How it works
Seven days from the first call to a live site, and the only thing that reliably makes it longer is waiting on photographs. That is not a sales line. It is the one dependency I cannot do for you.
Fifteen minutes on the phone
I ask what the business does, who rings you, and what happens after they ring. No presentation, no discovery workshop, and nothing for you to prepare.
By the end of it I will have told you one of three things: that a free spot is open and you fit, that I would build it at the introductory price, or that you do not need me. The third answer happens more than you would expect and it costs you nothing to hear it.
You send photographs and words
Six to ten pictures of the real place, and a few plain sentences about what you do. Your hours, your service area, and the number you actually answer.
This is the step that decides whether the site is any good, and it is the step people underestimate. A real shop photographed on a phone in daylight beats stock photography every single time, because a customer can tell the difference and stock photography quietly says you had nothing to show.
If it has not arrived within five days the week slips, and I will chase you once.
I build it
From scratch, in code, designed around your trade. A barber is selling a chair you sit in for half an hour. An electrician is selling the fact that they will turn up. A law firm is selling nerve. Those are three different websites, and building them the same way is how you end up with three sites that all look like the template they came from.
You see it on a real web address before anybody else does, so you are reacting to the actual site on your actual phone, not to a flat picture of one.
Two rounds of changes, then live
Send everything you want changed in one go, I make the changes, then we do that once more. Two rounds is enough for the things that matter and short enough that the site actually launches.
Then it goes on your domain and your hosting, both registered in your name, and I hand over every login. The code is yours whatever happens between us afterwards.
The one thing that goes wrong
Nearly every late project is late for the same reason
Not design, not code, not changes. Photographs.
Treat the photographs like a deadline, because they are one. Put an hour in the diary in the first three days. Daylight, phone camera, no filter. The front of the building, the inside, you at work, your team, your van or your tools, and anything a customer would recognise. Ten pictures is plenty. If you send me two, the site will look like it has two, and no amount of design covers for that.
If you genuinely cannot get photographs, tell me on the first call rather than at the end of the week. There are ways around it, they cost money, and both of us would rather know on day one.
Afterwards
What happens once it is live
You get every login
Domain, hosting, and the site itself. Written down, handed over, and yours. I do not hold anything back as leverage.
Nothing expires
There is no licence of mine to renew and no subscription to cancel. If we never speak again the site keeps working.
Changes, if you want them
Either on the $49 monthly, or billed by the hour when you need something. You can also just edit it yourself. It is ordinary WordPress.