37.3861° N, 122.0839° W · Mountain View, CA · BRG
You've run on word of mouth for years, and it worked. But people check online first now, and if they can't find you, they pick whoever they can. I build the site that gets you found, and price it so a local business can say yes.
Landmark Digital Co. · affordable local web design
Why it matters
I get the resistance. You built this on good work and word of mouth, not a web page, and that still counts for a lot. But the first look happens on a phone now, before anyone walks in or picks up. If there's nothing to find, or what's there looks like it's from 2009, that customer is already on the way to someone else.
None of this means you need an expensive site. It means you need a real one, that you own and can afford. That part is on me.
Field notes
The studies below are samples that show how I work. Real client projects get pinned to this wall as they ship.
The offer
Three ways in, depending on where you're starting. Every one is hand-built and yours to keep, priced for a local budget without cutting corners. Affordable here means a fair price for real work, not a cheap job.
01
For the business with no site, or a site you'd rather not link to. We start from a blank page and end with a fast, hand-coded site you own outright.
02
You have a site and it did its job once. Now it's slow, dated, or invisible on Google. I keep what works, rebuild what doesn't, and nothing goes offline while I do it.
03
After launch, I don't disappear. A simple monthly arrangement for the businesses that want a web guy on speed dial instead of a support ticket queue.
How it goes
A half-hour conversation about your business. What you sell, who walks in, what a good month looks like. You talk, I take field notes. No jargon from either of us.
I bring you a design direction built around your business, your colors, your voice, the customers you want walking in. We adjust it together until it feels like your place.
I write the code myself, line by line. You get a live link early and watch the site take shape. Questions get answered by the person actually building it.
Launch day. Your domain, your site, your keys. I show you how to make edits yourself, then I stay reachable. The site is a landmark now, and landmarks get maintained.
The one guy behind it
I’m Arthur Thelen, a designer and developer working out of Mountain View, California, usually with the window open and a second coffee going.
Before this I spent years around small businesses, behind counters and on job sites, close enough to know what a slow Tuesday feels like. That’s still how I think about websites. Not as art projects, but as the thing that makes the phone ring and the door swing.
I hand-code every site because it’s faster, it ranks better, and no template was ever built with your business in mind. There’s no team behind me and no hand-off ahead of you. I’m one person, not an agency with a floor of salaries to cover, so the price stays fair without the quality slipping. The person you email is the person who builds your site and picks up the phone after launch.
If your business is worth finding, it deserves a landmark. I’d like to build it.
Word of mouth
These are placeholder quotes marked as samples. Real client words go here as projects ship, and nothing gets published without permission.
“Arthur asked more questions about my food than my last three reps combined. The site he built actually sounds like us, and I can change the menu myself from my phone.”
“One person, one phone number, and the whole thing was live in five weeks. When I email him I get Arthur back, not a ticket number.”
“I didn't want a website, I wanted the phone to ring. He got that from the first meeting and built everything around it.”
Get in touch
Send a couple of lines about your business and what you need. I read every message myself and reply within a business day, usually with honest thoughts and a rough price. No pitch deck, no pressure.
Rather just email? art.thelen01@gmail.com