Stalham is five minutes from the studio, which makes it the closest town on this list. It sits at the head of the River Ant on the edge of the Broads National Park, and it runs two quite separate trades. Down on the Staithe there is Richardson's, one of the largest hire fleets on the Broads, along with the Museum of the Broads and the other boatyards. Up on the High Street there is a properly independent shopping street: butcher, chemist, cafes, takeaways, a surgery, and no bank left in the town.
A small high street that is unusually well organised
Stalham has an active town council and a business forum that puts on events specifically to pull footfall onto the High Street. That changes the website conversation here, because the businesses are already thinking about visibility rather than needing persuading of it. What tends to be missing is not ambition, it is the plumbing: a site that is actually indexed, correct opening hours in Google, a phone number you can tap on a phone, and pages that load on a rural connection.
Broads businesses have a booking problem, not a design problem
Anything on or near the water is selling availability, and availability is where cheap websites come apart. A boatyard, a day-boat hire, a holiday let, or a campsite needs the calendar on the site to match the calendar in the office, or sooner or later somebody takes the same booking twice. That is an integration job rather than a design job, and it is the part of the budget we would rather protect.
Round the corner
The studio is in Smallburgh, the next village along the A149. We know the High Street because we shop on it, which is a slightly unfair advantage when it comes to writing copy about a Stalham business. If you would rather talk this through in person over a coffee than on a video call, that is easily arranged.
If you run a business in Stalham or the villages around it, Sutton, Ingham, Catfield, Barton Turf, get in touch, or catch us in town.
