Frequently Asked Questions

Freelance designers offer a greater value services compared to a design agency as we have lower overheads and can provide a more personal service. 

I’m based in Aldershot, Hampshire and I provide my services to anyone in the UK. 

I’ve made payments for my services as easy as possible. With all payment details easily found on your invoice emails. 

For payments towards web designs these can be made via bank transfer or PayPal card payments. 

For maintenance plans these are done via direct debit using GoCardless. 

When my son was born in 2021, my wife and I gave him the nickname “Baby Bear”. As I was searching for a brand name for my business, I wanted to draw some inspiration from my son, and that’s how Bear Sites came to be. These days, he’s absolutely obsessed with dinosaurs, so if I ever decide to rebrand to T-Rex Sites, you’ll know exactly why! 🤪

I offer maintenance packages that include a range of different services. Check out my maintenance plans.

Absolutely yes, over 60% of all internet traffic is on a mobile device, that’s why all my websites are designed to work on mobiles, tablets and desktops. 

I aim to get your website complete within 4 weeks and on average they’re done within 2-3 weeks. This will always depend on the complexity of the website and your availability to provide me with the required content. 

Of course. I always build websites with search engines in mind, making sure they meet the latest standards. I focus heavily on Google’s Core Web Vitals to keep sites running quickly and smoothly. This means using modern techniques like WebP or SVG images and, if I’m working with a CMS, adding caching tools to speed things up even more.

Send me a message and I will be happy to help you with any future work on your website. 

This is entirely up to you. I offer web hosting with my maintenance plans. I can also offer recommendations of some superb hosting providers. 

I do not provide any domain or email services. These services should alway be provided by experts in those fields. I can offer advice on this. 

Once you’ve paid all 12 monthly payments, your price will reduce to the cost of the Brown Bear Maintenance Plan at the time you complete payments. 

Your website will continue to be hosted and maintained by me until you decide otherwise. 

With the pay monthly offer, your websites must be hosted by Bear Sites until all 12 payments have been completed. 

I’ve made payments for my services as easy as possible. With all payment details easily found on your invoice emails. 

Your initial upfront can be paid by bank transfer or credit/debit card. 

Pay monthly plans are charged via direct debit using GoCardless. 

Simple answer is no. I do not provide email services as these should always be handled by industry experts, such as Google, Microsoft and many others. 

I will however provide you with recommendations and advice. 

These things happen and don’t worry. If you miss a payment we can get that sorted quickly. 

If a payment is outstanding for more than 30 days, then your website will be shut until payments all outstanding payments are paid. 

Payment failures that incurs charges to Bear Sites such as direct debit failures are charged at £1.50 per failure. If a direct debit fails three times then a fee of £15 will be added to cover administrative time. 

Bear Sites builds all websites using WordPress and the Bricks Framework, along with carefully chosen plugins and extensions that enhance the website’s functionality. However, like all software, there is a possibility of errors, bugs, and security vulnerabilities.

To prevent your website from breaking down due to bugs or being compromised by hackers, it is crucial to regularly update and maintain the software. This significantly minimises the risk of such issues and ensures that your website runs smoothly and securely.

A website uptime monitor is like a watchdog that keeps an eye on your website to make sure it’s always up and running smoothly.

If there’s a problem and your site is down or not working properly, the monitor will give me a heads-up so I can fix the issue before your visitors get annoyed. 

Your email provider will usually have spam protection built in, what I provide is spam protection on your website, stopping spammers from sending you messages from your website contact form.

In many cases, known spammers are blocked from accessing the website entirely, this also stops the majority of potential hackers from arriving on your website. 

When a contact form is used on a website the data from that form is sent to an email address. This is handled in two different ways, either using PHPMail which is built into most web servers or via SMTP. 

PHPMail works most of the time, but it’s not reliable and issues are near impossible to diagnose as it doesn’t log activity. 

SMTP connects to a dedicated email server and sends the data using email. This is almost 100% reliable and also has the advantage of being logged allowing for better diagnosis if the a rare issue were to happen. 

Not having SMTP on a contact form can mean the difference between receiving a potential client email or it going missing. 

In almost all cases the 1GB hosting is more than enough space. Most of my client websites are less than 500MB in space, so not even half the space I offer. 

If however you wanted to have a huge portfolio or gallery, then I would recommend the 5GB option. 

All website backups are kept in an encrypted server for up to 90 days.

If you would like a copy of any of the backups, I can send you a copy upon request.

I do not provide any domain or email services. These services should alway be provided by experts in those fields. I can offer advice on these.

I myself don’t host my own email accounts, I currently use ProtonMail, but you can also use Google Workspace, Office365 and many others.