A small, senior team you can reach.
Glide is a founder-led agency in Essex. We build and run websites that win enquiries, get found and keep improving on one monthly fee. Senior people on every job, AI in the engine room, and Mike accountable for the lot.
Meet the Team
A small, hands-on team that builds, improves and supports the work ourselves. You always know exactly who is responsible.
Mike McDonnell
Founder
Mike runs scoping, sets the strategy and signs off every build before it ships.
Matthew Ludlow
Client Success Manager
Matt keeps delivery moving day to day, keeps clients updated and makes sure the small things do not slip.
Abbie McDonnell
Finance Manager
Abbie keeps billing clear, boring and on time, so payments and invoices do not become a drama.
Amber Cannon
Head of Socials
Amber runs social content where it makes commercial sense, with a sharp eye for what people will stop and watch.
Our story
How Glide really started
Mike taught himself web design straight out of school, building sites for local businesses and hand-coding everything the hard way. It did not pay, so he took the sensible route instead: five years as a Quantity Surveyor, pricing jobs and standing on the client's side of the table with the same trades and construction firms Glide now builds websites for.
Then a serious illness ended that career almost overnight. Rebuilding from it is where Glide comes from. (Mike wrote a book about that chapter if you ever want the full story. These days he is the fittest he has ever been, and the business runs the same way.)
Client zero was family: a small supplement brand called Proflax that needed to sell online properly. The results came, word spread through local businesses, friends and family, and “Mike's Marketing” quickly became Glide, because the market was full of slow, unreliable agencies and Mike wanted to build the one known for fast, sleek, frictionless work. Websites, SEO, growth, proof and clear delivery are still the heart of it.
What changed is how we work. AI now helps in the background with research, first drafts and repetitive build work, so a small, senior team can ship faster and for less than a big agency. The strategy is still human. The QA is still human. Mike still signs off every site.
That is the whole point. You get senior, founder-led work without London prices or agency bloat, on one monthly fee. AI is not the thing we sell. The product is a website growth system: the site, the search foundations, the tracking, the proof and the improvements that keep enquiries coming.
These days we focus that on regulated financial and accountancy firms, where getting the marketing right, and keeping it compliant, matters most.
Why “Glide”?
We chose the name because so many web and software projects feel slow, painful, and overcomplicated. We do it differently. From first brief to launch, the process is smooth and visible, no hand-waving, no surprises, no agency drama.
Working with us should feel effortless, like gliding through the air.
The awards on the shelf
Two so far: New SEO Agency of the Year 2024 at the Corporate LiveWire Innovation & Excellence Awards (that is the certificate, and the grin), and Most Client-Focused Web Design Agency, Essex 2024 from SME News. We would trade both for one more client saying the work paid for itself, but they look good on the shelf.
Who we work with
We work with FCA-regulated financial firms, wealth managers, brokers and accountancy practices: businesses where trust matters and the marketing has to respect the rules. We build the website that wins you enquiries, get you found on Google and in AI search, and run it all with financial-promotion and compliance built in from the start. We're based in the UK, we work UK-wide, and you deal directly with the founder, not an account manager.
What makes working with us different
How we work
We keep delivery hands-on with our core team. You get senior-level attention without the agency overhead, and you always know exactly who is writing the code.
We're selective about the projects we take on so we can deliver the level of service and quality we promise. If we don't think we can build something genuinely useful for your business, we'll say so.
Ready to scope your project?
If our approach sounds like what you've been looking for, tell us what you're trying to fix and we'll come back within one working day.