Website FAQ

Website questions, answered before the build starts.

These are the terms we work to: who owns the site, how your own people keep it current after handoff, what a website can do for the business, how a build gets scoped and quoted, and how websites relate to the applied AI work.

Ownership and control

Who owns what

Do we own the site?

Yes, from the start. The domain, the hosting account, and the site’s code repository are in your company’s name, and the repository lives in your own GitHub organization. Your people hold the admin and billing control, and we work through access you grant us instead of asking for your passwords. At handoff we check that the site publishes from your accounts, then remove our access to publish.

Do we need to pay someone every month?

Not us. The hosting account, the domain, and the AI assistant your people use are yours, so anything those providers charge bills to you directly, and there’s nothing to pay us each month to keep the site running. Cadence, our optional support for AI systems, doesn’t include website upkeep. The site is built so your own people keep it current, and the training before handoff is there to make sure they can.

After handoff

Keeping it current yourselves

Who keeps the site current after launch?

Your own people do. One or two people on your team run the site after handoff, usually the same Champions who own your AI work. When you earn a certification, add a capability, or change your hours, the person handling that change updates the site too. They work with the setup we build in: written instructions in the repository that an AI assistant follows, company facts in one file, page templates that write the search markup, and automatic checks that stop a broken page from publishing. Small text edits also work in GitHub’s web editor.

Do we need to know how to code?

No. The person making changes needs to describe what should change and check that the result is right, and we train them on the rest. The assistant works from the site’s instructions, and when a page is missing its search markup, the build stops and says what’s missing.

What does someone on our team need to make changes?

A GitHub login with access to your repository, and an AI assistant to describe changes to. Small text edits need only the GitHub login. We help set up their access and train them before handoff.

How do we know the handoff worked?

One of your people makes a real change to the site on their own, start to finish, and that’s the test. Once they have, we complete a documented handoff: the accounts, the repository, the written instructions, and the operating documentation are in your hands, and our access to publish is removed.

What if we need something new built later?

That’s a new project. Something like a customer login, a searchable catalog, or a connection to a new system gets scoped and quoted on its own, and you approve it before any work starts. Everyday changes stay with your people, and we don’t take on ongoing website maintenance.

What it can do

Functionality and forms

What can a website do besides describe us?

It can take in work. An RFQ form can collect drawings, quantities, materials, and the due date, and service requests, maintenance requests, and job applications can arrive with what the next person needs. It can hold a catalog of your parts, products, or capabilities, with the spec sheets and certifications your customers and your own staff look for, and answer the questions buyers ask before they call, written so search engines and AI answer engines can read them. Bigger tools, like a customer login for order documents and certifications, a searchable catalog, a scheduling tool, or an internal board of incoming requests, are possible too, and we scope those separately.

Can a form feed our quoting, scheduling, or maintenance process?

It can be built that way. We start with what the next step needs, then shape the form to collect it and send it where it goes: the right inbox, a chat channel, a CRM, a quoting or scheduling system, or a maintenance queue. Connecting to another system is scoped as its own piece of work. If that system doesn’t exist yet, we shape the form so connecting it later is a smaller job.

Scope and build

Cost, scope, content, and migration

What does a website cost?

Each build is scoped and quoted in writing, and we don’t publish a price. You get a free written read of your current site first, then a conversation, then a written quote against the sitemap, content plan, and functionality we agree on. A focused rebuild and a site that takes quote requests into your quoting process are different jobs. Custom applications, e-commerce, databases, and material additions after approval are scoped separately.

How many pages are included?

There is no page cap. The approved sitemap and content plan set the scope. A company that needs service, industry, product, quality, and educational pages shouldn’t be squeezed into five pages, and a focused company may only need eight good ones.

Do you write new content or move the old site over?

Both. We keep the useful material you already have, then research and write what’s missing. Company-specific facts and technical claims go back to you to confirm before anything is published.

How many rounds of revisions are there?

The number of revision rounds on the private preview is written into the quote, and we send any changed facts back to you for confirmation. New pages or features after approval are scoped separately.

How long does a build take?

It depends on how quickly source material arrives, how long fact checks and scope approval take, and how the review rounds go, so we don’t promise a date up front. Once the source material is in and the scope is approved, we can tell you how the schedule looks.

Will we lose the search standing our current site has?

Before we change anything, we inventory every current URL and decide what happens to each one. Useful URLs stay where they are, anything that moves gets a permanent redirect, and at launch we submit the new sitemap to Google and Bing. No migration can guarantee rankings, but losing URLs by accident is preventable.

Do you guarantee Google rankings?

No. We make the content useful and the technical setup correct, with clear titles, search markup, sitemaps, an llms.txt file, redirects, and verified submissions to Google and Bing. Search engines and AI answer engines decide what they index, rank, and cite.

Websites and AI

How this relates to the AI work

Do we have to rebuild our website before working with you on AI?

No. A website is not required before AI work. If your site already does its job, we say so and start with the systems, processes, and knowledge work inside the business.

Is the What We Noticed note a plan for AI work?

No. What We Noticed is a short note we send during a build about process opportunities we could see from your content and our conversations. A plan for AI work comes from time on site with your team. If something in the note interests you, the next step is a free conversation, and if there’s a real path from there, it’s usually a working session with the people who do the work, which is typically free too. If you want a full written plan before anything else, we also offer an Opportunity Assessment: half a day to a full day on site, then a written plan you keep either way.

Start with the free read.

The read tells you whether your current site deserves attention right now, with dated findings you can check yourself.

Conversations are always free.