Web Design in Dortmund

This guide is for international companies, research spinoffs, founders and expat run businesses in Dortmund that need a site working for German customers and for partners abroad at the same time. It takes web design Dortmund decisions in the order you will meet them, from who the site serves to what you check in the first 90 days after launch.

Each section gives you something to act on: a checklist, a question for an agency or a concrete step. Legal points describe German rules in general terms; please have your final texts checked by a German lawyer (Rechtsanwalt).

01What a Site Must Deliver in Dortmund's Economy

In web design Dortmund projects, a company site first has to prove relevance to buyers who compare many service providers at once. City statistics count 267,991 employees subject to social insurance at the end of 2024, with 83.6% of them in services, so most of your competitors also sell expertise rather than products. The site that explains scope, coverage and the next step fastest has the advantage.

Dortmund's economy gives international firms four distinct audiences:

• Shippers and carriers: The port reports about 19,000 jobs once the surrounding logistics belt is included; buyers there want routes, capacities and response times in a structured form.
• Research and technology partners: According to the IHK, 438 companies linked to the TechnologieZentrumDortmund generate close to 10% of the city's gross value added; partners expect technical depth without jargon.
• International talent: TU Dortmund had about 5,800 international students in the 2024 to 2025 winter semester, a pool that reads careers pages in English.
• Event visitors: Westfalenhallen trade fairs drew 622,692 visitors in 2023, and those visitors need hours, directions and menus on a phone.

Write one sentence per audience describing the action you want: request a quote, book a demo, apply for a job, reserve a table. If you cannot name the action, that audience probably does not need its own section yet. These sentences later decide the menu order, the calls to action and the form fields.

02Search Intent in Dortmund: Districts, Semesters and Fair Weeks

Search behavior in Dortmund follows three patterns: German service searches with a district name, English searches by newcomers, and spikes around events. Locals type pairs such as "Physiotherapie Hombruch", "Übersetzungsbüro Innenstadt" or "IT Dienstleister Technologiepark"; on phones they often add "in der Nähe" (near me), and the map pack appears first.

Newcomers search differently. A researcher who has just moved from abroad types "English speaking dentist Dortmund" or "tax advisor for expats Dortmund", usually on a phone and often before the paperwork is finished. Calendar effects worth planning for:

• Semester starts in October and April: housing, furniture, language courses, banking and insurance see new demand from students and staff.
• Fair weeks at Westfalenhallen: exhibitors look for stand builders, catering, printing, interpreters and rooms nearby.
• Match days: Signal Iduna Park holds 81,365 people, so food, parking and transport near the stadium are searched intensively.
• Advent season: the Christmas market in the city center brings extra visitors to central cafes and shops.

A practical step: search your own service in German and English with two district names and note which competitors appear. The gaps you find, such as missing English pages or missing district details, define your first page plan. Repeat the test every quarter, because the results shift with new competitors.

03Working With a Team Outside Germany, Done Properly

A partner outside Germany handles web design Dortmund projects well when every decision is written down and every draft is visible on a live preview link. Talha Aslan and team work from Istanbul, and Dortmund projects run entirely over video calls in English or German, with a written scope and progress tracked in our CRM.

Questions to ask any remote agency before you sign:

• Scope in writing: Are pages, languages, revision rounds and responsibility for copy listed one by one in the offer?
• Live previews: Will you review designs on a staging link you can open on your own phone, rather than on static screenshots?
• German compliance: Are the Impressum, the consent banner and locally hosted fonts part of the build or left for later?
• Language quality: Who checks the German copy, and is machine translation used anywhere without review?
• Support path: Which channel do you use when something breaks after launch, and what response window is agreed?

The time difference is small: Istanbul is one hour ahead of Dortmund in summer and two in winter. In practice, a change you request in your morning can be worked on the same day. Tell the agency your busy hours in the first call so meetings never collide with dispatch peaks, lab schedules or lunch service.

04Ownership: Domain, EU Hosting, Code and Accounts

Every part of the site should be registered to your company, and the offer should say so in writing. For most Dortmund firms the main domain is a .de address registered through a registrar in the company's name; if you also trade internationally, a matching .com is worth holding under the same owner.

A handover checklist:

1. Registrar login, with your company listed as the domain holder.
2. Admin access to hosting in a data center inside the European Union.
3. A downloadable copy of the source code and the database.
4. The owner role in Google Business Profile, Search Console and analytics, with the agency added only as a user.
5. A data processing agreement under Art. 28 DSGVO (the German name for the GDPR) with the host and with tools such as booking or form services.

Startups in particular change teams and service providers often. When a founder leaves or an investor runs due diligence, a company that owns its accounts can show control within minutes. Also ask whether any theme or plugin license is registered to the agency; if so, have the transfer terms written into the offer.

Share passwords through a password manager rather than by e-mail, and remove former staff from every account on the day they leave.

05The Project Step by Step, Fully Online

A Dortmund project runs from first call to launch over video, with each step closed in writing before the next one starts. Our team works from Istanbul; projects in Germany run fully online, and no step requires travel. If you happen to be in Istanbul, we can hold one meeting in person at our Ataşehir office, but that is purely optional.

1. Discovery call: We discuss your audiences, competitors and current site in English or German and agree on the action each page must trigger.
2. Written scope: Pages, languages, forms, integrations and timeline are fixed in the offer.
3. Content collection: Logos, photos, product facts and Impressum details go into a shared folder; open items appear as tasks in our CRM.
4. Design on a preview link: The home page and one inner page are approved together on screen.
5. Build and test: Forms, consent banner, speed, language switching and hreflang are checked on real phones.
6. Launch and training: Search Console is connected, the sitemap submitted and your team shown how to edit content.

Because every approval is written down, a project survives a busy fair season or a funding round without losing track. Ask for that record in any agency relationship, not only with us.

06Local SEO in Dortmund: Profile, Districts and Directories

Local visibility in Dortmund starts with a Google Business Profile that matches your site exactly. Google's guidelines require the business name to match the real world name, without added keywords, and service area businesses such as mobile IT support or relocation services can hide their address and list the areas they cover instead.

Dortmund has 12 city districts, and names such as Hörde, Aplerbeck, Brackel, Hombruch, Eving and Lütgendortmund appear naturally in searches. A checklist for international and expat run firms:

• Districts you really serve: name them on service pages, along with neighboring towns like Lünen, Unna or Schwerte where relevant.
• No doorway pages: avoid a dozen near identical district pages; search engines treat them as low value.
• German directories: keep name, address and phone identical on Gelbe Seiten, Das Örtliche and 11880.
• Reviews in two languages: ask every client for a review after delivery and reply in the language the review was written in; never offer rewards for reviews.
• Categories: choose the primary category by your core service and keep secondary ones few.

If you want ongoing local work, review handling and content planning, we run it separately as part of our SEO service. Companies with a second base in a neighboring Ruhr city can compare our web design page for Essen.

07Languages: German First, English Where It Pays

In most web design Dortmund briefs German leads and English is added where real readers exist; an English only site rarely works with local customers or authorities. German carries the Impressum, the privacy policy and offers to Mittelstand buyers, while English pages serve partners, applicants and visitors. Research spinoffs that sell internationally can reverse the order and keep German for legal pages and key offers.

English pays off when at least one of these applies:

• You recruit researchers or engineers from abroad, for example among the roughly 5,800 international students at TU Dortmund.
• Your logistics clients or carriers come from outside Germany.
• You serve fair exhibitors or international visitors at Westfalenhallen.
• Your customers are expats who need a service explained before they can book it.

Turkish can be a third version when part of your customers prefer it; city statistics count 20,830 Turkish citizens in Dortmund at the end of 2024, the largest foreign nationality group. Each language needs its own URLs, linked with hreflang.

Hreflang tells Google which page is which language version, and every version must reference the others as well as itself. The structure is explained on our multilingual website page. Write each version for its own reader rather than translating word for word.

08Speed, Hosting and Security Standards

A fast site matters most in Dortmund's peak moments, when people check you on a phone between fair halls or after a match. Google's Core Web Vitals define "good" at the 75th percentile: LCP (how fast the largest element loads) 2.5 seconds or less, INP (how quickly the page responds to a tap) 200 milliseconds or less, and CLS (how much the layout shifts while loading) 0.1 or less.

A technical checklist for a Dortmund company site:

• EU hosting: a server inside the European Union keeps latency low for German visitors and simplifies data protection.
• Local fonts: serve web fonts from your own server; a Munich regional court (LG München I, 20 January 2022) awarded damages when Google Fonts were loaded from Google without consent.
• Images: warehouse, product and lab photos in WebP, sized for each screen.
• Security: SSL, updated software, spam protection on forms and daily backups stored separately.
• Mail authentication: SPF, DKIM and DMARC records so quote confirmations do not land in spam folders.

Measure the home page, one service page and the contact page before and after launch, on a mid range phone over mobile data rather than on an office laptop. Connections get weak in a packed stadium area or a crowded fair hall; a page that loads there will feel quick everywhere else.

09Sector Examples Built for Dortmund

Dortmund's mix of port, campus and event venues calls for different site structures for international and expat run firms. These are page plans we recommend by sector, not stories about real clients.

• Forwarder or warehouse operator: route and mode pages, warehouse capacity, certificates and a quote form that asks for pallets, weight and dates; details on our logistics company website page.
• Research spinoff or software firm: product pages built around use cases, a demo request, publications and an English careers section; see the startup website page.
• Hotel or restaurant near the venues: event day hours, a phone friendly bilingual menu or room pages and a link to the booking tool you already use.
• Expat services: tax advisers, relocation agents, language schools and practices with English service pages next to German legal pages.
• Fair service providers: stand builders, printers and interpreters with a fair calendar and a fast enquiry form.

Pick the closest example, review how three competitors solve it and list what they miss; that gap is where your first pages should go. Projects our team has built and launched in Türkiye, including a logistics firm, a sports club and a city hotel, are on our references page.

10Legal Basics for Websites in Germany

A business site in Germany must meet German rules even if its main language is English. This section is general information, not legal advice; have your texts checked by a German lawyer (Rechtsanwalt).

• Impressum: required for business sites under § 5 DDG, which replaced the TMG on 14 May 2024; regulated professions also state their chamber, legal job title and professional rules.
• Privacy policy: a DSGVO compliant Datenschutzerklärung whenever personal data is processed, for example through forms or analytics.
• Cookie consent: under § 25 TDDDG, non essential cookies and similar tracking may only run after consent; we recommend making refusal as easy to find as acceptance.
• Accessibility: the BFSG has applied since 28 June 2025 to many consumer facing online shops and services; micro enterprises offering services, with fewer than 10 staff and no more than 2 million euros turnover or balance sheet total, are exempt. Check whether it applies to you.
• Online shops: the "Button Lösung" in § 312j BGB requires an order button that clearly states the obligation to pay, such as "zahlungspflichtig bestellen", and consumers need a Widerrufsbelehrung (withdrawal notice).

We set up the technical side: consent tool, local fonts, consent checkboxes on forms and the page structure for legal texts. The content of those texts depends on your business model and needs legal review, ideally before the design is final.

11Relaunch Without Losing Rankings

In a web design Dortmund relaunch, keeping rankings depends on mapping every old URL to its closest new equivalent. Established Dortmund firms often have pages linked from directories, university partner lists or trade fair exhibitor listings; if those pages vanish, that value disappears with them.

1. Export all old URLs and the most clicked pages from Search Console before you start.
2. Assign each old URL to the most similar new page with a permanent 301 redirect; never send everything to the home page.
3. Keep titles and headings that already perform and rewrite only the weak ones.
4. Protect the staging site with a password, not robots.txt: Google cannot read a noindex on a page blocked in robots.txt. At launch, check that no noindex remains.
5. Submit the new sitemap on launch day and watch 404 errors and click trends for several weeks.

Our redirect mapping tool helps you match old and new addresses. If you add an English version for the first time, place it in its own folder and leave the German URLs untouched, which keeps the risk low.

12Common Mistakes on Dortmund Company Sites

The same handful of problems shows up on many company sites in the city, and most of them are decided during the build.

• English only site: local buyers and authorities expect German. Better: German as the main version and English in its own folder.
• Copied Impressum: a template from another site carries wrong details. Better: your own data, reviewed by a lawyer.
• Careers page in German only: international researchers and engineers drop out. Better: English job pages with clear requirements, language expectations and application steps.
• Menus as PDF files: slow on phones and hard for Google to read. Better: menus as text on the page.
• Outdated event day hours: a restaurant shown as closed on a match day loses guests. Better: add special hours to the profile and the site in advance.
• Tracking before consent: analytics or ad tags loading before the banner choice create legal risk. Better: tags tied to the consent tool.

Score your current site against these six points. If two or more apply, a short audit before any redesign is a sensible first step, because it shows which pages to keep and which to rewrite.

13Budget Drivers You Can Decide in Advance

Our prices do not change by city; in web design Dortmund projects the scope alone decides the budget. Settle the points below before you ask for quotes, and you will also see whether competing offers describe the same work.

• Number of languages: German only, or English and Turkish as well; each language means separate copy, review and maintenance.
• Page templates: a five page company site differs from a logistics site with route, warehouse and certificate pages.
• Forms and integrations: connecting quotes to a CRM, applications to a recruiting tool or bookings to an existing system adds development.
• Online shop: German checkout rules, withdrawal handling, payment and shipping options widen the scope.
• Content production: who writes the German and English copy and who supplies photos has a direct effect.
• Maintenance: who handles updates, backups and security monitoring after launch.

What our packages include is listed on our web design service page. When you compare offers, put each agency's answers to these six points in one table; only then do the figures mean the same thing.

14Your First 90 Days After Launch and Next Step

The first 90 days after launch show whether your web design Dortmund project works the way local customers actually use it. Measure and make small fixes rather than large changes, with one goal per month.

1. Weeks one and two: confirm in Search Console that pages are indexed, that the Business Profile matches the site and that forms reach your inbox; test click to call on your own phone.
2. Month one: log every enquiry by source, such as search, maps, phone or e-mail, and by language version.
3. Month two: look at searches in Search Console that show your pages but get few clicks; add missing service or district details.
4. Month three: plan notices for upcoming fairs, match days and semester starts, and ask satisfied clients for reviews.

Our web design pricing shows the fixed packages and what each covers. If you want to talk through languages, legal pages and scope, book a short video call; we will send a written scope and quote afterwards.