What was wrong
H&L Services is a family business run by Harold and Lindsey Walker out of Apalachicola. They handle tree removal, trimming and pruning, land clearing, palm care and storm cleanup across Franklin County.
The difficulty wasn't the work, it was the vocabulary. People don't arrive looking for a service name. They arrive with a leaning tree over a driveway, branches against a roof, a palm that has stopped looking right, or a yard full of debris after a storm. Ask them which service that is and most would guess wrong.
What we changed
The homepage stopped listing services and started asking a question. What are you looking at? An unsafe tree, branches too close to the house, an unhealthy palm, a lot that needs clearing, storm damage. Each answer is a plain phrase somebody would actually use, and each one leads somewhere useful.
After that it was ordinary craft. A calm coastal palette that suits the place. Real photographs from their own job sites rather than a stock library. Franklin County stated plainly so nobody wastes a call. A page that loads before someone standing in a damaged yard gives up on it.
Most service websites are organised the way the business thinks. The useful ones are organised the way a worried customer thinks, which is almost never the same shape.
How it ran
A round of questions first, mostly about what people say on the phone when they call in a panic. Then I built the whole thing on a temporary address and sent it over. Nothing had been invoiced at that point.
Harold and Lindsey went through it and sent back corrections, most of them wording, all of them right. Revisions took a few days. Then the domain got pointed at the new site with the email kept intact, which is the step that usually breaks when it's handled by someone who does it rarely.
Your situation is probably different
Most of them are. Tell me what the business does and what the site is getting wrong, and I'll tell you honestly whether I can help.
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