MAIDSTONE firm SiteWizard.co.uk walked away with the Orange Award for Bright Business in the South East at this year's regional final of the National Business Awards.

The company beat stiff competition from mobile phone giant Vodafone, AXA PPP Healthcare and Wetton Cleaning Services, one of the largest cleaning companies in the region.

The Orange Award for Bright Business celebrates the achievements and ideas of non-board members and teams who have had an outstanding impact on the success of a business.

SiteWizard.co.uk, which is the brainchild of directors Adrian Reeves and Richard Ells, creates, manages and hosts websites for its clients. Judges at the Orange-sponsored National Business Awards chose the company for providing high-quality design at affordable prices.

The company say the secret of their success is they have hundreds of website templates that can be quickly tailored to meet their clients' specific needs and add that the innovative software designed by Richard Ells keeps costs down.

However, persuading customers that cost need not affect quality is sometimes a hard battle.

Mr Reeves said: "In many cases people think low cost also means low quality, but in our case nothing could be further from the truth.

"The simple fact is, we are able to keep costs low because of the software we use. We can change sites quickly and this keeps the cost down."

The directors, who attended the awards dinner at The Radisson Edwardian Hotel in Heathrow on July 8th, were delighted with the award.

"Richard and I are so proud of the way the company has developed," said Mr Reeves. "We would like to thank not just our clients but also our staff who work incredibly hard to make sure our customers are happy with our service."

The company has been trading since 1996 and employs 16 staff.