Steve Vanhinsberg’s stoneCIRCLE in Basingstoke – and, with the opening of a new showroom this month, also in Newbury – have launched a new website that is clean and simple and a good reflection of this modern, efficient company.

From the home page it engages visitors by announcing the opening of the new showroom and includes an invitation to visit the showroom to have the chance to win a £3,000 kitchen worktop. This shows instantly that the website is current and updated.

Likewise the news page. So often the latest story on website news pages is years out-of-date and, frankly, it would be better simply not to have a news page. If there is going to be one it should be up-dated as often as possible. The stoneCIRCLE news page only has one story on it so far, but it is about the opening of the new 2,500m² showroom in Newbury at the beginning of the month (May).

The site makes good use of a large library of good quality images of the work that the company have carried out, illustrating the quality and style of stonework from their well equipped workshops, which they have just gained planning permission to extend.

They use their CNC saws and workcentres and the skills of their masons to produce a wide variety of work, which is helping them ride out the recession, because although granite and quartz composite worktop sales are down, they have won more commercial work, says Steve Vanhinsberg.

There is no on-line shop on the new website so you cannot buy the goods shown directly from it, but it is easy to find the addresses of the showrooms (the same cannot be said for all sites) and a click of the mouse produces maps to guide you to them. In fact, in more than 100 pages everything actually seems to work the way it is supposed to – on my browser, at least.

There is a section entitled Our Work, which is split into domestic and commercial and includes a sample of the projects that stoneCIRCLE have been involved in. It includes pictures of the DeLank granite Diana Memorial in Hyde Park, which McConnells in Kilkeel, Northern Ireland, may take exception to as they produced it. stoneCIRCLE say they are justified in including the project, however, because they were involved in it in the preliminary stages.

All in all a good site portraying the right image. Rating: 83%