Now booking contractors & local trades

Websites that work
as hard as you do.

Fast, professional websites for contractors and the trades — roofers, plumbers, HVAC, electricians, remodelers, landscapers. Get found when customers search, show off the work you’ve done, and make it dead simple to call or message you. Built by hand in Buffalo — and it’s yours to keep.

builds from $1,000 managed hosting from $50 / mo (cancel anytime)

Built in 2024. Still running, still theirs.

— the problem

Your website is
quietly costing
you jobs.

  1. 01

    Customers search “your trade near me” on their phone — and your competitors show up instead of you.

  2. 02

    A dated, slow, or Facebook-only page quietly sends the bigger jobs to whoever looks more established.

  3. 03

    You’re paying Wix or GoDaddy every month for a site you don’t own and can barely change.

It doesn’t have to work this way.

— the process

Five steps.
No surprise invoices.

  1. Step 01

    Intro call

    A 30-minute call to figure out what you need and whether I’m the right fit.

  2. Step 02

    Proposal

    Fixed-price scope within 48 hours. You know the number before we start.

  3. Step 03

    Design

    Real mockups — fonts, layout, every detail. Refined with you until you sign off.

  4. Step 04

    Build

    Live progress in your client portal, a weekly check-in, no surprise delays.

  5. Step 05

    Launch & own it

    Code handed over, docs included, hosting yours to choose.

— free audit

Not sure yet? Let me take a look.

A free audit of your current site — speed, mobile, SEO basics, security, and whether the platform you’re on is quietly costing you customers. Specific findings, not a sales pitch. Arrives in your inbox.

Only useful if you already have a site up somewhere. No call required.

free · no credit card · no call

— request received

Report on its way.

Check your inbox in a few minutes — and your spam folder if it doesn’t show up. Reply with questions and I’ll take another look.

— Julian

— pricing

Clear pricing.
No vague quotes.

  • The build

    Builds from $1,000 · 4 weeks · fixed price in a 48-hour proposal.

  • Managed hosting

    From $50/mo. Cancel anytime.

  • Self-hosted

    Free. The code is yours from day one.

— comparison

Side by side.

Feature Wix / Squarespace WordPress + plugins thesitenerds
You own the code Rented — you get an export, not your site Partial — tangled with plugins Yes — in your account, from day one
Monthly cost $20–$60 forever $30–$150 with plugins $0 self-hosted · $50–$350 managed
Platform lock-in Total — templates and CMS are theirs High — plugins trap you None
Custom features Limited to their widgets Limited to plugin ecosystem Whatever the business needs
Ability to leave Start over Complex plugin migration Nothing to export; it’s already yours

— frequently asked

The usual questions.

Something else? That’s what the call is for.

  • Why not Wix or Squarespace?

    Fine if you want a simple site that never has to change. But you pay monthly forever, your content lives on their servers, and the minute you need something outside their templates — custom booking, member logins, an unusual layout — you hit a wall. When that happens, you’re not upgrading; you’re starting over.

  • Why not WordPress?

    WordPress is powerful — if you’ve got a developer keeping it standing. The failure mode for most small businesses is plugin sprawl: every feature (forms, bookings, SEO, caching, security) is a separate third-party plugin, updated on its own schedule by a different vendor, each one a potential break or security hole. You either manage it yourself or hire someone to. Either way, you’re paying for custom code — just without owning it.

  • What if I don’t know exactly what I want yet?

    Most people don’t. The call is where we turn “I need a website” into “here’s what the site should actually do.” Bring the business, bring what you’ve tried before, bring the frustrations — we’ll work out the shape together. I’d rather help define the right project than build the wrong one.

  • How does the timeline actually work?

    The clock starts at project kickoff — contract signed, deposit paid, content and materials delivered. Two rounds of revisions are included at each stage (design and build). Anything beyond that, or work outside the original scope, becomes a change order with its own price and timeline, so nothing gets absorbed silently. If the project stalls waiting on content from you, the timeline extends by the delay.

  • What if I want to leave?

    You already have everything. The code, content, and customer data have lived in an account in your name since day one — there’s nothing to export and nothing to migrate. Stop the hosting invoice whenever you want; the site is still yours.

  • Can I update it myself?

    Depends on the project. For content that changes often — blog posts, events, menus — we can build a small custom editor into your client portal so you can publish yourself. For everything else, updates go through us as part of managed hosting ($150/mo for 1 hour, $350/mo for 3 hours plus priority response and proactive improvements) — text changes, image swaps, and new pages, usually same-day.

  • Do I really have to pay monthly forever?

    Every website needs a server to be publicly accessible — that’s a fact of the internet, not a thesitenerds fee. Our managed hosting starts at $50/mo for the essentials, with $150/mo and $350/mo tiers if you want us handling monthly edits and proactive improvements. You can also take the code to any cloud provider and host it yourself. Either way, your site keeps being yours.

  • What about SEO?

    The technical side is handled: fast page loads, clean page structure, per-page titles and descriptions, social-media preview cards, a sitemap Google can read, and business schema so your hours and location show up in search results. What no one can promise is ranking — that comes down to content, competition, and time. But every site ships with the things that let Google read it properly, which is where template sites usually fall short.

  • What if I can’t reach you?

    Day-to-day, normal response is within 24 hours — usually sooner, and faster at the $350/mo priority tier. Beyond that, you own the code and the hosting from day one, and every site ships with written docs covering what it’s built on and how it’s maintained — so continuity doesn’t depend on any one person being reachable.

Portrait of Julian Colon, founder of thesitenerds, in his Buffalo studio.
Julian Colon · founder · buffalo, ny

— a note from the founder

I started this because hard-working trades deserve better than a website they rent.

I’m a software engineer. I’ve spent years building the internal tools and web apps real companies run their operations on. Along the way I watched local businesses — contractors, shops, the people who actually build and fix things — get stuck paying rent on websites they didn’t own and couldn’t change.

So I started thesitenerds to give local businesses the same thing enterprise companies get: real software, built to last, owned by the people who paid for it. Every project ships in an account under your name — your site, your photos, your customer data. You decide where it lives, who touches it, and when.

If you want a website that actually brings you work — and that you own — let’s talk.

— Julian

— start a project

Tell me about the thing you’re building.

I read every note personally and reply within 24 hours — usually sooner. A rough description of the business and what you want the site (or app) to do is plenty to start.

or skip the note

or reach me directly

julian@thesitenerds.com 716-271-5260

— message received

Got it. Thanks.

I’ll reply within 24 hours, usually sooner. In the meantime, browse the pricing or read the founder note above — and if you think of something you forgot to mention, just send a second note.

— Julian

Your next job is searching right now.