A website that is actually yours.
I build custom websites for small businesses, one at a time. The domain is registered in your name, and the price is fixed before any work starts.
Every site comes with
Three things, every time. And the rest in writing, so nothing comes up later.
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Built for you
Every page is designed and written for your business, not adapted from a theme. No page builder, no plugins, nobody else with the same site in another colour.
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Found, and fast
Your trade, your town and your services, written so Google can read them from day one. Nothing loads from anyone else's servers: no trackers, no cookie banner, and pages that open instantly.
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Yours to keep
The domain is registered in your name and you hold the logins, and I host the site for you. No monthly licence, no platform to be locked into. If you ever move on, the whole site goes with you.
Always included
- Works on phones, tablets and desktops
- Contact form straight to your inbox
- Your number, one tap to call
- HTTPS and the security headers browsers check for
- A 404 page and a privacy policy
- Sitemap and robots file, so Google finds every page
- Submitted to Google the day it goes live, so it does not wait to be found
- Fonts from your own site: no trackers, no cookie banner
- Live on your own domain, in your name
If you need it
- More languages, each with its own pages so they show up on Google
- Your photos sorted out: chosen, cropped, colour-corrected and captioned, and sized to stay sharp on every screen
- Writing the text for you, from rough notes or a conversation
- Replacing a site you already have, so the pages Google knows keep working
- The booking tool you already use, linked or built into the page
- A video at the top of the page, prepared from footage you already have
Each one quoted on its own line, so you can leave out what you do not need.
What I don't do
Online shops, photography, logo design, and booking systems of my own.
How it works
Six steps, and you always know where the project is and what it costs.
We talk
You tell me what you do. I send you a price range and a timeline, usually the same day.
The questions
A questionnaire about your business: fifteen minutes, rough notes are fine, and I come back with a short question on anything you leave blank.
A concept first
For most projects I build a small piece of the real site before you commit: a page with your words and your photos, not a sketch.
Fixed quote
With the direction agreed, a settled price, itemised. 30% to start, the rest before it goes live. Two rounds of changes on the look and two on the words.
I build it
The rest of the site, built on the look you have already approved. When it is ready you see the whole thing, and you send me everything you would change in one go.
Live
About two weeks after your text and photos arrive, on your domain, in your name.
Who you are talking to
Solva is one person. I design and build every site myself, one project at a time, and you always know who you are dealing with.
I work from Sophia Antipolis, in English, French and Dutch, with clients wherever they are. I answer my own email, usually the same day, and I do not disappear once a site is live.
I will also tell you when something is a bad idea. If a website is not what your business needs right now, you will hear it from me before you have paid for one.
Do you actually need a website?
People can only choose you if they can find you.
When someone needs what you do, they search for it. They choose from what they find. Your followers already know you. A website is how everyone else finds you.
It is where they decide.
Being found is only the first step. Then people want to see what you do, what it costs, your work, and what your customers say. A website holds all of that in one place. A social page cannot.
It turns a visitor into a phone call.
One tap to call you, to message you on WhatsApp, to book, or to ask a price. It works at night and at the weekend, when you are not there to answer. A website is not only something to look at. It brings in work.
Look at what your competitors have.
Often it is an old Facebook page, or nothing at all. A clear website, built for your business rather than picked from a template, is enough to stand out where you are.
Questions people ask
The things worth knowing before you send a message.
What does a website cost?
Every site is quoted for the job rather than sold as a package: it depends on the number of pages, the languages, and whether you already have your text and photos.
Tell me what you have in mind and you get a price range in my first reply, usually the same day. Once I understand the project you get a fixed, itemised quote, so you can see what each part costs and drop what you do not need. 30% starts the work, the rest is due before it goes live. If you ask for something new once we have started, I price it before I do it, not after.
How long does it take?
About two weeks of building, counted from the day your text and photos reach me rather than the day you say yes. A bigger site, or one in several languages, takes longer, and your quote gives you the date. The waiting is almost always for content, not for building. If you would rather I wrote the text from your notes, add a little more.
Do you use WordPress, Wix or Squarespace?
No. Every site is written by hand: no plugins to keep updated, no monthly licence, nothing that breaks on its own six months later, and nothing that disappears the month you stop paying for it.
Nothing is loaded from anybody else's servers either, so there is no tracking and no cookie banner to click past. The one exception is a booking calendar from another company: if you want yours built into the page rather than linked, I will tell you what it adds before it goes in.
Will I come up on Google?
Everything that lets Google read and list your site is built in: your trade and your town in the words, page titles, a sitemap, and a site fast enough on a phone. It is submitted for indexing the day it goes live. That is part of the price, not an extra.
Where you land against everyone else is a slower job, and nobody honest will promise you a position. For a shop or a restaurant most of it happens on your Google profile rather than on the site.
I already have a site. Does anything stop working while you change it over?
No. Your email keeps running exactly as it does now: pointing a domain at a new site means changing the settings for the website, and the ones that carry your mail are not touched.
The old site stays up until the new one is live and answering, and every page Google already knows is sent to its equivalent on the new site, so nothing that used to work comes back as an error.
Who actually owns the site?
You do. The domain is registered in your name, not mine, and you hold the logins. I keep the site on my hosting account so there is nothing for you to manage. If you ever want to work with somebody else, you take the whole thing with you: it is plain files that run anywhere, and there is nothing to unpick.
What if I do not like the design?
You see the look before the whole site exists: the top of the homepage and one real section, built with your words and your photos rather than sketched. That is the moment to say the colours are wrong or it does not feel like your business, while starting again costs an afternoon instead of a week.
After that, two rounds of changes on the look and two on the words are included in the price.
I already have a Facebook page. Do I need a site as well?
They do different jobs. A Facebook page is where people who already follow you see your news. A website is what comes up when somebody who has never heard of you searches for what you do, and it is the one you own: a page on somebody else's platform can change its rules, or disappear, without asking you.
Can you write the text for me?
Yes, and it is quoted as its own line so you can see what it costs. You give me rough notes or we talk it through, I write it from that, and you correct anything that does not sound like you.
What do I need to have ready?
Four things, none of them finished. Your text, or rough notes I can write it from. Your photos, straight off the camera or the phone rather than pulled from Facebook, because those come out too small. Your logo, the original file if you still have it. And your domain name if you have one, or the login to wherever it is registered.
Photos are what holds a project up, every time, so send everything in one go rather than a few at a time.
Do you only work with businesses near you?
No. Nothing about a project needs us in the same room: the questions, the look, the rounds of changes and going live all happen at a distance, and mostly in writing. I work in English, French and Dutch, and another language is possible, translated properly and read by a native speaker before it goes live.
Can I change the text myself?
There is no admin panel to log into, and that is deliberate: it is what keeps the site fast, secure and free of anything that needs updating.
You do not have to learn anything either. Send me the new wording and it is usually live the same day. Changes are by the hour, quoted before I start them.
What happens after the site goes live?
Nothing you have to do. It keeps working on its own, with nothing to update and nothing to patch. And if something on it ever stops working, fixing that is on me: a fix is not a change.
There is no monthly fee. The only thing you renew is your domain name, once a year, paid direct to whoever you bought it from.
Changes later are done by the hour, quoted before I start them.
Tell me what you have in mind.
A message is enough. I reply with a price range and a timeline, with no commitment and no chasing.