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Laurel Web Studio
Free audit

Western PA · web design

Websites that get you booked.

I have audited 165 local businesses across 5 counties. Of those, 27 had no website of their own, just a Facebook page or a directory listing. The rest were mostly losing customers quietly. I fix that, starting with a free written audit.

Book my free website auditSee what I found

Two minutes to ask · No sales pitch · No obligation

165local businesses audited
54broken or missing entirely
69needed real fixes
42already solid

The evidence

165 audited. 54 broken or missing.

This grid is a printer's type case. Each compartment is one business I audited across five counties. The empty compartments aren't a design choice: they're the businesses with no site of their own. Tap a square.

FloristWestmoreland Co., PAThe phone number appears three times as plain text with no tap-to-call, so a phone customer has to retype it to order.

Yours is one of these squares. I just haven't graded it yet.

Trades generalized · businesses anonymous · Westmoreland, Fayette, Allegheny & Butler counties, PA & Monongalia County, WV · August 2026 audits

How I graded these, and what each grade means

The patterns

Five ways a website loses customers.

The same failures kept recurring, audit after audit. Read them as a checklist. If one stings, that's the place to start.

  1. 01

    Your address quietly dies.

    Domains expire, certificates lapse, DNS quietly breaks; the customer who hits the error page assumes you closed for good.

    From the auditOne local shop’s domain no longer resolves, and map sites now list the business as closed.

  2. 02

    It breaks on a phone.

    Most people will only ever see your site on a six-inch screen. If they have to pinch and squint, they’re gone.

    From the auditA pet resort still serves separate desktop and mobile sites from a mid-2000s builder.

  3. 03

    Nobody can order or book.

    If ordering means calling during business hours, the sale goes to whoever has a working button at 9pm.

    From the auditA longtime local florist takes zero orders online, so wire services keep a cut of every sale they route.

  4. 04

    Google can’t find you.

    No site means your hours and menu live nowhere online, and a customer who finds your reviews has nowhere to go next. When they’re choosing who to call, you’re not in the running.

    From the auditA hardware store’s only web presence is a corporate store locator. A busy coffee house has no menu anywhere online.

  5. 05

    It looks abandoned.

    An outdated site doesn’t read as neutral. To a stranger it reads as careless, or worse, as closed. People judge the shop by the storefront.

    From the auditOne local homepage still shows the developer’s own to-do notes, typos and all.

The free audit

I inspect it myself.

I test the parts a customer actually uses before I grade anything.

I open your website the way a customer would: on a phone, hungry and in a hurry. I try to place an order or book a slot, and I tap the phone number to make sure it dials the number printed beside it, and I check that your address reads the same everywhere it appears. I check what Google shows at 9pm on a Friday. Then I write it up in plain English.

  • A one-page report card grading the five failure points above
  • The three things costing you most, in order
  • A ten-minute call to walk through it, only if you want one
Get my report card Read a full sample first
Website report cardAugust 2026

Sample: composite of audited sites

  • Domain & securityB
  • Works on a phoneD
  • Ordering & bookingF
  • Google presenceC
  • Speed & trustD

Verdict: needs work, and all of it is fixable.

How it works

Four steps, no mystery.

  1. 01

    The free audit

    You get the written report card either way. Keep it, shop it around, or do the fixes yourself; the report is yours no matter what.

  2. 02

    A fixed price

    One number, in writing, before work starts: small fixes from $80, full builds from $750. No hourly meter.

  3. 03

    The build

    You watch it come together at a private preview link, and change anything you want along the way.

  4. 04

    Launch & handover

    The domain sits in your name from day one. I hand you the keys with a plain-English checklist, and no plan or monthly bill follows you out the door. Need me later? Hit me back.

Concept redesigns

What broken looks like, and the fix.

Drag the brass handle. These are anonymized concepts drawn straight from audit findings, not client work I'm claiming. This column fills with real launches as I ship them.

Pictures only prove so much. See the working pieces and click them yourself.

BeforeConcept

The longtime florist

From the audit ledger: a florist in business for generations with zero online ordering, while wire services keep a cut of every routed sale. The concept cuts out the middleman, with same-day delivery ordered straight from the shop.

The pet resort

The audit caught this one's live homepage showing the developer's own to-do notes, spelling errors included. So the concept is calm and booking-first, with nothing on the page the owner didn't put there.

BeforeConcept
BeforeConcept

The invisible IT shop

An IT support company with no website at all, so referrals who searched found nothing. The concept answers with three pages that prove someone competent picks up the phone.

The rented-out cafe

This cafe's own web address silently forwards to an ordering platform, so every link a customer shares carries the platform's brand and the platform's fees. The concept puts their domain back to serving their shop, at counter prices.

BeforeConcept
BeforeConcept

The unreachable salon

Found in the audit: a call button on the phone version that dials nothing, and a secure address that fails its certificate check, so browsers warn people away. The concept isn't clever: one working call button, and a padlock that holds.

The two-number tavern

Two different phone numbers on the same page, both plain text, neither one tappable, and nobody knows which one rings the bar. The concept answers with a single number that taps, and tonight's hours up top.

BeforeConcept

3D modeling & visualization

Give customers the whole picture.

Some things deserve more than a flat photograph. Custom 3D models bring your products, spaces, and ideas into view, with considered materials, lighting, and detail that help customers understand what makes them yours.

I use Blender for custom modeling and polished renders, and Unity to bring those assets into interactive 3D experiences. That might mean a product presentation, a dimensional version of your logo, or a space customers can explore. We choose the tools and format around your project, with the scope and price agreed in writing before work starts.

Explore the studio's 3D mark

Expert human writing

Your story, thoughtfully told.

Every word on your website can be written by an expert human author. From the opening headline to your service pages, product descriptions, and articles, professional writing gives your business a clear, confident voice that sounds like you.

The work starts with your experience: what you do, who you help, and the details your customers care about. An author shapes that knowledge into original, considered copy, and you review it before it goes live. Choose help with a single page or have the whole site written for you; the writing scope and price are agreed up front.

Let's talk about your content

Pricing

Plain numbers, in writing.

Prices are based on the estimated hours of work your project requires, including its features, content, and complexity. You'll receive a fixed written quote before work starts. Any changes to the agreed scope will be priced for your approval before extra work begins.

Site migration: $750–2,000. Ready to move away from Wix or WordPress? I'll rebuild your existing page as a fast, independent website, keeping the wording you already have. The price depends on how much content needs to move and what's involved in the rebuild. You'll get a fixed quote before work starts, and the finished site will be yours.

Business

Room to grow

$1,200–3,000

For restaurants, salons, and local businesses that need more than a place to list their hours. A website you can update yourself, with ordering or booking connected to the service you use.

  • A design built around your services, your customers, and the way you work
  • Connection to your ordering or booking service, agreed in your quote
  • Update your hours, menus, and photos without calling a developer
  • Local search setup, from your Google Business Profile to the details on your site
  • A database behind the site when the work calls for one, for bookings, orders, or records you need to keep
  • Business email on Google Workspace or an equivalent, set up in your name, with the domain records that keep it out of spam
  • The slow setup done for you: domain and DNS, hosting and email accounts, analytics, and every password handed over at the end
Start with the free audit

Starter

$750–1,200

One to three pages that help people understand what you do and get in touch. A good fit for a local trade or small business that needs a straightforward site, with clear services, up-to-date hours, and a phone number that's easy to tap.

Premium

$2,500+

Real e-commerce, multi-location, or fully custom builds, quoted precisely after the audit.

Small fixes

$80–550

priced by the amount of work · no rebuild required

Not everything needs a rebuild. Maybe the phone number is wrong, or the number is right but a phone can't tap it. One fix is $80, a short list is $295, a full day of them is $550, and the exact number comes out of your audit report, fixed in writing before anything starts.

Beyond the website

$95 callout

first hour on site · within 25 miles · credited to work booked that visit

A website is rarely the only thing that needs a hand. I also do the systems work behind it: servers and backups, email and domain records, network and Wi-Fi, and the physical end of it, mounting, cabling and setting up the actual hardware on site.

The callout is $95. That covers getting to you anywhere within 25 miles of Greensburg and the first hour on site working out what is actually wrong. If you book the work while I am there, the $95 comes off that invoice. Further out than 25 miles, we agree the travel before I leave, so it is settled in advance rather than added afterwards. Everything past the first hour is quoted per job in writing, because a single switch in a closet and a five-machine office are not the same visit.

Accessibility isn't an add-on here. Every page I build works from a keyboard and holds its contrast, and it reads properly in a screen reader, as part of the normal job rather than an upgrade sold back to you. If you need an existing site brought up to that standard, that's ordinary work I can quote.

Healthcare practices: what I do and don't take on. I don't sign business associate agreements, and I don't build anything that collects, stores, or transmits patient information. What I do build is the public side: the pages that tell people who you are, where you are, and how to reach you. Scheduling and anything clinical stays in the system you already run, which is where the agreements you have already signed apply.

That covers most small practices, and it is worth saying plainly rather than in fine print. If your project does need a site that handles patient information, I am not the right person to build it. I will tell you that before you pay me anything and point you at someone for whom it is ordinary work.

How the bill works

Due in 7 days

fixed fee · work report enclosed · card, Apple Pay or Google Pay

Every invoice is the fixed fee from your quote, not hours multiplied by a rate. Your quote says whether that is one payment when the site goes live, or a deposit up front and the balance at launch. Each invoice comes with a work report: a dated record of what was done each day and how long it took, shown so you can see what you paid for.

Payment is due seven days after the invoice date, through Stripe's secure checkout on a link set to the exact amount, one payment, with the receipt sent to your inbox. The price includes any Pennsylvania sales tax. Anything I have agreed to include at no charge, such as small changes for a set period, is printed on the invoice with its date, so the promise sits on the same page as the number. The AI tools I use along the way are listed in the report and never charged.

See the payment page

After launch: no plan

$0/mo

security patches · content updates · SSL and domain renewals · Google Workspace admin · Google Business Profile fixes · small integrations · audit and repair

I do not sell care plans or retainers. When the build is paid, the site, the domain, and every password are yours, and the bill stops. You get a plain-English checklist for keeping it running, and the hosting it sits on is either free or a few dollars a month paid straight to the host, in your name, not to me.

Need something later, a broken form, a page of new prices, a site someone else built that has gone wrong? Hit me back. I quote that job by itself, in writing, before it starts, and when it is done we are square again. One and done, every time. I would rather earn the next job than bill you for a month where nothing happened.

Read the terms before you commit

The other way this gets sold

Some agencies sell websites as subscriptions now: hundreds of dollars a month, every month, on a hosted builder with no supported way to move the site anywhere else. Stop paying and the site can come down; leaving can mean rebuilding from scratch. The numbers on this page work the other way: your price is fixed in writing before work begins, and once it's paid, everything is in your name, from the domain down to the last password.

Already have a written quote from another local studio? If you're free to share it, I'll compare it with mine and explain what's included in each. If I can do the same work for less, I'll put that price in writing. If their offer is the better fit, I'll tell you. For perspective, a $300 monthly fee adds up to $10,800 over three years. My Business package is $1,200 to $3,000 for the build, with ownership handed over to you. Hosting, service fees, and any later work should be compared separately. Run the same multiplication on any monthly "AI optimization" plan.

Est. Westmoreland Co.Laurel Web StudioWebsites that get you booked

Who's behind this

One person. Every pixel.

I started this the unglamorous way. One July I worked through two dozen local business websites, one at a time: the florist, the pizzeria, the pet resort, the funeral home. I used each site the way a customer would, on a phone, and wrote down exactly where it lost me. In August I tightened the method, retired the pilot numbers, and did it properly:5 counties across western PA and northern WV. The ledger now holds 165 businesses.

Of those, 27 had no site of their own at all, and 27 more were failing outright, with dead domains and wrong phone numbers, or a page that loads blank. Only 42 of the 165 passed clean. The rest were quietly handing customers to whoever showed up properly in a search.

That's the gap I work in. Big agencies won't touch Main Street budgets, and template farms ship the same brochure to everyone. I build locally for a fixed price, and I wrote every animation on this page.

Before any of this I spent ten years in the United States Marine Corps as an aircrewman and aviation quality assurance mechanic. The habits carried over: show up early, tell the truth, finish the job. I went back to school for IT in 2020 and started working professionally in 2022.

The day job is level-two IT support and systems administration: Linux and Windows server environments, Azure and Google Workspace, enterprise identity, basic network security, and a support desk where every ticket is a real person who needs a real answer. The certifications behind that include Microsoft's Azure Security Engineer Associate, Fortinet network security, and Google's IT support, security, networking, and Workspace administration certificates. This studio itself runs on Cloudflare, Google Workspace, and Stripe, and your website gets held to the standard the day job demands: patched and backed up, with someone actually watching it.

Nobody smart works alone, and I know exactly who to call. Heavier engineering, Python, JavaScript, or SQL, goes to one of two contracted developers I have worked with before. Photography, video, and anything media related goes to an audio-visual professional on contract. When the message itself needs sharpening, a contracted marketing professional reads it. So four sets of hands may touch your job, all held to one standard, but you deal with one person: me.

No staff, no sales deck, no photo of me shaking hands at a ribbon cutting. A desk in Westmoreland County and strong opinions about how your website should treat your customers.

One more thing. That A− in the top corner of this page grades this very site. Tap it and read the margin notes I left on my own work, deductions included.

The person who answers when you call

Questions

Fair questions.

Something I didn't cover? Email me and you'll get an answer from a person, usually the same day.

Who really owns the website?

You do. The domain is registered in your name and the files are yours, and at launch every password gets handed over with them. If we ever part ways, everything goes with you.

I already have a website.

Then you might be ahead. The free audit grades what's there. Across 165 audited businesses, some sites needed replacing and some just needed small fixes. One in four needed nothing at all, and if yours is one of those, I'll tell you that in writing.

What if I'm working with a smaller budget?

If your site mostly works, small fixes start at $80. A Starter site is $750 to $1,200 for one to three pages. I'll explain what fits your budget and give you a fixed quote before any work begins.

Will this actually bring me customers?

A website can't rescue a struggling business, and I won't pretend otherwise. What it does is stop the silent losses: when someone searches for you at 9pm, they find your hours and a way to book instead of a dead domain or nothing at all.

Do you only build websites?

The website is the storefront; I also set up the plumbing behind it, and a fair bit further back than that. Hosting, business email on Google Workspace, Stripe so you can take cards and send payment links, and the domain and DNS wiring that holds it all together. Past the website: the software subscriptions a business actually runs on, cloud infrastructure on Azure when something needs to live somewhere bigger than a web host, and the physical side too, networking, workstations, and the gear in the back room. Every engagement includes a security pass over the accounts and the site, with a written report of exactly what I checked. You get one person and one written quote, and every account ends up owned by you, with my access surviving only where you want ongoing help.

Is there a monthly plan I have to sign?

No. There's no care plan and no retainer, and nothing renews on its own. You pay once for the work, the site and every account end up in your name, and we're square. If something breaks later or you want a change, hit me back and I'll quote that job on its own. I'd rather you come back because the work was good than because leaving is expensive.

The next step

Let's look at your website together.

A free written audit of your current site, or a clear starting point if you don't have one. The form takes about two minutes, and the report comes back in plain English. You owe nothing at any point.

01: you send it · 02: I review it · 03: report card in your inbox. A call only if you ask.

Goes straight to me; I reply within one business day. Privacy

Rather not type? Call (724) 201-9103 (it rings a person, not a menu) or text me a screenshot of your site

Or skip the form

Grab a time that suits you.

A thirty-minute phone call instead of the form. Bring your website address; you do not need anything else.

Calendar not loading? Call or text (724) 201-9103 and we'll find a time.

Based in Western PA · working remotely anywhere in the US