Why your business
needs a website.

Three things I keep seeing

1. The customer checks before they call. A lender looked up a concrete contractor I built for before approving his truck loan and called the site legit, his words. Customers do the same thing before a first call. Facebook alone does not pass that check.
2. The businesses that show up have a site. In the top eight Google results for roofing, tree service, and concrete in Grand Rapids this month, zero were Facebook-only. Word of mouth is real. It is also the only thing you have without one.
3. Referrals still search your name. When someone passes your name along, the next move is a search. If nothing comes up, or a competitor comes up, the referral cools before you hear about it.

Five mistakes I keep cleaning up

Every one of these came off a real build. None of them cost money to avoid. All of them cost money to undo.

1. The domain is registered inside a website builder you cannot log into. Nick Walker at Premier Flatwork in Louisville had his own domain sitting on a builder account with a lost password from March. The site was finished in July. It could not go live at his own address until the login was recovered in September. Register the domain in your own name, in an account you control.
2. You pay monthly and cannot say who owns the site. One local plan puts it in writing: stop paying and the site goes offline, and it cannot be moved to another provider. Ask before you sign.
3. Facebook is the whole web presence. In the top eight Google results for roofing, tree service, and concrete in Grand Rapids this month, zero were Facebook-only. The businesses that show up have a site.
4. The site is live but Google never indexed it. Live is not the same as findable. Nick's site sat unindexed for weeks until it was submitted and verified in Search Console. A launch is not done until the site shows up in a search for the business name.
5. The business email is a free Gmail. A lender looked Nick up before approving a truck loan and called the site legit, his words. An address at your own domain does the same job in every email you send. It costs nothing extra to set up on a domain you own.

Nick is named with his permission. Receipts on request.

What it should cost

One price, paid once, and you own it. The full market table, including the plans I compete against, is on the cost page. If you want to see your site before you decide anything, get a free preview.