The reality is quite different. Some of the most rewarding work we do involves taking a website someone has already built, with care, effort, and real knowledge of their own business and helping it reach its full potential.
That was exactly the situation when the owners of Arosfan Nefyn came to us. Arosfan is a beautifully renovated traditional fisherman’s cottage in the heart of Nefyn, a charming village on the Llŷn Peninsula in North Wales. The owners had built their own website to promote it and had done a solid job of getting something live. But they knew it could work harder for them.
The Brief
The owners came to us with two clear goals:
- Improve the overall look and feel of the website so it better reflected the quality and character of the cottage.
- Fix any SEO issues that were preventing the site from ranking well in search engines, particularly for local searches.
Simple in principle but as is often the case, the detail was in the doing. Self-built websites, no matter how well-intentioned, frequently accumulate small inconsistencies over time: pages that look slightly different from one another, images that slow the site down, missing metadata, and content that doesn’t quite signal to Google what the page is about. None of these issues are obvious to a non-technical owner, but together they can have a real impact on how the site performs.
Our Approach
Before touching the website, we started with a thorough review. We went through every page of the Arosfan website, making notes on what was working, what wasn’t, and where the quick wins lay. We combined this with the owners’ own list of concerns – they knew their site better than anyone – and used both to build a prioritised plan of action.
This collaborative approach matters. It means we’re not just applying generic fixes – we’re solving the specific problems that matter most to the client and their visitors.
What We Did
1. Consistency Across Every Page
One of the most common issues with self-built websites is that pages can drift apart in their styling – fonts, button styles, spacing, and layouts that don’t quite match from one page to the next. Visitors might not be able to put their finger on why something feels slightly off, but it affects their confidence in the brand. We worked through the site systematically, bringing everything into a consistent, professional look and feel.
2. Local SEO Content
Nefyn is a beautiful location but “holiday cottage” is a competitive search term. To give Arosfan the best chance of ranking for searches specific to the area, we added targeted local content across the site. This included references to nearby attractions, landmarks, and activities on the Llŷn Peninsula. Content that is genuinely useful to potential guests and that signals to search engines exactly where the cottage is and what the area has to offer.
3. Meta Titles and Descriptions
Every page on a website has the opportunity to include a meta title and meta description; the text that appears in Google search results. On the original Arosfan site, these were either missing or had been left as generic defaults. We wrote unique, optimised meta titles and descriptions for every page, each one crafted to accurately describe the content, include relevant search terms, and encourage clicks.
4. Page Speed Improvements
Page speed is one of those factors that affects both user experience and SEO rankings. A slow site frustrates visitors and is penalised by Google. We ran a full page speed audit, identified the bottlenecks, and made the necessary fixes to get the site loading quickly and reliably on both desktop and mobile.
5. Image Optimisation
Images are one of the most common culprits when it comes to slow-loading websites. Photos taken on a phone or camera are often far larger than they need to be for web use. We reviewed every image on the site, ensuring each one was correctly sized and compressed – reducing load times without any visible loss of quality. For a holiday cottage where beautiful photography is a key part of the appeal, getting this balance right is especially important.
The Result
The Arosfan website now presents the cottage in the way it deserves – consistently styled, fast-loading, and well-optimised for search. Potential guests browsing for a holiday on the Llŷn Peninsula are now far more likely to find it, and when they do, they’ll find a site that reflects the care and quality that the owners put into the cottage itself.
You can visit the site at arosfannefyn.wales.
Does Your Website Need a Bit of Polish?
Not every website needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. If you have a site that you’ve built yourself, or one that hasn’t been touched in a while, there’s a good chance some targeted improvements could make a significant difference – to how it looks, how fast it loads, and how well it ranks.
We offer website reviews and improvement projects of exactly this kind. If you’d like us to take a look at your site and tell you honestly what we think could be better, drop us a message. We’d love to help.
