Everything you might want to ask

Yes, and there's no catch. Reach out with a bit about your business, answer a few quick questions — maybe a short call — and we design you three concepts for the homepage of your new website at no cost, so you can see the direction before you commit to one. If you love one, custom sites start at $600 to build and go live. If none of them are for you, no problem and no cost.

The concepts are free. Custom sites start at $600 to build and go live, and a monthly plan keeps it hosted and cared for: Monthly Care at $25/month (hosting, security, backups, and uptime monitoring), Monthly Care Plus at $50/month (adds small content updates we make for you each month), and Monthly Pro at $100/month (adds regular content updates and a monthly traffic report). All plans are month-to-month — cancel any time with 30 days' notice. The $600 is our price for a site we host and look after; if you'd rather host it elsewhere, we'll quote that separately.

A custom-designed, mobile-responsive business website: a home page plus the standard sections a local business needs — services, about, and contact — written and laid out around your business, using your photos and copy. It includes a working contact form, click-to-call, your Google reviews where you have them, the search-engine basics (titles, descriptions, sitemap, schema), and setup on your domain with HTTPS. You see the design as three free concepts first.

Scope. The starting price covers a standard business site; the things that add to it are extra pages beyond the core set, online booking or scheduling, e-commerce or online ordering, customer logins or portals, a blog set up for you to post to, multi-location or multi-language versions, custom integrations with software you already use, and content work like photography or copywriting we produce rather than place. We quote anything extra before we build it, so the number never moves after you have agreed it.

No, but the starting price assumes it. $600 is our price for a site we host and look after on a month-to-month plan, which is how it stays online, patched and backed up. If you would rather host it somewhere else, say so up front and we will quote that separately.

No. The free concepts carry no contract and no obligation. If you move forward, the build takes your site live and your monthly plan runs month-to-month — cancel any time with 30 days' notice.

Yes. Plans are month-to-month — cancel any time with 30 days' notice. No penalties, no fine print.

Your plan ends at the close of the notice period and the site comes off our hosting. You keep your domain, your content and your brand — they were always yours — and we export a static copy of the finished site so you or another developer can host it anywhere. What does not transfer is the site's code as a living project or the hosting setup around it, which stay licensed to you while you're on a plan. Nothing is deleted without telling you first.

Credit/debit card or ACH bank transfer on a recurring monthly basis. We'll set it up during onboarding.

Yes. Upgrades take effect immediately and are prorated. Downgrades take effect at the start of your next billing cycle.

Usually about 5 business days from kickoff. We start with a one-page demo built around your business, refine it together, then expand and launch.

A logo if you have one (we can mock one if not), a short description of what you do, photos if you have them, your hours, and a list of services with rough pricing. We handle the rest.

Yes. We'll point your domain to the new site and leave your existing email setup alone — DNS records for email are preserved when we move things over.

Always. The first deliverable is a private preview URL. Nothing replaces your existing site until you've reviewed it and signed off.

Anything that takes us under about 30 minutes: text changes, photo swaps, hours/services/prices updates, posting an announcement bar. New page builds, design changes, and feature additions are quoted separately. Small updates like these are included on Monthly Care Plus (a few each month) and Monthly Pro (regular updates); Monthly Care is hosting and monitoring only.

On Monthly Care Plus we make your small updates each month, and Monthly Pro gets priority turnaround. Monthly Care covers hosting and monitoring; updates there are quoted as needed.

You own your content, your brand, and your domain. We license the site code and hosting infrastructure for the term of your plan. If you leave, we'll export a static snapshot of your site so you can host it elsewhere.

No. Email and websites are different services and we don't want to be the wrong person to call when email breaks. We recommend Google Workspace ($6/user/month) and we'll wire DNS so it keeps working when we move your domain.

Not as part of these plans. We can add a booking link to a third-party tool like Calendly or Square Appointments. Anything more involved — Shopify, custom inventory, complex booking — is outside our scope, and we'll happily refer you.

It's a one-time foundation: Google Business Profile claim and optimization, sitemap, schema markup, meta descriptions, NAP (name/address/phone) consistency check, and Search Console + Analytics setup. Basic search-engine setup comes with every build; the fuller local-SEO groundwork is available as a one-time add-on. It's the technical groundwork that makes ranking possible — not a monthly campaign.

No, and anyone who guarantees that is misleading you. We do the technical work that makes ranking possible — content, structure, profiles, page speed. Where you actually land depends on your competition, your reviews, and time.

Those help people find you, but they're rented ground — the platform decides what visitors see, which competitors show up next to your name, and whether your page stays up. A website is the one place online you own and control. It's also what makes the profiles work harder: 84% of consumers searched online for a local business in the last three months, and 75% judge a business's credibility by its website. The profile gets you found; the website is what convinces them to call you instead of the next listing.

Skilled trades (electricians, plumbers, HVAC, contractors, landscapers), solo healthcare practices (dentists, chiropractors, optometrists), professional services (accountants, insurance agents, tutors, photographers), and specialty retail. Brochure-style sites where the goal is to look professional and get a phone call.

LocalForge is based in San Jose, CA, but we work with local businesses anywhere in the US. Everything we do is online and over the phone, so where you're located doesn't matter — we've built and maintained sites for businesses in all kinds of towns and cities across the country.

Yes — we host live examples at *.demo.localforgesites.com. Tell us your industry on the contact form and we'll point you to the closest match.

Before launch, we iterate until it's right — that's what the demo phase is for. After launch, Monthly Care Plus and Monthly Pro include small updates each month to keep it improving; Monthly Care is hosting and monitoring, and updates there are quoted as needed. If something fundamental isn't working, we'll redesign it at no extra cost while you're on a plan.

Our sites follow modern accessibility best practices: semantic HTML, alt text on images, sufficient contrast, keyboard navigation. We don't formally certify ADA compliance — that requires a paid audit by a third party — but the foundation is solid.