Service area · Halifax

Web design in Halifax, built by somebody who lives here.

Halifax is the most competitive search market in the province. There are more businesses in every category, more of them are already spending on their site, and the bar for looking credible is higher than it is anywhere else in Nova Scotia. That is worth knowing before you build.

Halifax and the peninsula $800 to build Then $99/mo

Talk to the studio Call (902) 225-5280
In Halifax

What a Halifax business is actually up against online.

The same site that would stand out in a smaller town is unremarkable here. The upside is that most of the competition is spending money on the wrong parts.

Built and run from Halifax
Peninsula, north end, Bayers Lake
Usually on site within a day if needed

01 Density cuts both waysA search for a service in Halifax returns a full page of businesses rather than three. You will not win on being the only option, which means the site has to answer the question a visitor came with faster than the next result does.
02 Neighbourhood matters more than the city nameSomebody on the peninsula and somebody in Clayton Park are running different searches and getting different results. A page that says Halifax and stops is competing with everybody. A page that names the areas you actually cover is competing with far fewer.
03 Parking, hours and access are conversion detailsFor anywhere with a physical address downtown or on Spring Garden, whether there is parking and what the hours really are decide visits. These are the first things people look for and the last things most sites bother to state.
04 You are being compared on a phone, outdoorsHalifax traffic is heavily mobile and often on a patchy connection. A site that is fine on office broadband and takes six seconds on a phone loses to a plainer competitor that loads instantly.
05 The bigger agencies quote Halifax pricesA five-page site quoted at several thousand upfront is normal here. What that buys is frequently a template with your logo on it. Ours are hand-built for $800 with $99 a month to run them, which is a different shape of deal rather than a discount on the same one.
Inside the city

Halifax is several search markets wearing one name.

Somebody searching on the peninsula and somebody searching in Clayton Park get different results for the same words. A page that says Halifax and stops is competing with every business in the municipality. A page that names the areas you actually cover is competing with a handful.

The peninsula and downtownSpring Garden, Barrington and the streets around them: the densest competition in the city and the audience least willing to wait for a page to load.
The North EndGottingen, Agricola and Robie, where a good deal of the newer independent trade sits and where being findable matters more than being polished.
Clayton Park and FairviewDense residential with steady demand for home services, and a search market that behaves quite separately from the peninsula.
Bayers Lake and Chain LakeBig-box retail and the trades that service it, where most searches begin with somebody already in the car.
Spryfield and Herring CoveA residential south-west corner routinely left off Halifax service pages, which makes naming it worth more than it looks.
The Bedford Highway and RockinghamThe corridor north, shared with Bedford and searched both ways, so a business here should claim both names on the page.

Across the harbour or up the corridor? There are separate pages for Dartmouth, Bedford and Sackville, because each one returns a different set of businesses for the same search.

What we do here

Everything we build for Halifax businesses.

Seven services, each quoted in full before the work starts. Websites are $800 to build and $99 a month to run. Repairs, audits and profile setups are one-time work on sites we did not build.

Websites$800 + $99/mo

Custom websites

A site designed around the way your business wins work, written by hand so it loads fast and reads clearly.

See the service For trades$399/mo

The Lead Machine

Quote estimator, automatic text-back within seconds, and every enquiry landing in one owner dashboard.

See the service Local search$199 one-time

Google Business Profile setup

Categories, service area, hours and photos filled in properly, so you show up in the map pack for your town.

See the service Search$349 one-time

SEO audit

A read of what is wrong on the site you already have, in priority order, with the fixes carried out rather than listed.

See the service SpeedFrom $299

Site optimization

Images, scripts and page weight brought under control, measured before and after on a phone rather than a laptop.

See the service SecurityFrom $800

WordPress malware cleanse

Cleaned by hand, entry point closed, hardened afterwards, and the browser warning submitted for review.

See the service
See all seven services
What it costs in Halifax

Three ways to get a Halifax website, and what each one really costs.

All three of these can work. The difference is what you pay, who does the work, and who is still there in six months when something needs changing.

A Halifax agency
The usual quote
Cost to start$5,000–$10,000 for five pages is a normal quote in this city.
Who builds itA team, often with a junior on the actual pages and an account manager between you and them.
Time to launchSix to twelve weeks is common once meetings and approvals are counted.
Changes laterA retainer, or an hourly rate and a place in the queue.
A template or a freelancer
The cheaper route
Cost to startLow up front, and paid for later in speed, support and your own evenings.
Who builds itYou, or somebody who may or may not still be reachable next year.
Time to launchFast to publish something, slow to publish something that ranks.
Changes laterYours to make, on top of running the business.
Alp Web Studio
Built and run for you
Cost to start$800 to design and build, then $99 a month to run it. You own the files.
Who builds itOne person, start to finish, and the same person answers when you call.
Time to launchFive business days to two weeks from a signed scope.
Changes laterIncluded in the monthly. Send an email and it gets done.

The honest trade-off with a one-person studio is capacity. There are weeks when the next start date is a fortnight out, and a fifty-page build is not the right job for us. Everything else on this page holds. See the full pricing.

Recent work

Sites already running for businesses around the region.

A pizza shop, an auto body shop and a hockey program. Different businesses with the same job to do: look right, load quickly, and make it easy for a visitor to become a customer.

Old School Pizza website built by Alp Web Studio Restaurants and takeoutOld School Pizza JC AutoWorks website built by Alp Web Studio Auto and body shopsJC AutoWorks Clarke/Gray Hockey website built by Alp Web Studio Sports programsClarke/Gray Hockey
“Brendon setup a new web site for a client of mine and did a fabulous job. The site is very professional and easy to navigate.”
Dwayne D. AMKA IT Solutions, referring partner
Visit jcautoworks.ca
“We wanted a digital hub our players use daily, and the site does exactly that. Mobile first, fast, interactive, and it sounds like us, not a template.”
Clarke & Gray Founders, Clarke/Gray Hockey
Visit clarkegrayhockey.ca
5.0
Average rating on Google
1–2 weeks
From scope to launch
$800
To build and own the site
View the full portfolio
Also covered

The rest of the area.

Halifax Regional Municipality is small enough to drive across and big enough that a search in one town returns a different set of businesses than the next. We build for all of it.

Service areaAcross the harbour

Web design in Dartmouth

Portland Street, downtown Dartmouth, Burnside and Cole Harbour, where the search results are a different set of names entirely.

See the page Service areaNorth of the city

Web design in Bedford

The Bedford Highway, Sunnyside, Larry Uteck and Bedford West, where home services demand keeps climbing with the housing.

See the page Service areaUp the corridor

Web design in Sackville

Lower and Middle Sackville and Beaver Bank, a commuter belt where trades win work on how fast they answer.

See the page

Outside these four? The Nova Scotia page covers the rest of the province, and we build right across Atlantic Canada as well, with most of the work happening by phone and email regardless. Tell us where you are.

Working in a trade? There are pages for HVAC, plumbing, electrical, landscaping and general contracting, each with the Lead Machine estimator built in.

Questions

Common questions from Halifax business owners.

What gets asked on the first call, answered without the sales pitch.

Don't see your question?

Call (902) 225-5280 hello@alpwebstudio.com
Q.01

How much does a website cost for a Halifax business?

Our website plans are $800 to design and build, then $99 a month for a custom site up to five pages with no minimum term. Larger builds and the trades package cost more. Halifax agencies commonly quote five to ten thousand for the same page count, with a monthly host and a change rate on top of it.

Q.02

Do you meet Halifax clients in person?

Yes, if that is easier for you. The studio is in Halifax and most of the region is inside a short drive. Plenty of builds happen entirely by phone and email, and neither approach changes the price.

Q.03

Can you help my business show up in Halifax map results?

The map pack is driven mainly by your Google Business Profile, which is separate from your website. We set profiles up as one-time work for $199, and a properly built site with real service pages backs up what the profile claims. Nobody honestly guarantees a position.

Q.04

Is there any point competing with the bigger Halifax firms online?

For most local searches, yes. Larger competitors often have slow, heavily templated sites that answer nothing quickly. A fast site that states plainly what you do, where you do it and what it costs beats a bigger name that makes people hunt for the same information.

Q.05

Who is the best web designer in Halifax for a small business?

Nobody can answer that honestly about themselves, so here is the useful version. For a five-page site that has to load fast, read clearly and be easy to change, a small studio or a good freelancer will serve you better than a large agency, because you get the person doing the work. For a fifty-page build with several teams feeding into it, an agency is the right call and we would tell you so. Ask any candidate what the site costs, who writes the pages, and how long a change takes.

Q.06

How long does it take to rank in Halifax search results?

Longer here than anywhere else in the province, because Halifax is the most contested market in Atlantic Canada. A new page usually starts appearing within a few weeks and climbs over two to six months, depending on the category and who else is trying. Anyone offering you a date or a position is guessing. What we control is the part that always helps: a fast page, real service and area copy, and a Google profile that agrees with it.

Ready when you are

Want a straight read on your Halifax business online?

Send us your business name and we will look at what your site and your Google listing are each doing right now, and tell you which of the two is costing you more.

Most enquiries get a reply the same day, usually within a couple of hours.

Talk to the studio See full pricing
Rather just talk? Text (902) 225-5280 Call us