Service 01
Website design & development
Turn visitors into calls, leads and customers.
A small-business website should load fast, say what you do in the first few seconds, and make the next step obvious. We design and build yours around the enquiry you want, not around a template that happens to be on offer, and you own the result outright.
A website should not just look good, it should bring in business. We make yours quick to understand, quick to load, and built so the next step is obvious.
What this helps with
- Clear messaging, so a visitor knows what you do in seconds
- Layouts that lead to calls and enquiries
- Fixing the points where people leave without doing anything
What you get
- A design you approve in full before a single line of code is written
- Every page built to work on a phone first, because that is where most of your visitors are
- Copy shaped around what a customer needs to know before they call, not around what fits the layout
- Contact and enquiry routes on every page, going to an inbox you control
- Hosting, SSL, a custom domain in your name, and professional email
- The files and the accounts, in your name, handed over whether you stay or not
Best suited to
Businesses getting traffic but no leads, and new sites that need to earn their keep
Web design by town
Each has its own page on what a website has to do there: web design in Naperville, web design in Aurora, web design in Schaumburg, web design in Oak Park, web design in Evanston, web design in Elgin, web design in Joliet, web design in Cicero, web design in Skokie, web design in Arlington Heights, web design in Wheaton, web design in Downers Grove, web design in Lisle, web design in Bolingbrook, web design in Plainfield, web design in Oswego, web design in Glen Ellyn, web design in St. Charles and web design in Oak Brook. The same studio works with businesses across Chicago and well beyond it.
How it runs
What actually happens
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01
Look at what you have
We go through the site you are on now, how fast it loads, what it ranks for and where people leave. If there is nothing yet, we look at the businesses you are competing with instead. You get the findings in writing either way, and you can stop here and keep them.
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02
Agree the design
You see the full design before development starts, and nothing is built until you have signed it off. Changes at this stage cost nothing but a conversation, which is the whole reason the step exists.
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03
Build it
The site is built to be quick and boring to host: no page builder bolted on top of a theme, no plugin stack that breaks on update. A site of this size is usually live inside twenty business days of the first payment.
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04
Launch and keep it running
We move the domain, set up email, check it on real phones, and keep it patched and monitored afterwards. If something goes down, fixing it is our problem, not a support ticket you have to chase.
What we need from you
- Whatever you already have: logo files, photos, existing copy, and the login for your current site if there is one.
- The name of one person who can approve the design. Projects stall when three people have to agree and none of them owns it.
- An hour or so of your time on the first call, describing what customers actually ask you before they buy.
- Access to your domain registrar, or the details of whoever holds it. If you do not know who that is, finding out is part of the job.
How it is measured
- How fast the site loads on a mid-range phone, as a number you can check yourself
- How many people arrive and how many of them get in touch
- Which pages people leave from without doing anything
- Whether the site is up, checked continuously rather than when you notice
What a weak website actually costs
A weak website does not announce itself. There is no error, no outage and no complaint — the enquiries that would have arrived simply do not, and the business concludes the market is quiet. That is the expensive part: it looks like nothing is wrong.
The costs are specific and measurable once you look. A page that takes four seconds to load on a phone loses a real share of visitors before they see anything. A site that does not make the next step obvious collects visits and no calls. A build nobody can update means the hours are wrong, the prices are two years old, and the service you stopped offering is still the first thing people ask about.
The other cost is trust, and it is the one owners underestimate. Somebody comparing three local businesses is looking for a reason to eliminate two of them, and a dated or slow site is the easiest reason available. You do not get told you lost on that. You just do not hear back.
The kinds of build we do
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01
A site of up to eight pages that earns its keep
Home, services, about, contact and one page that does a specific job — the offer, the area, or the question customers always ask. This is the right answer for most local businesses, and it is what Ramp is: built once, owned outright, and cheap to keep running.
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02
A lead-generation site
Built around one action rather than around a menu. Fewer pages, a stronger argument, and enquiry routes on every screen. Right when most of your customers arrive from advertising or search with a specific need already in mind.
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03
A site that has to be found as well as read
The same build with the search work designed in from the start rather than bolted on: page structure, internal links and content built around what customers actually type. Costs less than fixing it later, which is the usual alternative.
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04
A rebuild of something that already exists
Sometimes the right move is to keep what works and replace what does not. If the current site is on something maintainable we will say so and work with it. If it is a page builder stacked on a theme with forty plugins, rebuilding is genuinely cheaper than fighting it, and we will show you why rather than assert it.
What it costs
This is included in the monthly plans, which start at $149 a month and run to $349, or it can be bought on its own if a plan is more than you need. Every plan carries web hosting, professional email, custom domain name, ssl certificate, on-page seo, built to wcag 2.2 aa accessibility standards and client hub — raise anything, see where it stands. Nothing is tied to a contract, so you can stop at the end of any month and the work already paid for is finished and handed over regardless. The full breakdown, including what each tier adds, is on the pricing page.
What this is not
This is not the right service if you need a large e-commerce catalogue, a booking system with complex rules, or software rather than a website. We will say so on the first call rather than take the work and learn on your budget.
What it works with
- Local visibility & lead generation A fast, clear site is what a local search sends people to. Without the visibility work, the best site in your suburb is one nobody arrives at.
- Search engine optimisation The build decides what search engines can read. Doing the two together avoids rewriting a site six months after it launches.
Straight answers
Common questions
Sometimes. If it is built on something maintainable we will work with it and say so. If it is a page builder stacked on a theme with forty plugins, we will tell you honestly that rebuilding costs less than fighting it.
Yes, outright. The domain is registered in your name, the hosting account is yours, and the files are handed over. If you leave, nothing is held back and nothing is deleted to force a payment.
A site of up to eight pages is usually live within twenty business days of your first payment. The clock pauses whenever we are waiting on content or feedback from you, and it never runs against you for that.
No. Everything is month to month and you can stop at the end of any month. Work already paid for is finished and handed over either way.
Two separate things. Your ad budget is billed directly to your card by Google or Meta — it never passes through us and is never marked up. Our management fee for building and optimising the campaigns is 20% of monthly ad spend, with a $500 a month minimum spend, invoiced separately from your plan.
What changed, what it produced, and what we are doing next — in plain language. Calls and enquiries, not impressions.
Related reading
Guides on this
- What your site should say to a builder, and what it should say to a homeowner 7 min read
- I get all my work from word of mouth. Do I need a website? 9 min read
- The gmail address is costing you work 7 min read
- Licensed, insured, and able to prove it 8 min read
- What a page builder costs, measured on a real restaurant site 9 min read
- We measured 300 Chicago small-business websites. One in nine did not load. 13 min read
- What a website actually costs, and what you are paying for 11 min read
- The nine things a local service website needs, and what most are missing 11 min read
- Mobile-first is not a layout decision, it is where your customers are 10 min read
- How long a website actually takes, and what makes it late 9 min read
- The tools we would actually use if you were building it yourself 10 min read
- WordPress, Wix or Squarespace: which one is actually right for you 11 min read
- Landing pages, and why sending ad traffic to your homepage wastes it 11 min read
- Website accessibility, and the lawsuit letters going to small businesses 11 min read
- How to build and host a website for free, and what it actually costs you 12 min read
- Custom or template: what the difference actually buys you 10 min read
- The redesign checklist, and how businesses lose their traffic overnight 11 min read
- Who built your website, and can you still reach them? 9 min read
- What a 731 KB homepage costs you, measured on our own site 7 min read
In their words
I’ve had an excellent experience working with 99 mph. They built two websites for my business, and both turned out perfectly aligned with my brand. Their design quality, attention to detail, and technical expertise truly stand out. Beyond the websites, they manage my social media postings with creativity and consistency, keeping my audience engaged and growing. Their responsiveness is reliable. They address feedback immediately, and always provide thoughtful solutions. I highly recommend 99 mph to anyone seeking reliable, high-quality digital marketing services. Their professionalism makes every project smooth and stress free consistently.