Fast on a phone, first time
Pages are small and arrive ready to read. There is no template bloat and no queue of third-party scripts before the content appears.
Case study
Grey & Associates: off the page builder, onto solid ground
A Wimbledon firm of party wall specialists advising building and adjoining owners across Greater London since 2008. The site was rebuilt from Squarespace — same content, none of the platform's cost or constraints, and a faster, more private experience for the people who use it.
The brief
A technical service has to read plainly
Party wall work sits between homeowners, architects and developers. The site has to explain a statutory process, set out fixed-fee services, cover service areas and carry client reviews — without making a nervous homeowner read legislation to find out what happens next.
The existing site did that on Squarespace. The problem was ownership: a page builder on a monthly plan, a template's opinions about layout, and content that could not be moved without rebuilding it somewhere else. The decision was to take the whole thing in-house rather than keep renting the foundation.
Decisions
What the rebuild changed
No cookies, no consent banner
The site sets no advertising or tracking cookies, so there is no banner interrupting the first visit and nothing for a visitor to consent to.
Self-hosted analytics
Traffic is measured by analytics we run ourselves, not a third-party tag. There is no advertising pixel, no visitor profile sold on, and no Google Analytics.
Built to be found locally
Service pages, service areas and plain-language answers are structured so search engines and assistants can understand what the firm does and where it works.
The move
Migrating without losing the search position
A practice that has been online since 2008 has accumulated links, rankings and pages that customers still arrive on. The rebuild kept those pages and the content that earned them, so visibility built up over years was not thrown away for a new look.
New guidance pages can be added as the firm's advice grows, without a redesign or a subscription to a third-party editor. The site stays a marketing asset the firm controls rather than a platform it rents.
The benefit
What it means for the firm
- Faster pages, especially on mobileA visitor on a phone gets the answer without waiting for scripts. Speed matters most on the slow connections and older devices a lot of local customers use.
- Found by the people nearbyClear service and location information helps the site appear for the searches that matter — party wall surveyor, the relevant London boroughs, the specific service.
- Private by defaultNo cookies, no third-party services and no third-party analytics. Visitors are not tracked across the web, and the firm does not have to explain a cookie banner.
- An asset, not a subscriptionThe design and content belong to the firm. There is no monthly platform fee for the foundation and no template deciding the layout.
Standards
What was kept deliberately simple
- Nothing to keep upgradingThere is no upgrade treadmill and no pile of add-ons to keep current. The site is small enough to check thoroughly and maintain without surprises.
- Nothing loaded from elsewhereFonts, styles, scripts and images come from the firm's own site, so pages render without a delay from a third party and no other company sees the visitor.
- The content outlives the platformLeaving a hosting provider no longer means leaving the content behind. Articles and pages are the firm's, in a form that can move.
See it live
See it live
The site is live, maintained by us, and still growing as the firm's guidance does.
- greyandassociates.co.ukThe practice website.
- Web designHow a migration and build like this is scoped.
- Talk to usAsk what leaving your page builder would involve.
Questions
The things people ask first
Why move off Squarespace?
Ownership and cost. A page builder charges rent for the foundation and constrains the layout. The rebuilt site belongs to the firm and is shaped around the content rather than a template.
Did the site lose its search rankings?
The rebuild kept the pages and content that carried search value, so visibility built up since 2008 was protected rather than reset. We would not claim a ranking outcome we cannot measure, but the move was planned around not breaking what already worked.
Is there a content management system?
There is no admin account to maintain or lose. Updates are made as part of the site's care, which suits a firm that publishes in bursts rather than daily.
Related
Let’s find out whether automation is the answer
Tell us what is slow, expensive or error-prone. We will tell you honestly whether we can help, what it would take, and roughly what it would cost — before anyone signs anything.