Web design in Florence: a website for your business, from shops to vacation rentals
I’m Stefano Gabryel, and I build websites for small businesses in Florence, whether it’s a leather workshop, a trattoria or a couple of apartments rented on Airbnb. The photos and the text come from me along with the site, so it shows your place as it is, not a set of stock images.
An agency or one person?
Florence has plenty of web agencies, and for some projects they’re the right call: an online shop with hundreds of products, or a site wired into complex booking software. If your project is one of those, we’ll know at the first meeting.
For a small business it matters more who you’re talking to. With me it’s the same person from the first coffee to launch, so what you tell me about your business doesn’t get passed from a salesperson to a designer to a developer.
Direct bookings next to Airbnb and Booking.com
If you rent out apartments or run a B&B, the portals bring guests but take a commission on every night. Your own site doesn’t replace them; it works alongside. It can take direct bookings synced with your portal calendars, so booked dates update on their own (to rule out double bookings entirely you need a channel manager), and guests who’ve stayed with you can come back without going through a portal. More on that in do you need a website if you’re on Booking.com.
For a restaurant it’s the same idea with tables: a menu that reads well on a phone, booking in a couple of taps, and real photos of the dining room and the food.
How we’d work
- We talk: what you do and what the site should bring in, whether that’s calls, bookings, or inquiries. If you already have a site, I start from there.
- Photos and text: I come and photograph the rooms, the dishes, the people at work. I write the text from what you tell me, and you approve it.
- The site goes live: quick to load on a phone, linked to your Google Maps listing and to Search Console, the free Google dashboard that lists the searches you appear for. If your old site already gets visits, the old links keep working. You can update hours, menus, and photos yourself, or leave it to me.
Already have a website? Send me the link and I'll tell you what I'd keep.
What the quote depends on
How many pages and in how many languages, how many photos, whether I write the text from scratch, which features you need (booking, contact form, menu), and the yearly cost of keeping the site online, with the domain in your name. After our first meeting I send you a written quote, line by line. Photos and website together cost less than doing them separately, and you can start with the pages that matter most. What’s included is on the web design page.
A few questions
Can we meet in person?
Yes, for the first meeting if you’d like and for the photos. I travel anywhere in Tuscany, and the rest can happen remotely. Drafts and changes happen on video calls or by message.
Can the site be in Italian and English?
Yes, and in Florence it usually should be: locals search in Italian, visitors from abroad often in English. Both versions are written for their readers, not translated word for word.
What can you show me?
A tourism project I handled from start to finish: stefanogabryel.net, the site for my guided hikes in Tuscany. It went live in January 2026, and by August, with no advertising, about 40 people a day were finding it through Google; 87% of the people who wrote to me booked. It’s the same work I’d do for a vacation rental or a restaurant. The numbers and screenshots are here.
