Websites for online shops and ecommerce

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Conversions through usability

An online shop only succeeds if visitors can move from browsing to buying without friction. We design ecommerce websites around clear product discovery, straightforward navigation, and a checkout process with as few steps as possible, reducing the basket abandonment that costs online retailers sales every day.

The result is a shopping experience that feels effortless for your customers, and a conversion rate that reflects it.

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Increasing online presence

Ranking well matters little if you are ranking for the wrong terms. We build search engine optimisation into every ecommerce website from the outset, structuring product and category pages so they rank for the specific terms your customers are searching for, whether that is a product name, a model number, or a broader category search. Combined with properly structured product data, this gives search engines and shoppers alike a clear signal of what you sell.

Driving high quality traffic

Organic search takes time to build, so we also offer a fully managed Google Ads service with monthly reporting, targeting people actively searching for the products and services you sell. Rather than driving traffic for its own sake, we focus on visitors with genuine buying intent, helping you make the most of your advertising budget while your organic rankings continue to grow.

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Rollaturf

Rollaturf’s new website played an important role in the company’s expansion beyond the North East and across the UK.

We carefully streamlined the user journey to make it as simple as possible for customers to find out what they need and place an order. An instant quote system and turf calculator enable visitors to easily find out how much turf they need for a project, get an instant quote (including VAT and delivery costs) and add the order to their basket. Several local landing pages bolster Rollaturf’s search-engine presence and tie in with their locally targeted Google Ads campaigns.

Learn more about Rollaturf

Dalby Firewood

We were asked to redesign Dalby Firewood’s existing ecommerce system to improve the experience of customers using the online shop and reduce the administrative burden placed on the company during the winter months.

Since the initial success of our solution, we’ve worked with Dalby to expand their ecommerce platform. The system now incorporates a range of third-party technologies including on-site reviews via reviews.co.uk, mailing list management via Campaign Monitor, and ad management & performance tracking via Google Ads and Google Analytics.

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Shifta

Shifta’s founders approached Castlegate for a multi-vendor bicycle marketplace that would advance their mission to reform the process of buying bicycles online.

We built a versatile platform that enables customers to search thousands of product listings to find new and verified secondhand equipment, and then choose from a range of delivery options. To encourage repeat visits and drive additional revenue, we introduced an element of gamification that lets customers earn points across the site and win prizes by entering raffles. We expanded on Shifta’s basic colour palette to create a distinctive visual identity that matches their disruptive ambitions while still conveying credibility to more traditional customers.

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The Balloon Tree

Flexibility was the name of the game when building a new website for local farm shop and café The Balloon Tree.

As a heavily seasonal business, The Balloon Tree needed a website which could showcase the best of their produce throughout the year. We built a website and online shop which could change with the seasons: from selling customizable Christmas hampers and festive foods in the winter months to advertising pick-your-own fruit in the summer, a set of flexible templates enable The Balloon Tree team to easily keep their website up-to-date.

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Royal Fireworks Press

Royal Fireworks Press is a publishing company that specialises in high-quality educational books for children. Our goal was to build a new site that would make it effortless for visitors to navigate and make purchases from RFP’s expansive product catalogue. Alongside a carefully thought-out navigation system, we built-in a number of features to streamline the user’s journey from homepage to checkout; including product favouriting, cross-linking between relevant items, and Google pay compatibility.

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Car Lease and Go

Specialist vehicle providers Car Lease and Go came to us with a clear and decisive brief: they needed a new website to increase traffic and boost business.

Every element of the design for this website is geared towards driving engagement. The look of the site is instantly striking, with a visual identity that is dynamic yet trustworthy. We bespoke coded a powerful search function that enables intuitive cross-category filtering. The result is a highly searchable website which appeals to the widest possible consumerbase, to help the client achieve their business goals.

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Hebden Tea

Hebden Tea is a Yorkshire-based supplier of teas from across the world. Offering unique flavour combinations, the aim of the website is to showcase the extensive range of products and deliver an exceptional user experience.

We developed a modern and sophisticated website with clear navigation and dynamic filtering, enabling the user to find and buy teas with ease. Integration with business-critical systems ensures the client can manage stock in real-time across multiple locations.

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The Tarpaulin Company

We developed a new website for The Tarpaulin Company, with an online shop which enabled them to sell products online for the first time. With the majority of The Tarpaulin Company’s work taking the form of bespoke tarpaulins and covers, we built a ‘design a tarp’ tool which allows customers to select a shape, provide measurements, get an instant quote and buy online.

In addition, we manage a Google Ads campaign for The Tarpaulin Company to target prospective customers and direct them to the website. The combination of an effective online shop with a carefully targeted advertising campaign has enabled The Tarpaulin Company to significantly enhance their reach, and has increased their ability to process custom orders with a smaller staff overhead.

Learn more about The Tarpaulin Company

Harsh UK

We built a new website for hydraulics manufacturer Harsh UK, including a fully-featured ecommerce system which enabled customers to easily navigate the company’s extensive range of technical products.

We designed a distinctive site for Harsh UK which builds on their unique branding and artwork. The customer’s journey on the site is made more straightforward through the use of icons and line drawings, making the process of buying products online from Harsh UK intuitive and simple.

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York Modelmaking

York Modelmaking asked us to build them a new website with two key purposes: to strengthen their online presence, and to enable their customers to order products online.

We built an eye-catching and responsive site featuring an online shop built using WooCommerce. In-depth search engine optimisation of the new website ensures that it ranks highly in search engine results, and a well-considered user journey ensures that it successfully converts visitors into customers.

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The Laurence Sterne Trust

The Laurence Sterne Trust is dedicated to promoting the works of 18th century novelist Laurence Sterne, primarily through a museum and education centre built in Sterne’s old home, Shandy Hall.

Alongside a wealth of information on exhibits and events, the site features an easy-to-use online shop where visitors can purchase items from Shandy Hall. Straightforward content management tools mean the trust can easily keep the shop updated with limited-run items, while prominent donation links mean the site serves as a vital fundraising tool.

Find out more about The Laurence Sterne Trust

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Buttonbag

London-based company Buttonbag produces a range of fun craft and activity kits for kids. The site we built for them is all about engagement: we wanted to create a site that children would be excited about, while also making it easy for parents to use.

A bright and colourful site design acts as a backdrop to high quality photographs of Buttonbag’s craft kits, and a dedicated community page provides a range of fun activities and videos for families to enjoy together. For the shop itself, we developed a custom WooCommerce theme that would give Buttonbag an unrestricted layout suitable for hosting their ever-expanding product catalogue.

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Ecommerce websites York, online shops York