I started Web Circle in 2006. I had never built a website before and I didn't have any clients but I was very keen and perhaps a bit naive....how hard could it be?

It was a slow and steady process building up our list of clients to what it is today of around 150-200 active clients.

Most web design companies operate under a sales model where the sales person or director is active in the field drumming up work. We chose early on to operate under a service model. New clients for us don't come as a result of my exceptional business development skills (I don't have any) and they don't come as a result of advertising (we don't advertise). They come either via Google's natural search listings or via word of mouth from one of our many happy clients.

I have always made sure we don't have any ways of operating that lock our clients into using us. So I know that the only way we can build the business or even keep it going is to give something back by offering free advice to other small businesses and by keeping our customers happy who in turn refer others.

This is how I like to do business and I know there are a lot of small businesses out there, our clients included, who appreciate the way we work.

The rest of this page outlines some of the ways in which we try to set ourselves apart from others in the industry.

Thanks for stopping by.

Dan Norris Founder Web Circle

National service from Gold Coast office

The business has always operated from a small office in Brisbane or the Gold Coast (currently on the coast) but the majority of our clients aren't local businesses. We work with businesses all around Australia and a few overseas and stay in touch via live chat, phone, email or Skype.

Our passion

Our passion is making it easy for small businesses owners to succeed online.

Main points of difference

There are many companies providing web design services but we differentiate ourselves in the following ways.

1. We specifically aim to service small business because we are passionate about helping them.
2. We have a service model not a sales model - we don't do business development and we don't advertise.
3. We actively promote whichever open source solution we think is best for our clients - we don't push one particular system.
4. We constantly 'give back' to the small business community mainly with free advice via our small business website design blog.
5. We act generously, transparently and honestly with our clients and the rest of the industry.

We understand what clients are looking for and what bugs them about poor web providers. As such we have developed policies which provide comfort to clients such as:

• Where possible we use affordable or open source systems meaning our clients get the most advanced websites possible for the lowest price.
• We have no lock-in contracts for anything so our clients can come and go as they please. This keeps our focus on providing excellent service to our existing clients.
• We provide ongoing support and hosting for our websites but both are optional. We will happily host sites not built by us and happily build sites to work on other servers.
• We develop in standard technologies ensuring you are free to engage other web developers in the future if you wish to for whatever reason. This also means clients have easy access to affordable hosting solutions and our sites will run on almost any server.
• We happily make all source files for each project available to the client on request.

These policies give new clients comfort and they keep us motivated to continue to provide a high level of service.