Web Design & Development
Where Strategy, Story, and Code Come Together.
For businesses in Hampton Roads and Virginia Beach, web design and development is often the right step when an outdated or underperforming website is holding back growth. O’Brien et al. creates custom WordPress websites with design, copywriting, and development handled entirely in-house. Our process combines research, analytics, and user experience best practices to build websites that are easy to find, easy to use, and designed to convert. With more than 30 years of combined experience, we help businesses turn their websites into effective growth tools.
Discovery & Strategy
We start by learning how your customers actually find and choose you. That means stakeholder interviews, analytics review of the current site, competitor analysis, and keyword research. Before any design work starts, you approve a sitemap and a content plan, so there are no surprises about what the site will include or who’s responsible for what.
Custom Web Design & UX/UI
Your site is designed from scratch, not adapted from a stock template. We design 2-4 key layouts (homepage, interior pages, forms, and mobile views) around the paths your visitors are most likely to take. Navigation, page structure, and calls to action come out of what our research told us about your audience, not out of what looked good on someone else’s site.
Design Review & Approval
You see and approve the layouts before development starts. We design in Sketch and share the layouts online, so you can review them on your screen, and comment directly where you want changes. Where a page involves specific functionality, we’ll show you how it’s meant to behave. Two rounds of revisions are included at this stage. Changes here cost hours. The same changes after development cost weeks, which is exactly why we hold this gate.
WordPress Development
We build on WordPress using a custom theme which means your site design is uniquely yours and your team can update content without contacting us for every change. Development also includes the technical groundwork that protects what you’ve already earned in search: page titles and metadata, structured data, redirects from your old URLs, and a clean internal link structure. Each build includes forms created with Gravity Forms and we commonly integrate with email platforms including MailChimp, Klaviyo and Constant Contact.
Copywriting
We’ll write the site or work with what you already have. Our copywriters use the same research the designers do, so the language on the page matches how your customers actually describe what they’re looking for, not how your industry describes it internally. If you have existing content worth keeping, we’ll edit and restructure it for the new site rather than starting from a blank page.
Mobile, Performance & Accessibility
Most of your visitors will meet your site on a phone, so that’s where we design and test first. Every build is tested across modern browsers and popular mobile devices, and we build for speed. A slow site loses visitors before they ever see the page. We build to accessibility standards, which matters if you’re in healthcare, senior living, or financial services, where an inaccessible site is a legal exposure and not just a poor experience.
Landing Page Design & Optimization
Campaigns need their own pages. When you’re running paid search, social, or email, we build dedicated landing pages that match the ad your visitor just clicked and remove everything that distracts from the one action you want them to take. Each one is set up with conversion tracking from day one, so you can see which campaigns produce leads instead of guessing.
Launch, Training & Ongoing Support
Before your site goes live we test it across devices, migrate your content, and set up analytics and conversion tracking so you can measure results. We can also train your team to manage the site themselves with a recorded walkthrough. After launch, our team is local and available for updates, monitoring, and performance reviews.
Who this is for
Complete Web Design & Development in Virginia Beach
Using our process (Discovery/Design/Development/Deployment), we are able to create custom WordPress builds, with an emphasis on collaboration with your brand through every step of the process. Our builds have included customized, responsive sites across a variety of industries, services, and brands:
- Automotive
- Construction
- Consumer Packaged Goods
- Credit Unions
- Healthcare
- Hospitality
- Senior Living
How it works
Our Process for Web Design in Hampton Roads
Our web design and development team has created a process that gives you real results within a real timeframe.
Step 1: Discovery
Before we begin to start the design process, it’s important for us to understand who your audience is, how they think, and how they make decisions. We use research and data to understand your users’ needs, so that your site supports your goals, increases visibility, and results in higher engagement and leads. This process can take anywhere from a few days to several weeks with input from you along with our research.
Step 2: Design
After our Discovery phase, we will create an outline of the components that result in a cohesive look and feel for your site. This includes streamlined navigation, mobile-centric layouts, and friction reducing pathways. By creating an intuitive user experience, your site will have lower bounce rates, while conveying warmth and expertise. The Design phase typically takes between two to three weeks to give you a thorough overview and opportunity to provide input and feedback.
Step 3: Development
This is when we will bring your site to life. OEA’s Development team will take approved designs, and typically using the WordPress platform, we will create a mobile-optimized, performance-focused site build. We’ll focus on a responsive build to create a fast, reliable site to engage your users and increase interaction and leads. This phase also includes content development, metadata, SEO and SEM optimization, and linking improvements. Depending on your site navigation and wireframes, this process can take from 5 to 8 weeks.
Step 4: Deployment
Only after your site has been fully tested across different platforms, your site launch includes all the tools to measure results and the flexibility for continued site improvements. This phase includes cross-browser and device testing, training of your staff for content management, and setup of basic analytics for tracking your site activity. While the initial launch can take from 1 to 2 weeks, the support is ongoing and our team is local, available, and prepared to meet your needs.
Featured website projects
Atlantic Shores
Senior Living, Virginia Beach
A continuing care retirement community whose site had to carry a months-long research process for families. We rebuilt it around the questions those families actually ask.
Traffic grew more than 300% in the first year. Visitors from search engage at 54.6% and stay about a minute per visit (more than double the site’s direct traffic) and inquiry conversion has held steady since launch.
Beach Eye Care
Comprehensive Eye Care, Virginia Beach
A regional practice whose site had plateaued. Rather than rebuild it, we improved it, resequencing content, adjusting layouts, and restructuring the blog into an education hub built around LASIK.
Organic traffic had sat below 3,000 clicks a month for two years. After the changes, Beach Eye Care broke 3,500 in a 28-day period, with 53 keywords in the organic top three.
Web Design in Virginia Beach – Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a website redesign cost?
The average cost of a website redesign depends entirely on the size of the project, your goals and objectives, and the elements you are looking for in a new site. Larger projects or complete rebuilds would cost more than a smaller project such as adding a landing page. That’s why we encourage you to contact our team, so that we can discover what your needs are.
How long does it take to build a new website?
If we’re building you a custom WordPress site redesign, it generally takes between 8 to 12 weeks. It really depends on the size and scope of your redesign.
Do you build only on WordPress, or can we choose another platform?
While we recommend and specialize in WordPress for its faster load times, ease of navigation, and ability for clients to easily update content, we rely on the Discovery (4-D) process to fully explore what your site, and your business objectives are.
Will I be able to update the site myself after launch?
One of our key goals is to give you all the tools and resources you need to update content as needed. We can provide training to your team so that you can make changes quickly and easily.
Do you write the content, or do we?
OEA’s team can work with your existing content or provide copywriting services to reflect your site objectives. Whether you’re starting from scratch, or looking for a brand refresh, we ensure that your site design reflects the look, tone, and feel of your brand.
What happens after the site launches? Do you maintain it?
After all testing is complete and your site launches, we offer ongoing services and support to ensure that your site continues to perform to meet your business objectives. OEA offers auditing, insights, and performance monitoring. We can provide this service as a single, monthly, or quarterly overview of your site, its users, and what recommended changes to make to improve engagement.
