About me

I design and build client-focused websites quickly and efficiently. I guarantee a quality finished product that will be on time and within budget. It will be very user friendly both for you and for your visitors. It will be tailored to your requirements and will achieve your goals.

5 star service. Craig really went out of his way to listen to what I needed and customise my website to my particular requirements. A solid technical base that looks great, that I can easily update myself. Very prompt and patient response to any questions.  Can’t recommend highly enough.

Morag Neil
Scary Biscuits Promotions

My philosophy

Although aesthetics are important I believe a website is not about wonderful artistic design. A website should provide the most important content in a clear, concise and organised manner.

Users should understand immediately what a website is all about. The user experience should be flawless. They should be able to navigate easily and intuitively to find the content they want. In that way a website achieves its aims.

I always put a lot of effort into working with a client to understand exactly what they want and spend time to structure the content in a way that will work best for them and will appeal to their visitors.

Craig is always well versed on website trends and best practices. He shares that knowledge with clients to arrive at a site design that balances client wants with good UX. Additionally, he prioritizes long term reliability over what is easiest. He creates original code to accomplish site goals rather than relying on fast plugins that carry the risk of future incompatibility with site updates.

Lisa Wallner
Director of Marketing at Ruthman Companies

My work

You can check out some of my work on my Portfolio page. I mostly use WordPress for building websites although I have experience of other content management systems such as Drupal. I use BuddyPress or bbPress for forums and community websites, and WooCommerce for eCommerce websites.

I do not use pre-designed themes, although I sometimes use them for inspiration. Every website I build is made from scratch for my clients, based on their needs and goals, using a simple framework that I have developed. In that way I have complete control over the final product.

In order to maintain control over time and future-proof my website projects I avoid using plugins whenever possible. Any website I build will not suffer from a lack of updates by another developer. If required, and where possible, I will write my own plugins and keep them as simple as possible.

I can confidently say that Craig Murray goes above and beyond to provide exceptional service and support to his customers. I have seen first-hand the dedication and passion that Craig puts into every webpage. Whether it’s developing new features or troubleshooting technical issues, he’s always approached each challenge with a positive attitude and a willingness to do whatever it takes to ensure his clients’ success.

Dave Hedger
West London Deep

Past experience

Over the years I have built around 40 websites as a freelancer, mostly in my spare time. I also worked for 17 years in PR and communications for Halma plc (PLC Awards Company of the Year 2017). I worked closely with the PR Manager to run our department, ensuring we met our communication objectives both externally and internally.

My main focus was developing the company website as the key brand-statement, and the production of content, graphics, images and video to assist our Investor Relations communications. I am particularly proud of having personally developed the company website through three iterations.

The evolution of the Halma plc website

Thanks to Craig’s exceptional creativity, coding skills and content creation, Halma had a top-rated and much admired online corporate PR and investor relations profile. He has a simple web design philosophy. He met Halma’s comms goals by informing and entertaining our web users with elegant site design that was simple to navigate, easy to maintain and delivered high search ratings.

David Waller
Formerly Group PR Manager, Halma plc

Investis’ corporate website rankings

Following a redesign in 2012 and a major increase in investor focused content, Investis scored us the Best Corporate Website in the FTSE 250 in 2014. With almost no budget we were 9th best out of all the UK corporate websites, ranking higher than most FTSE 100 websites developed by large website teams.

Halma’s score places them in the top 25 of nearly 1,400 companies scored globally in the past year – and they are bettered by just 8 companies in the FTSE 100.

Investis in 2014

The Investor Relations Society’s Best Practice Award

Again, in 2014 the website, along with the other digital communications which I oversaw, was nominated for an Investor Relations Society Best Practice Award; Best Use of Digital Communications in the FTSE 250. We only narrowly missed out on winning and were given a special commendation, the only one of the night.

Comprend’s corporate website rankings

In 2016 we undertook another redesign and further content development. Comprend then ranked us as having the 4th best corporate website in the UK in 2017. They also ranked the Halma website as 2nd best in the UK for Investor Relations.

TL;DR

I’m really good at what I do. Not only am I an accomplished website designer and developer, I have been recognised for my content creation, management and organisation. I promise you won’t be disappointed if you put your faith in me to build your next website.