Philadelphia · Web design · One person
Web design in Philadelphia, for businesses here and anywhere else.
Bodkin & Press is an independent studio in Philadelphia, building custom websites for small businesses — restaurants, funeral homes, body shops, practices — in this city and in any other. The work starts with research into what is true about the business, before a word is written.
The same process, anywhere
The process is the same in any city. Being close makes two parts of it easier.
Every site is researched, written and designed the same way wherever the business is, and most of it runs over a call and email. A business within driving distance gets the same site, with two parts of the work done in person rather than from photographs.
- 01
The colour comes off an object in the room
Every palette I build is sampled from something physical in the business — the troweled plaster on a dining room wall, the tile, the paint on the van. Not chosen from a mood. Nearby, I stand in the room; further away, you send photographs taken there on purpose, and the colour comes off those. Either way no two of my sites share a background colour.
- 02
The facts come from local records
Founding years, "oldest in the city", family succession, service areas — these get checked against deeds, city records, newspaper archives and licensing registries, not against what the current website already says. The records are public in every city; in this one I also know where they are kept. Several Philadelphia businesses are repeating a claim about themselves that stopped being true years ago. I find those before they go on a new page under your name.
- 03
You can meet me, or not
One person, one number, same-day replies, and a meeting across a table if you are nearby and want one — otherwise the same person on a call. There is no account manager between you and the person writing the code, because there is only the one person.
Asked locally
What Philadelphia owners ask.
No. I work with businesses anywhere and most of the process runs fine remotely. But the colour derivation and the site visit are better in person, so a business I can drive to gets a slightly better site for the same money. That is the honest version.
A well-built site is one input, and I do the technical part properly — structure, schema, speed, real page addresses. But for a local business the biggest single lever is usually your Google Business Profile and your reviews, which is free and which I will tell you to go fix whether or not you hire me. Anyone promising you a ranking is guessing.
Between $900 and $5,000 depending on how much of it I have to find, write and make versus how much you already have. The full breakdown, with what is included at each level, is published on the main page rather than held back until a call.
Usually, and it is more common than you would think. The first job is finding out who actually owns the domain and the hosting, because it is frequently not you. I will tell you what I find even if the answer is that you should stay where you are.
Begin
Start with a question.
Tell me what you run and what your current website gets wrong. You will get a straight answer on whether the studio is the right fit, in the first reply.
and anywhere else
Monday to Friday
An email reaches the same person directly. If you would rather set the brief out in full, with what you need, where to start and how quickly, there is a short form on the studio page, and it goes to the same address.