Design / Build / Grow
I'm Dom Stapleton, a freelance designer, web designer, developer and digital marketer from Essex, helping businesses grow online. Need my help? Get in touch today.
My work
TBC
TBC
I'm working on an exciting new project as we speak. I'll add details about it here as soon as I can. Watch this space...
A unified website for Salocin Group
Salocin Group is a collective of specialist marketing agencies, consisting of three brands – Edit, Join the Dots and Wood for Trees. And until early 2025, each brand lived on a separate website, each with their own structure and template.
In 2024, I reskinned all three to align with the group's new visual identity, but the overall experience was still fragmented. On top of this, Salocin Group wanted to strengthen the connection between the sub-brands and the parent company.
Working closely with the marketing team, I designed and built a single, unified website which brought all three brands together under one roof. Now, all three brands live on salocin-group.com.
This was an enormous piece of work, which involved building a new template from scratch, migrating hundreds of pages and blog posts, and implementing seamless URL redirects to preserve traffic and SEO visibility.
The new site features a brand-switching menu, search functionality, unified content hubs for each brand, and extensive backend enhancements to streamline updates and maintenance.
I have been really impressed with Dom's calm, diligent and 'just get s**t done' approach, while always applying a seasoned consultative approach to amplify our digital performance.
J Cromack
Chief Revenue Officer, Salocin Group
Uptime Monitor
tools.domify.co.uk/uptime-monitor/
This is an uptime monitor I built, which checks your websites around the clock and emails you the moment one goes down – and again when it comes back up. Each check confirms that the site responds, returns a healthy status code and serves a valid page. The dashboard shows each site's uptime history and a 24-hour response-time chart, so you can spot a site getting slower before it fails.
Anyone can sign in with a free account, using Google or an email code, and monitor up to three sites. The optional Pro plan raises that limit to 25, and adds webhook alerts (for Slack or Discord) and public status pages.
Please feel free to check it out!
A rebrand for Salocin Group
Salocin Group is a collective of specialist marketing agencies that focus on data and strategy. Their brands include Edit, Join the Dots and Wood for Trees – and their clients include big names like Tesco Bank, Jaguar Land Rover and Amnesty International.
I started working wih them in early 2024 to help them through a major rebrand, which saw all four brands relaunch with a new visual style. My work involved reskinning their four websites, and redesigning their entire library of marketing collateral and internal documentation.
After the rebrand was complete, Salocin Group asked me to continue providing ongoing design and marketing support, as an extension of their internal marketing team.
Although I've only worked with Dom a short while, in that time, he's quickly become a crucial member of our newly formed marketing team and a go-to for other areas of the business, with his incredible work ethic, positive can-do attitude and quality, speedy outputs. Dom has a technical mind, with a creative flair, which has seen our digital rebrand through successfully, from start to finish. You're a joy to work with, Dom. Thank you!
Naomi Hurst
Senior Digital Marketing Manager, Salocin Group
Thursday Fragrance
This website – for an independent, gender-free fragrance brand – uses a clean and stylish design with an element of fun, to match the brand. In the background, the website runs on WordPress, which is a popular content management system – and uses WooCommerce to allow customers to order online.
6 ways to optimise your email marketing campaigns
The Online Advertising Guide · 2019
How many emails do you get a day? You might be one of those lucky souls who doesn't get many at all. But there's far more chance you're deluged on a daily basis. If you are, you'll probably appreciate how tough it can be to make your emails stand out.
Done right, email marketing can be the channel with the lowest cost and the highest ROI. But it's easy to fumble it and end up getting lost in people's inboxes.
To help your email marketing campaigns stand out as much as possible, give these a try:
How do business loans work?
Boost Capital · 2019
Whatever industry you're in, your business needs money to function. But small businesses in particular often struggle with cash flow.
In fact, according to research by the Asset Based Finance Association (ABFA), seven out of 10 small business owners cite cash flow as being their number one threat.
With a shortage of funds, your business might not be able to make the investments it needs to make in order to grow or expand. These investments can include anything from replacing stock or machinery, to hiring and training new staff for an upcoming busy period.
Nine reasons why your restaurant should go cashless (and three reasons against)
Modern Restaurant Management · 2019
There's been a big shift in spending habits over the last decade. Not necessarily on the things we spend money on (although that's certainly changed too), but the way we actually spend our money. Card payments and digital transactions are rapidly taking over from coins and banknotes.
According to a report from UK Finance, more than five million people lived a near-cashless lifestyle last year, with debit cards taking over as the UK's most popular payment method.
#1 There's less risk of theft
Ultimate digital marketing glossary [218 terms defined]
Boost Capital · 2019
Digital marketing can be a confusing subject, filled with jargon, abbreviations and initialisms. So we've put together this ultimate glossary of digital marketing terms to help you figure out what the hell people are talking about.
404: 404 is an error code which is used when you try to load a page on a website which doesn't exist. When a 404 error is encountered, the user is usually shown a 404 page.
![Ultimate digital marketing glossary [218 terms defined]](/assets/images/work/digital-marketing-glossary.webp)
Ultimate guide to financing your business [24 funding options]
Boost Capital · 2019
When you need working capital for your business, there are a wide number of options to choose from and they each work in different ways.
There are so many options, in fact, that deciding on the one that's right for you is a bit like trying to navigate a minefield.
In this guide, we'll cover as many of the different funding options available to you and how each of them work. We've also highlighted what each of the different types of finance are an ideal fit for.
![Ultimate guide to financing your business [24 funding options]](/assets/images/work/financing-your-business.webp)
Ultimate small business SEO guide
Boost Capital · 2019
Your business is nothing without customers. Whether you're running a restaurant, a beauty salon or a garage, you need to make sure people can actually find your business online. Social media is a great way to get the word out – but if you run a small business, it's easy to forget about SEO.
To get you up and running, here are the basics of SEO and how you can get started on making it work for your business.
What A Drag
whatadrag.co.uk
What A Drag was an online beauty retailer for drag performers that I co-founded in 2018. We sold everything from false lashes and wigs, to our own custom-designed makeup palette and brushes. The website ran on WordPress, which is a popular content management system. Customers could order online and manage their accounts thanks to WooCommerce, which is a highly customisable ecommerce platform.
Pheasant Island: The island that changes countries every six months
InsureandGo blog · 2018
When you first look at it, Pheasant Island doesn't seem like anything special at all – it's a tiny island in the middle of the Bidasoa, a river that runs between France and Spain; it's only 660 feet long and 130 feet wide; and it's gradually eroding away.
But Pheasant Island is interesting for one reason in particular – it changes countries every six months. “You what”, I hear you ask.
From the 1st February to the 31st July, Pheasant Island is Spanish. But from the 1st August to the 31st January, it's French. Governance of the island switches between the naval commanders of San Sebastián in Spain and Bayonne in France.
Photo: Ignacio Gavira, edited by Giorgiomonteforti, CC BY 2.5
Samoa: The country that travelled to the future
InsureandGo blog · 2018
For centuries, people have written stories about time travel. What if you could skip forward and see what the future's like? What if you could meet your great-great-great-grandchildren and tell them what an awesome guy their great-great-great-grandfather was? Well what if I told you time travel is real, and that the people of Samoa are the ones who finally managed it?
Samoa is an island nation in the Pacific Ocean, just south of the equator and halfway between New Zealand and Hawaii. It's made up of two large islands called Upolu and Savai'i, and eight small islets. Samao's home to only 192,000 people, which is only slightly more than Southend-on-Sea. Looks a lot nicer, though.
The Dancing House: Prague's wonkiest building
InsureandGo blog · 2018
The other morning, I woke up feeling quite dizzy. Unless I was lying flat on my back, the room felt like it was spinning, just a little bit. (No, I wasn't drunk.) It was horrible. But I imagine this is how the people who live in the Nationale-Nederlanden building in Prague feel every day.
Located on the site of a house bombed by the US in 1945, the building is more than a little unusual. It's made up of two main parts – one a glass tower which curves and narrows, and almost looks like it's leaning into the other part of the building, and the other which features unaligned windows and wonky mouldings.
Wadi Rum: A little piece of Mars on Earth
InsureandGo blog · 2018
You've probably never heard of Wadi Rum. But I bet you've seen quite a bit of it in one of your favourite films. That's because Wadi Rum, which is a sandy valley in Jordan, has been used in quite a few of them.
And you might be able to guess what it's been used for when you see what it looks like...
That's right – Wadi Rum is a little piece of Mars on Earth. It was used as a Marsy film location in Red Planet [2000], The Last Days on Mars [2013] and The Martian [2015]. But it was also used to represent a generic alien planet in Prometheus [2012] and as the planet Jedha in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story [2016]. As well as being used as an Earth dessert in Laurence of Arabia [1962].
Everything you wanted to know about aubergines
InsureandGo blog · 2017
It's a little ironic for me to be writing about aubergines considering I probably haven't ever eaten one myself. I'm an incredibly fussy eater and I'm sure I would've dismissed the idea of eating a purple vegetable off-hand. But nevertheless, the aubergine is a fascinating thing for many different reasons. Let me tell you why.
The aubergine is both a plant and the fruit that grows from it. It's also an emoji, but we'll come to that later on. Aubergine is known to scientific sorts as Solanum melongena, and it's in the nightshade (Solanum) family. That means it's related to the tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) and the potato (Solanum tuberosum).
Everything you've always wanted to know about pineapples
InsureandGo blog · 2017
Not only are pineapples delicious and absolutely suitable as a pizza topping (yes, they are), they're also a rather fascinating little spiky fruit. So join me as we both learn everything we've always wanted to know about pineapples (but couldn't be bothered to look at Wikipedia for):
1) Pineapples are actually berries, and not apples at all. They’re known as coalesced berries, which means they’re formed by multiple fruiting flowers which merge together to form a single pineapple. Other examples of multiple fruits are mulberries and figs.
ByWriters
bywriters.com
ByWriters was a multi-author blog covering a range of subjects – from current affairs and culture, to comedy and the arts. The design was clean and modern with an emphasis on typography over imagery. It ran on WordPress, which is a popular content management system. I designed the site to be fully responsive, meaning that it adapted to fit different screen sizes.
What can I say...? Dom has done an outstanding job on the site, really great work. He's been reliable and professional, having helped me with the most ridiculous queries I've had at all hours! Always personable, and very easy to get along with, which made bouncing ideas off each other all the easier. Most importantly, the passion he has for web design comes through in his work. I'd hire him again in an instant, so should you.
Jordan
Founder and Editor, ByWriters
The Hockley Flower Shop
thehockleyflowershop.co.uk
This website was for a boutique florist based in Hockley, Essex. The website ran on WordPress, which is a popular content management system – and customers could order products online thanks to WooCommerce, which is a highly customisable ecommerce platform. The site was fully responsive, meaning it adapted to fit the screen size whether it was viewed on a desktop PC, a tablet or a mobile.
After only a few months of being launched, the website already began to rank as the number one Google search result for "hockley florist", which was the business's key search term.
Many of our sales come through the website, and without Dom, we probably wouldn't have had so many!
Nick
Owner, The Hockley Flower Shop
Transactional emails for InsureandGo
In late 2015, I redesigned the transactional emails for InsureandGo, which is one of the UK's largest direct travel insurers. The emails are sent to customers when they get a quote, buy or make changes to their policy online. I designed the emails to match the company's visual identity, and with an emphasis on clear calls to action. As maximum compatibility was important, I worked hard to make sure the emails looked right in the different email clients, many of which can be very fussy.
Domify Tools
This website is a growing toolbox of free web tools – including a link shortener, a link crawler, an uptime monitor, a website feedback tool, an API tester, DNS and SSL checkers, an image converter and a password generator. Most need no sign-up. A few need a free account, and an optional Pro plan lifts the limits on those. The design is deliberately clean and simple, as it's the functionality of the tools that matters most.
ALPAC
alpacoctane.com
This website – for a company which supplied network provisioning servers – used a clean and simple one-page design, with elements that fade and slide in as visitors scroll down. The website also included a simple contact form.
Dom has created and managed our website in a professional and efficient manner, his creativity and imagination has helped craft a website which is a powerful marketing tool, he is well recommended.
Phil
Director, ALPAC
Forcon
forcon.co.uk
This website – for a telecommunications company operating across Europe – was designed to advertise the company's services, and then direct potential clients to a contact form so they can get in touch. The footer of the website included a news widget which pulled live information from an RSS feed.
We would recommend Dom's work to any company requiring a cost-effective and professional solution.
Phil
Director, Forcon
Your Homepage
domify.co.uk/home/
This was a website I made to replace the iGoogle homepage, which was discontinued in November 2013. I created it for myself and a few friends and family members who previously relied on iGoogle as their browser's homepage. Your Homepage included widgets for the local weather, RSS feeds and trending topics on Twitter. Each widget was fully customisable.
Essex Blast Solutions
essexblastsolutions.co.uk
This website – for an Essex-based abrasive blasting company – included a before-and-after image slider on the homepage, a lightbox gallery and a contact form which allowed people to upload photos to send with their enquiries.
We're really chuffed with the work Dom did on the website. It's exactly what we asked for and more.
Jake
Director, Essex Blast Solutions
Domify
domify.co.uk
Bit of an obvious one but I also designed the website you're looking at right now. When I'm not busy on other projects, it's possible I'm making tweaks to my own website. I don't just like to think of it as a portfolio of my work – it's also a testing ground for new designs and features.
Palais Idéal: The palace that was built by a postman
InsureandGo blog · 2013
Where I live, the only things left behind by the local postmen are letters for the person who used to live in my flat and the odd discarded rubber band. But in Hauterives, France, the local postman left a little more than that... Ferdinand Cheval left an entire palace, made from stones he'd picked up on his daily mail round!
Ferdinand Cheval was born in 1836 and left school at 13 to become a baker's apprentice. But I'm assuming this didn't work out for him, as he eventually became a postman in 1869.
Maeklong: The Thai market that's also a railway line
InsureandGo blog · 2012
Buying fruit and veg at your local market is very rarely a life or death situation. Unless you live in Thailand, of course... Maeklong Market in Samut Songkhram spends most of its time as your everyday Thai market, but also happens to be a railway line at the same time!
A train goes right through the middle of the market eight times a day, seven days a week. When it does, the market traders have to scramble to get their produce off the tracks and their awnings out of the way in time for the No. 4382 train from Mae Klong to Ban Laem.
Ronda: The city that's divided in two by a canyon
InsureandGo blog · 2012
Not every city is divided into two by a 390-foot-deep canyon; but, then, not every city is like Ronda, in the Spanish province of Málaga.
The ginormous gap that separates Ronda into two is El Tajo canyon, through which the Guadalevín river flows. The Guadalevin river is a tributary of the Guadiaro, which runs south from the Sierra Bermeja into the Mediterranean at Sotogrande.
Services
Design
Whether it's brand guidelines, web design or print materials – I create visuals that elevate your brand and engage your users.
- Brand identity and guidelines
- Web and e-commerce design
- Print materials
- Email templates
- ...and more
Web development
Fast, tidy websites built to your brief – from landing pages and forms to full custom sites that are easy to manage and built to last.
- Custom websites and landing pages
- Forms, integrations and automations
- Performance and accessibility
- Launch and hosting support
- ...and more
Analytics and tracking
Know what's working. I set up the tracking and reporting that show where your visitors come from and what they do next.
- Google Analytics setup
- Tag management and conversion tracking
- Custom dashboards and reports
- Campaign and link tracking
- ...and more
Site and SEO audits
A clear review of your website – technical health, SEO, speed and content – with a prioritised list of fixes you can act on straight away.
- Technical SEO checks
- Speed and performance review
- Content and keyword gaps
- Prioritised action plan
- ...and more
Digital marketing
Strategic digital growth through SEO, paid advertising, email campaigns and social strategies tailored to your business goals.
- SEO and content strategy
- Paid advertising
- Email marketing
- Social media management
- ...and more
Website maintenance
Keep your site secure, fast and up to date without having to think about it, with a monthly package of updates, monitoring and small changes.
- Updates and security checks
- Uptime monitoring
- Small content and design changes
- Backups and hosting support
- ...and more
Copywriting
From blog posts to whitepapers, technical writing to social media – I craft copy that connects with your audience and converts.
- Blog posts and articles
- Web copy and CTAs
- Technical documentation
- Social media content
- ...and more
About me
I'm a designer, web designer, developer and digital marketer with nearly 20 years' experience, working with brands and agencies of all sizes.
I love getting stuck into a challenge, and I'll work my socks off to make sure your project's delivered on time, on budget and exactly to your brief.
A bit of background
After studying IT and graphic design at South East Essex College, I started my career in digital marketing at InsureandGo.
Since I left InsureandGo in 2018, I've worked in a number of different roles, all focused on digital marketing and copywriting. I've also provided freelance graphic design and web design services on the side, and even co-founded my own e-commerce business in late 2019.
These days, I'm 100% freelance, and I can't wait to work with you.
Find more about my skills and experience on LinkedIn.
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