after launch
Search results compound. A studio that disappears at handover leaves the most valuable half of the work undone.
Ask what you own
You should own the domain, the analytics, the content and the code. No exceptions.
Transparent pricing
How much does a custom website cost?
Most Algorank builds land between $5,000 and $40,000. The variables are page count, how much content we write and produce, and whether the site needs functionality such as e-commerce, booking or an AI layer. Every project is quoted as fixed scope after a discovery call, so the number you approve is the number you pay.
$5,000 – $12,000
Single-service local businesses and trades who need the phone to ring.
- 6–12 custom pages
- Copy shaped with you
- Local SEO foundation
- Quote form and click-to-call
- Analytics and Search Console
$12,000 – $28,000
Established firms with several services, locations or audiences to rank for.
- 20–60 pages
- Service and location architecture
- Content production
- Structured data
- Migration and redirect plan
$28,000 – $60,000+
E-commerce, portals, configurators and AI-assisted experiences.
- Custom application work
- Integrations and CRM routing
- AI assistant or estimator
- Performance engineering
- Ongoing iteration
What moves the price
- Number of pages and templates
- Whether copy and photography exist already
- E-commerce catalogue size
- Integrations: CRM, booking, payments, inventory
- Migration complexity from the current platform
- AI features and the amount of knowledge to structure
How we differ
A fair comparison against how this work is commonly delivered.
| Feature | Algorank | Typical alternative |
|---|---|---|
| Design | Custom art direction per project | Marketplace theme, restyled |
| Front end | Hand-built components, server-rendered | Page-builder plugin stack |
| SEO | Architecture planned before design | Plugin installed after launch |
| Migration | Every ranking URL preserved or redirected | Redirects added if asked |
| Speed | Core Web Vitals budgeted and tested | Measured after complaints |
| Ownership | You own the code, content and domains | Locked to the vendor platform |
A good fit if
- You are established and the website is now the weakest part of the business
- You already have some Google visibility and cannot afford to lose it
- The site needs to produce enquiries, not just look current
- You want to own the code and the content outright
Probably not for you if
- You need a one-page brochure launched this week for under $1,000
- You want the cheapest possible build with no involvement in content
- You are looking for a hosting-only or DIY editor arrangement
If that is you, say so on the call — we will tell you straight and point you somewhere better.
From experience
The mistakes that cost the most.
Rebuilding without an inventory of what ranks
The single most expensive mistake in a redesign. Pages that quietly earn impressions get deleted, URLs change without redirects, and traffic drops the week after launch. The audit costs a day and protects years of work.
Buying a design instead of a sales conversation
A beautiful homepage that never states what you do, where you do it and what happens next will lose to a plain page that does. Clarity outperforms cleverness on every service site we have measured.
Choosing a platform because it is cheap to start
Page builders are inexpensive in month one and expensive in year three, when the site is slow, the markup is unusable and nobody can change a template without breaking two others.
Leaving conversion to the contact page
Buyers decide on the page they landed on. If the enquiry path only exists in the navigation, you are asking every visitor to do extra work to give you money.
Selected work
Built for search, designed for the sale.
Trusted by 250+ brands worldwide — universities, national chains and Ottawa's best trades
Questions
Still unsure? Call +1 (613) 416-9512 and speak to the person who would run the project.
What should an Ottawa small business budget for a website?
+
Between $5,000 and $15,000 covers a strong custom site for most local service businesses, including content and SEO foundations. Below that you are typically buying a template configuration.
Is a local agency actually better?
+
For local search work, yes — knowing that Kanata, Orleans and Barrhaven are distinct search markets is not something a remote team picks up from a keyword tool.
Next step
Tell us what you are trying to grow.
A short conversation, an honest read on what is achievable, and a fixed-scope proposal — usually within one business day.