Web Development
Web Development Services: Hand-Coded, Plugin-Free, Built to Last
Web development services from me mean code you can open and read. It's hand-built and plugin-free, and it runs on Cloudflare-class hosting instead of a page-builder theme with your logo on top. I've been building websites since 1998. You're reading this page on a site I built that way.
Web Development Services Start With Your ZIP
That means fast, clean code built to hold up. Give me your ZIP and I'll tell you what a build looks like.
On this page
What's included
What Web Development Services Include
I built my first website in 1998, GoldenEye cheat codes in Dreamweaver, my dad looking over my shoulder. The tools have changed. What a visitor feels when a page hangs on a phone hasn't. Below is the layer nobody reads and everybody feels, and I write all of it myself, front end and back end.
Hand-Coded, Plugin-Free Front End
I write every page in plain HTML and CSS, and JavaScript loads only where something moves.
Fast by Default, Not Bolted on After
Speed is easier to build in than to add, like laying a drip line before planting, so I skip unused CSS and blocking scripts.
Cloudflare-Class Hosting and a Global CDN
Each page comes from the edge location closest to the visitor, so nobody waits on one server in one building. This site runs that way.
Security Built Into the Code, Not Patched on Top
The site uses HTTPS everywhere and the security headers are set on day one, so there is no admin login at an address anyone can guess. Most of the breaches I've been called in on came from a plugin nobody had updated in two years.
SEO-Ready Architecture From the First Line
Because I plan the site's structure before page one, headings run in order and the markup labels each part. Crawlers and answer engines read plain text.
API and CMS Integrations That Fit Your Process
A hand-coded front end connects to your WordPress or booking system. I write the back end only when nothing fits and map old addresses when a site moves.
Your Site, Your Code, Your Domain
Your domain, hosting account, content and data stay yours. The code comes under a license, and owning it outright comes only through a signed licensing agreement or a custom quote.
The process
How I Deliver a Web Development Project, Step by Step
Order matters more than speed on a build, and that holds for every build.
I sketch my garden beds on paper before any seed goes in, and a site needs the same. Every build runs through seven steps in order.
- Planning starts on paper. What the site has to do, and for whom, gets written down before any code exists, and a schedule comes out of that.
- Then the front end, hand-coded and measured against Core Web Vitals page by page as it comes together, not once at the end.
- Back-end work and any API or CMS connection come next, built against the front end so the two never disagree.
- Hardening comes before launch, never after something breaks. HTTPS and the caching rules get set and tested with the CDN already in front of the site.
- Testing is done by hand at every width from a small phone up. One screenshot at one browser width tells me very little.
- Launch day arrives with the SEO groundwork already in the code, so there's no separate optimization pass afterward.
- After launch I check back monthly for three months. I'm looking at whether the site is indexed and how it holds up under live traffic.
Design vs. development
Web Design vs. Web Development: What the Difference Means for You
People lump the two together all the time. Design is what a visitor sees and moves through, and development is the code that makes it run.
- Design covers layout and typography, plus the path a visitor walks.
- I build the speed and structure, plus the parts nobody notices until they break, and I do both.
- You lose nothing between them.
At most firms a web development company passes a mockup from a designer to a developer, with a project manager between them, and you read status updates trying to work out what changed. Every handoff loses something, and by the time the loss turns up in a review call the layout has usually been signed off already.
I once got handed a mockup whose full-screen hero image hid the contact form on a phone. With one person on both halves, I argue out layout and code together.
Layout and code get argued out at one desk, and whichever one would have hurt the visitor loses.
Try view-source on your own site. If the words a visitor reads aren't in that file, the page is built by JavaScript in the browser, and a search engine has to do extra work just to see what a visitor sees. Google's own documentation on JavaScript SEO says as much, and it's a large part of why my pages arrive readable the moment they load.
Reload a page with the browser's Network tab open and the totals at the bottom show how many requests it made and how much data it moved. The outside scripts it pulled in are listed in the same tab. Ask any builder for those figures on their own work and compare the answers. Run it on this page first. I'd sooner you checked than took my word for it.
Once the site is solid, the next question is whether it stays a marketing site or grows into a tool your customers log into. That is app development services, which gets its own page. A full visual overhaul lives on the web design services page.
Who this is for
Who Web Development Services Are for, and What Changes Either Way
This suits a business whose current site works against it, or one that needs something no template can do.
- Reactive owners call because the site broke or got hacked.
- Planned projects start with a relaunch or a product line the old site can't carry.
- Plugin fees and emergency-rebuild bills tend to arrive after launch, never in the quote.
- Hand-coded rebuilds sometimes erase a monthly plugin fee the owner had forgotten about.
One owner called after a customer wrote on Facebook that the contact form never answered. A plugin update caused it.
Plenty of sites need surgery instead of a rebuild, and I'll say so when yours does.
Boundaries
What I Don't Do — the Boundaries of Web Development Services
Development covers plenty, but it has edges, and these are mine.
Four limits hold on every project.
No Guaranteed Rankings
Good code makes a site easy for a crawler to read, but it can't promise a position, because Google changes its mind and doesn't ask me first. So I don't promise one.
No Page-Builder Plugin Stacks Sold as Custom
Sometimes an off-the-shelf CMS fits, and I'll say so. A dozen plugins on a theme isn't custom development.
No Blind Takeover of Undocumented Legacy Code
Inherited code gets read end to end before I touch a line of it. A quick fix on top of undocumented decisions turns into a week of untangling, and I've lived through that week.
No Payment-Processing Build Without a Licensed Partner
Card handling and checkout go to a licensed partner because of PCI scope and liability. I stay your one point of contact.
Here’s what I build for you.
Audit
See what's happening today
Build
Do the work that moves the number
Prove
Show the data, not promises
A few things I build:
- Web Design Services
- Website Maintenance Services
- Website Redesign Services
- WordPress Web Design Services
- Landing Page Design Services
- Website Speed Optimization Services
- App Development Services
- SaaS Development Services
- Website Compliance Services
- UI UX Design Services
- Small Business Web Design
- Responsive Web Design Services
- API Integration Services
15 straight answers
Frequently Asked Questions
These only live on this page. If yours isn't here, ask me below.
What Web Development Services Means Here
What's Included in the Build, Exactly?
Everything underneath the pages, front to back. That covers the hand-written code and any database or API connection your business needs, and the security and speed work gets done before launch on Cloudflare-class hosting, which is the layer nobody reads and everybody feels the moment a page drags or breaks. I write all of it, and because one person writes the front end and the back end, neither one gets built around limits the other side never heard about. So the site you get is one build from one person, and it is the same kind of build as the site you are reading now.
Do You Build the Whole Back End, or Just the Front End?
Both, when the project calls for it. Because one person writes the front end and the back end, neither gets built around limits the other side never heard about. Plenty of projects only need the front end, and I'll say so when yours does.
What Does Hand-Coded Mean, and Why Does It Matter?
It means a person wrote your pages' code and no plugin stack built it, which leaves fewer moving parts. You can read this page's code yourself.
Is Custom Web Development More Expensive Than a Template or Page-Builder Site?
Up front, sometimes. The gap narrows once you count plugin subscriptions and emergency fixes on a page-builder site, and I quote each project after I see the scope.
What's the Difference Between a Web Development Company, a Web Development Agency, and Hiring One Developer Directly?
Company and agency both usually mean a team, and every handoff inside a team is a place for detail to go missing. Hiring one developer who owns the whole stack cuts those handoffs out. That's how I work. One person answers for it all, and you hear back from me within a business day.
Hosting, Speed, and Security
What Is Cloudflare-Class Hosting, and Why Does It Matter for My Site?
Visitors get served from the network location nearest them. No single server in a single data center has to hold up under the load, which helps explain why this site, running on that setup today, loads quickly from wherever you are.
Show 9 more questions
How Much Faster Is a Hand-Coded Site Than One Built on a Page Builder?
That depends on how heavy the page-builder version is, and I won't quote a percentage I haven't measured on your site. Less generated markup and fewer plugins does mean less for a browser to download and less for a search engine to crawl. The Network tab in your browser shows the numbers, and I'll show you how to read them on the old site and the new one.
Is a Plugin-Free Site More Secure?
Generally, yes, because fewer installed pieces means fewer places for an attacker to get in. Outdated plugins and themes sit behind most of the site hacks I get called about, and a plugin-free site has almost none to fall behind. HTTPS and security headers are set on day one. No site is unhackable, and I won't tell you otherwise.
What Happens to My Site's Speed as Traffic Grows?
Cloudflare-class hosting is built to absorb spikes, and the site gets served from the network location nearest the visitor, so no single server has to hold up under the load and speed should hold steady as traffic climbs. I can't promise a number for a specific surge, and I won't quote a number I haven't measured on your site. The site gets built with that load in mind from the start, and finding a limit in testing beats finding it on your busiest day. That is what testing is for. The code keeps the speed, and the hosting keeps the speed steady.
Do You Handle the Domain and Hosting, or Do I Manage That Separately?
Whichever suits you. I can set up and run the hosting and CDN configuration as part of the build, or hand your team a fully documented setup to run on its own. The domain and the hosting account stay in your name either way, and your data exports whenever you ask.
Delivery, Legacy Code, and What's Next
Can You Take Over a Site's Code That Another Developer Built?
Yes, after an audit. Undocumented code gets read before I change any of it, because a quick fix on decisions nobody wrote down becomes a week of untangling. After the audit I'll say whether what's there is worth building on or worth replacing.
How Long Does a Typical Project Take?
Scope sets the calendar. A focused rebuild of an existing site moves faster than a new build with custom back-end connections, and content that has to migrate adds its own time to either one, so I can't give you the calendar for the site before I know the scope of the site. Both the quote and the timeline for web development services depend on the scope of the project, so I need to see the site before I give you either one. I'll give you a timeline once I've seen what the project needs, because that beats a number pulled from the air.
Do You Build Custom Payment Processing or Checkout Systems Yourself?
I don't build payment processing myself. Card handling and checkout go to a licensed partner.
What's the Difference Between This and App Development Services?
Websites and the hosting under them are the whole of this work. App development goes a step past that, into software built around one business process, on the web or on a phone. Most businesses start with the site and grow into an app only when the need is there.
Do I Need a Full Rebuild, or Can You Fix What I Already Have?
A repair covers it more often than you'd expect. Hardening what's already there is frequently the faster and cheaper win, and I decide after looking at the site itself. A bigger invoice doesn't enter into it.
Why Choose Me for Custom Web Development
I've watched a hand-coded rebuild quietly erase the monthly plugin-fee bill nobody remembered paying. I've done SEO and web design since 1998; here's the story.
What Clients Say
I don't have client reviews on this page yet; here's how I earn them.
What's Included
Web development services cover the front end and back end, plus database and API work. CMS integration and performance come next, built in from the first line of code. The internet marketing blog goes deeper on how that code decides what Google sees when it crawls the page.
If you want it straight from the source, see: JavaScript SEO basics (Google Search Central).
Let's talk
Let's Talk
Explain the feature no page builder on the market can handle, and here's how to reach me.
"Everyone is welcome. This is bigger than me."
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