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Seven layers. One invoice.

A website isn’t one purchase, it’s seven jobs that have to agree with each other. Here’s each one, and what you get.

The seven layers

Strategy & content

Before anything gets drawn, we work out what the site has to earn its keep doing: book appointments, take orders, get the phone to ring, stop people calling to ask about hours. Most small business sites fail here, not in the design.

We’ll write the pages with you, or from scratch if writing isn’t your thing. Your words, tidied, not marketing filler.

  • Sitemap and a page-by-page plan
  • Copywriting and editing for every page
  • Photo direction, and a shot list if you need one
  • A competitor read for Western New York, not the whole internet

UI & UX design

Design that suits your business rather than a theme someone else bought. Type, color, spacing, and layout chosen for your customers and the way they actually arrive: usually on a phone, usually in a hurry.

You see real pages on a live link, not flat pictures of pages. Two rounds of revisions are part of the price.

  • Mobile designed on purpose, not a shrunk desktop
  • A type and color system you can extend later
  • Logo refresh or a wordmark if yours needs one
  • Two revision rounds, no change-order theater

Development

Hand-written code, not a page builder stacking twelve plugins on top of each other. That’s why these sites stay fast, keep working when a plugin dies, and can be handed to anyone later without an archaeology dig.

  • Tested on real phones, tablets, and old laptops
  • Forms, booking, payments, and mailing list wiring
  • Connections to the tools you already run the business on
  • Code you own outright, handed over on request

Accessibility

Built to WCAG 2.2 AA from the first line, because retrofitting it later costs more and works worse. Real contrast, real keyboard support, real screen reader testing, not a widget in the corner that claims to fix everything.

It also happens to cover the group of customers most small business sites quietly turn away.

  • Contrast, focus states, and touch targets checked page by page
  • Tested with VoiceOver and NVDA, by hand
  • Reduced-motion and zoom support that actually holds up
  • A written accessibility statement for your site

SEO & performance

Local search, done the boring way that works: clean structure, honest page titles, a Google Business Profile that matches your site, and pages that load before someone gives up. No monthly “SEO retainer” for work nobody can show you.

  • Local search setup for Buffalo and the surrounding towns
  • Structured data so search engines read the business correctly
  • Core Web Vitals in the green, and kept there
  • A plain-English report each quarter, not a 40-page PDF

Content management

A back end shaped around the four or five things you’ll genuinely change (hours, menu, prices, staff, photos) instead of a thousand settings you’ll never touch. If someone on your team is going to edit it, it gets built for that person.

  • Editing set up for your actual content, not generic blocks
  • A short recorded walkthrough to re-watch or hand to a new hire
  • Nothing a bad click can break permanently
  • Or skip it entirely and email the changes over

Hosting & maintenance

The layer that decides whether the site is still good in year four. Hosting, certificates, backups, updates, security patches, and the content changes you email over. Usually same day, always by the next one.

This is why clients stay an average of eleven years, and it’s the part most agencies leave you to sort out alone.

  • Managed hosting, SSL, and domain renewals handled
  • Daily backups, kept off-site, restorable in minutes
  • Uptime monitoring: we usually know before you do
  • Content edits included, no per-request billing

What it costs

A fixed number, before any work starts.

You get the build price and the monthly care price in writing after the first conversation. Neither one changes unless you ask for something new.

Typical build$5k–$25k

One time, fixed. Covers layers 01 through 06, everything up to and including the day it goes live.

Ongoing care$75–$2k+/mo

Layer 07. Hosting, backups, updates, monitoring, and content changes. Cancel with 30 days’ notice; you keep everything.

Repair instead$75–$5k+

Sometimes the honest answer is a speed pass, an accessibility fix, and better structure. We’ll say so even when it’s the smaller job.

Not sure which layers you need?

That’s a normal place to start. Describe the business and we’ll tell you what it needs, and what it doesn’t.