A website isn't a project that ends - it's part of how your business runs, and it has to keep working. We build sites that are fast, structured, and genuinely maintainable, and then we actually maintain them. Many developers vanish once the invoice clears, and a site left on its own quietly falls behind until something breaks. We stay.
WordPress for most builds - tuned with our secret recipe of plugins and tooling, refined across 100+ sites, that turns out handsome, fast-loading pages without the bloat of the usual suspects. Craft CMS when content is deeply structured and the output has to be exactly right. Laravel, a toolkit for building web applications, when you need real custom software, not just a site. Knowing which to reach for - and when not to - is half the job.
Every site comes with a clean, tracked copy of its code, so if malware ever gets in we put that clean copy back rather than hunting infected files. Databases and files back up to secure storage on an automatic schedule. Recovery is a plan, not a prayer.
Plenty of our work starts as someone else's mess: a site nobody has touched in years, a stalled rebuild, a design that has aged badly in an editing system nobody can figure out. We bring these forward - cleaner to manage, better to look at, and safe again.
When a website isn't enough, we build the application. Fundraising totals that update live on game nights, event management spanning multiple venues under one roof - real software for demanding environments, built and maintained the same way we build everything else.
Brown Walrus builds and maintains websites for organizations that need a site to keep working long after launch. Our team has built websites since the 1990s, and Brown Walrus Inc. was founded in 2011. If you are comparing web development companies, ask each one who will patch the site in year three.
Our web clients include some of the biggest names in sport: Prudential Center, Northwest Stadium, Rogers Place, ICE District, HBSE, the New Jersey Devils and the Philadelphia 76ers. We have worked with the Oilers since 2007. We also build for Wollman Rink NYC, Loew's Jersey Theatre and the Professional Hockey Players' Association. Venue sites get their heaviest traffic in bursts. A team posts news, fans click through within minutes, and the servers have to absorb the jump.
Start with a website quote request. You tell us your goals, the state of your current site, your launch timeline and the tools the site has to connect to, such as a customer database (CRM) or a booking system. We use those details to scope the work and estimate the cost.
The quote form asks which of these you need:
Custom software built in Laravel sits outside that list, and we build that too.
If you sell online, WooCommerce, WordPress's store add-on, runs your shop inside the same WordPress dashboard your staff already use to edit pages. If your content has a strict structure, such as event listings or a staff directory with set fields, you want a Craft CMS developer. Craft lets us define each content type with its own fields, so editors fill in a form instead of formatting a page by hand.
A CMS migration moves your pages and media into a new system. Each old page address also needs a permanent (301) redirect, which sends visitors and search engines to its new address, or you risk losing the search rankings those pages earned while visitors hit dead bookmarks. Map every old address to its new one at the start of the move, not after launch.
Attackers use automated tools to scan the web for sites running software with known holes. A CMS and its plugins keep releasing security fixes, and each version of PHP, the programming language WordPress and Craft run on, stops getting fixes once it is retired. Maintenance means applying those fixes, keeping PHP on a supported version and confirming the site still works afterward.
That last check carries most of the weight in WordPress maintenance services. Someone has to confirm that the forms still send and the store still takes orders.
Our AI-assisted update process does this for the sites on our maintenance plans. For years it was a handwritten update script and a lot of practice. We rebuilt it with AI into a complete system: each update checks its own work, and safety checks run before any change reaches a live site. Backups for those sites go to secure storage on an automatic schedule.
Our support hours are 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Alberta Time (UTC−06:00), Monday to Friday. Emergency response for full outages, active security incidents and critical failures extends to evenings and weekends, and your agreement sets the exact coverage.
Roughly 95% of the sites we build run on hosting we operate: our own managed servers and Amazon Web Services (AWS). For those sites, the same team is accountable for the code and the server it runs on.
Mail sent from your site, such as contact form notices and order receipts, needs three email security records on your domain, called SPF, DKIM and DMARC, that show your mail really came from you. Without them, Gmail and Outlook can file those messages as spam. We set those records up as standard, and our team looks after your domain and its DNS, the settings that point your domain at your website and email.
If you inherit a site from a developer who has gone quiet, first confirm you control the domain registration and an admin login. From there we can take the site over, whether the next step is a cleanup or a redesign. Ongoing maintenance and hosting agreements run month-to-month with no lock-in.
Brown Walrus is based in Edmonton, and we deliver web development and website maintenance remotely across Canada and the United States. To start, email hello@brownwalrus.com or send a website quote request.
Website maintenance includes updates to the CMS (the system your team edits the site in) and its plugins, security patches, scheduled backups, and a check that the site still works after each change. That check matters because a plugin update can stop a contact form or a checkout from working without any visible error. At Brown Walrus, sites on our maintenance plans run through an AI-assisted update process that keeps more than 100 client sites patched, and their databases and files back up to secure storage on an automatic schedule.
Yes, a website built on a CMS needs ongoing maintenance. A typical WordPress or Craft site runs on the CMS, plugins, PHP (the programming language the site runs on) and a server, and each of those keeps releasing fixes for security holes. A site nobody updates falls further behind with each release until an update fails or an attacker gets in. When Brown Walrus takes over a neglected site, we work through the skipped updates until the site is safe again, and it can then move onto a regular maintenance plan.
The cost of maintaining a website generally depends on the platform, the number of plugins and integrations, and who hosts the site. A WooCommerce online store tied to a customer database (CRM) needs more care than a five-page brochure site. For a pricing direction on your own site, send Brown Walrus a website quote request with your site's address, its current platform and your goals. Ongoing maintenance and hosting agreements with Brown Walrus run month-to-month with no lock-in.
Web design is important because your website is often the first place a customer checks whether you are credible and easy to deal with. A clear layout gets visitors to your phone number or booking form in a couple of taps, and a site that loads slowly or breaks on a phone sends them elsewhere. For non-profits, Brown Walrus builds sites around clarity, accessibility and ease of management, so staff can keep content current as programs and campaigns change.
Responsive web design means one website that adjusts its layout to the screen it is on, from a phone to a wide desktop monitor. Text reflows and menus collapse into a tap-friendly button, so visitors can read without zooming. Google mainly reads the phone version of a page when it indexes and ranks it in search, so content that is missing or broken on phones can cost search visibility as well as visitors. Making an older desktop-only site responsive takes a redesign.
Choose a web designer by asking what happens after launch, since a site needs updates for as long as it runs. Find out who will host the site and who will apply the updates. Look at live sites they have built, on a phone as well as a desktop. At Brown Walrus, the team that builds your site can also host and maintain it: roughly 95% of the sites we build run on our own managed servers and Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Clean code, sensible structure, and an editing system your team can actually use - not a black box only we understand.
Most of what we build stays with us on a maintenance plan - updates, security patches, and scheduled backups, handled by the people who built it.
WordPress, Craft, or custom software built in Laravel - chosen for your project, not our convenience.
We host roughly 95% of what we build, so performance, uptime, and security are our responsibility - not a finger-pointing exercise between vendors.
The programming language and databases our sites run on (PHP, MySQL and SQL Server), your domain and the settings that point it at your website and email, and the email security records (SPF, DKIM and DMARC) that show your mail really came from you, set up as standard.
