How is a corporate website different from a small business site?
A corporate website differs from a small business site in audience, scale and accountability. It speaks to several groups at once, is edited by several teams, must satisfy legal, compliance and brand review, and often has disclosure duties. A small business website is usually focused on generating enquiries from one audience.
| Factor | Small business site | Corporate site |
|---|---|---|
| Audiences | Mainly customers | Customers, investors, recruits, media, partners, regulators |
| Editors | One or two people | Several teams with different permissions |
| Sign-off | Owner approves | Marketing, legal, compliance, IT security and leadership |
| Content | Services and contact | Group information, investors, ESG, careers, news, policies |
| Procurement | Simple quote | Tender, security questionnaire, supplier due diligence |
Which sections does a corporate website usually need?
Most corporate websites need an about and leadership section, products or services, news and media, careers, investor relations if listed or funded, ESG and sustainability, and a legal and policy area. Which sections apply depends on your structure, sector and reporting duties, so we confirm them during discovery with each stakeholder.
- About and leadership: group structure, history, board and governance information.
- Investors: results, reports, announcements and financial calendar. AIM-quoted companies must keep specified information on their website under AIM Rule 26.
- ESG and sustainability: strategy, reports and policies, written to be accurate and evidence-based rather than promotional.
- Careers: roles, culture and benefits, linked to your applicant tracking system.
- Statements and reports: organisations with a turnover of £36 million or more must publish a modern slavery statement with a prominent homepage link, and employers with 250 or more staff publish gender pay gap figures.
- Legal: registered company details, privacy notice, cookie policy and accessibility statement.
How do you manage governance and multi-stakeholder sign-off?
We agree governance before design starts: who owns each section, who approves what and how decisions are recorded. A single accountable project owner on your side, a clear RACI, scheduled review points and a shared feedback log keep projects moving when legal, brand, compliance and leadership all need to approve content.
- Discovery workshops with each stakeholder group to capture goals, risks and must-haves.
- Information architecture and content ownership agreed and signed off before design.
- Design reviews at fixed points, with consolidated feedback from your project owner.
- Content approval tracked page by page, including legal and compliance review.
- Pre-launch sign-off covering accessibility, security and analytics checks.
What do corporate CMS workflows, security and accessibility involve?
Corporate sites need a content management system with roles and permissions, draft and approval workflows, version history and scheduled publishing. Security covers single sign-on or two-factor authentication, least-privilege access, patching and penetration testing. Accessibility should meet WCAG 2.2 AA, supported by a published accessibility statement and regular audits.
Read more about choosing and configuring a platform in our CMS website development service, and about protecting it in our guide to website security best practices.
- Editorial roles so teams can draft, review and publish only their own sections.
- Audit trails showing who changed what and when, useful for compliance.
- Hosting, backups and incident response documented for IT and procurement teams.
- UK GDPR compliance, including privacy notices, data processing agreements and cookie consent under PECR.
- Public sector bodies must meet the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018.
How much does a corporate website cost in the UK?
As a typical UK market guide, a bespoke corporate website costs around £8,000 to £30,000 or more excluding VAT, and usually takes two to four months. Cost rises with the number of templates, languages, integrations such as careers or investor feeds, content migration and the depth of stakeholder review.
| Item | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Bespoke corporate website | £8,000–£30,000+ |
| Custom web application or portal | £15,000–£100,000+ |
| Business-critical maintenance and support | £300–£1,000+ per month |
These are indicative ranges from the wider UK market, not a Freehand HQ quote. Your price depends on scope, integrations and governance requirements.
How do we support procurement and supplier due diligence?
We support procurement by providing clear written proposals, fixed scope with change control, our registered company details, data protection terms and answers to security questionnaires. Freehand HQ Limited is registered in England and Wales (company number 15955726) and headquartered in London, working remotely with organisations across the UK.
If your corporate site needs logged-in portals, customer dashboards or complex integrations, these are best scoped as custom web development. For customer and sales data, a connected CRM system can feed enquiries straight to the right team. Contact us to discuss your requirements or tender.