#1 rule of Bright Coconut? No stress. (The tropical vibe here is not an accident.) I understand how alien the world of websites can feel at times, but I promise you it can be easy to have a website you love.
Regardless of what you need, all of my services give you the benefit of the most valuable asset I have: my experience. I’ve been creating websites for over fifteen years, and I’m happy to share my expertise with you at every stage of the journey so you save time, energy, and end up with the website of your dreams.
Services
~ in a (coco)nut shell ~
Websites
- Whether it’s a new site or a redesign, I can help you create a design that puts your best foot forward.
- All WordPress, All Day
- Custom Design on Rock-Solid Frameworks
- Responsive Design that adapts to on all devices, from desktop to mobile
- Three packages to fit your needs
Customization
- When you don’t need a whole new site right now, just a few bits changed.
- Can be design-related edits, like adding/subtracting/changing elements to/from/on your current site, to implementing technical solutions like third-party services, social media integrations, etc.
- Hourly rates in 15-minute increments
- Discounted rate for Members
Membership
- I keep your WordPress core, theme, and plugins updated so you don’t have to think about it
- Full-site Backups to remote location of your choice (dropbox, google drive, etc.)
- 20% Discount on Customization work
- $25/month*, no contract
From quick, template-driven sites to huge juggernauts of content, custom styling and third-party integrations out the wazoo, I’ve got a package to cover your website creation and maintenance needs.
In the next section below, you’ll find a description of my website packages so you can see how they differ and which could work for you. Then, get in touch using the contact form at the bottom of this page, and you and I will have a chat to see if we’re a good fit for your project.
- If it’s a ‘yes’ all-around, we do a Discovery Day.
- The clarity of Discovery Day defines your project, making it clear what your ideal package is, and together we schedule a start date.
Discovery Day is a day for brainstorming and defining the scope of your project. This leads us to a plan that includes a clear understanding of the breadth of your project, an approximate cost—based on a package and an estimate of any additional customization work you might need—and a launch date.
Discovery Day has a stand-alone cost of $150.
Precisely? No – that’s why we do Discovery Day. (It’d be like looking at a couple on a first date and trying to predict the length of their relationship. It’s harder than it looks.)
We’ll start narrowing it down in our first phone call, though, and by the end of Discovery Day, we’ll know which package will suit you best, what direction your design will take, and have a pretty good sense of how much (if any) Customization will be required.
Here are two examples of how different projects can look, though...Lu’au client: We used Discovery Day to make the scope of the project very clear, and she came fully prepared with her content and vision in mind. Communication was timely, and we even collaborated mid-stream with her graphic designer, finishing the project with no need for extra customization time.
Project cost: $2000.
Aloha client: Beyond the initial setup day, he set a more relaxed time frame, wanting to “discover” the design as we went along. We bounced ideas back and forth, and completed the project in about a month.
Project cost: ~$3000.
Option 1: The Aloha
The Aloha starts you off with a hand-installation of WordPress, a solid premium theme and all the plugins you’ll need to run a straightforward site for your business. I’ll also set up your blank pages and navigation for you before handing it off, so you just need to drop in your content, and you’ll be off and running.
The Aloha is meant for people who are comfortable with a more DIY approach, are generally familiar with websites and/or blogs, and need help getting started on the right foot with the best of preparations. And because the Aloha is such a streamlined approach, your site can be ready in one day.
Option 2: The Lu’au
The Lu’au blends the custom with the already-ready to give you a unique site without a draining budget. While it won’t go to the same lengths of customization as a Kahuna would, it does include features such as premium typography, custom color profiles, and adapting theme files to accommodate your unique content.
The Lu’au takes one week. That’s right, a week. In that week, we’ll get your content in placed and styled, the theme of your choice customized to your branding and content, and have it ready to roll.
FYI: 95% of people tend to go with the Lu’au, and most are either ready to go at the end of their week, or just need a little more tweaking to launch, depending on their project.
Option 3: The Kahuna
The Kahuna is the top-of-the-line, all the bells-and-whistles package, designed for those of you who desire a custom site from start to finish. If you have a site currently that needs a complete overhaul, lots of custom templates, and a pixel-perfect attention to details that make you go, “whoo!” then the Kahuna just may be your cup of tea.
The Kahuna lasts one month. In that month, we’ll create a completely customized, feature-rich site that represents your vision, helps you engage effectively with your audience, and expresses your brand to a T.
Starting package costs: Aloha: $1200 | Lu’au: $2400 | Kahuna: $6000
No website is ever 100% finished.
Comforting thought, huh? What I mean is that a website is constantly being updated, edited, changed, and customized to meet the needs of your audience and the personality of its owner – you. It’s one of the beautiful things about being digital – you don’t have to print all new versions of a brochure (which is what we had before websites) if one thing changes.
But not all changes require a complete redesign. If you need a quick edit or two, great — I provide customization work on a limited basis. And if you need a bit more that a fix here or there… let’s talk.
What qualifies as “customization”?
Customization = content updates, styling changes, and such. Projects may end, but websites are on-going, so Customization is my term for all those things you need help with that aren’t “project level” requests.
The kinds of customization jobs I take:
- edits of any kind for previous clients
- content edits (adding, editing, or deleting pages, navigation elements, sidebar content etc.)
- styling edits (colors, fonts, page elements, etc.)
The kinds of jobs I don’t:
- anything non-WordPress
- edits to themes I didn’t set up, in some cases (let’s talk, though)
- hard-core database programming
Cost
- If you’re not a Member, my hourly rate is $125.
- If you are a Member, you save 20% (which makes it $100). Nice, huh?
- All requests have a fifteen-minute minimum.
If you’re not sure if I can help you or not, go ahead and submit a request, and we’ll figure it out together. (My availability revolves around my current project-based clients and Members, but I’ll do my best to back to you sooner rather than later.)
If you’re a Member or past client, go ahead and drop me an email, and I’ll get back to you asap. (If you can’t find my email, go ahead and use the form below. I’ll remember you. 😉 )
Keeping your site running smoothly can be a real pain.
The good news is, it doesn’t have to be.
As with any system with lots of moving parts, a website requires a certain amount of maintenance. You’ve got multiple pieces of software that need updates, not to mention needing to refresh your content here and there, and the occasional need for tweaks, changes, and additions.
With the Bright Coconut Membership, I’m with you every step of the way.
Here’s what’s included:
1. Updates and Backups
Keeping your site and all of its parts up to date is really important – it keeps your site secure, running smoothly, and functioning at its best.
Out-of-date plugins, themes, and the WordPress core itself (which includes your database) can lead to security issues and sluggishness. And if you’ve ever been hacked, you know what a pain it is to get your site back up and running; it’s a long, arduous, and potentially expensive process – and that’s assuming you can rescue it at all. (No backup, you say? Time to start over!)
With the Bright Coconut Membership, you don’t have to worry about updates or backups – I handle them both.
2. How-To’s for Using Your Site
Wouldn’t knowing how to make basic content changes to your site be a great thing? You wouldn’t have to wait for a designer to update things like phone numbers, hours of operation, services, prices, you name it. You’d know just how to go in and change your sidebar content, navigation, page content – everything.
There are times it’s just easier to hand things off to your web guy – I get that. You’re busy. But when it’s convenient for you to do something yourself, or you need to get some simple edits done right away, there’s no substitute for the knowledge of how to rescue yourself.
I’m happy to teach you how to edit your own content (change text, upload images, etc.). You may decide you don’t want to, after you see what it takes, but at least you’ll have the option! No gatekeeping here.
3. Customization Discount
Members automatically get 20% off all customization work. That one perk alone easily pays for the Membership in a very short time. Most people who build a website with me keep their Memberships running for this benefit alone, even if you rarely need support from me, because the savings in the long run are so substantial.
Best part? (Wait for it…)
Membership only costs $25/month.
(If I’m not the one who built your site, there is a one-time $50 setup fee.)
Have you googled “WordPress maintenance services”? Seen their prices? I know, right?
Here’s the thing: I don’t charge hundreds of dollars for my Memberships because I’m not rolling in a certain amount of support each month as a part of it, beyond your updates. That’s working on retainer, which is not this. Why not? Invariably, you end up losing money for time you don’t use, and I don’t feel right about that.
With a Bright Coconut Membership, you get peace of mind, and only pay for what you need. And we both sleep well at night.
To sign up for the Membership, just use the form below to get in touch.
Get in touch using the form below. We’ll chat, answer questions, see if we’re a fit… and if so, we’ll schedule a Discovery Day.
Discovery Day is a day for brainstorming and defining the scope of your project. This will give us a clear understanding of the breadth of your project, an approximate cost and timeline, and a target launch date.
Discovery Day has a stand-alone cost of $150.
No – that’s one of the main reasons why we do Discovery Day. There are too many variables to slap a one-size-fits-all price on projects, and I’d rather you not pay for more than what you need.
The truth is, yes. It can. If you haven’t read the examples above, they might help it to make more sense.
One of the biggest elements of any site is the content (text, images, etc.), and having your content ready when we begin the development phase is huge… which is why we always start with Discovery Day, so we know exactly what’s needed.
Discovery Day is all about clarity. The clarity of Discovery Day puts everything into perspective, and which package we go with will determine how the content creation phase looks…
- In an Aloha, the time between Discovery Day and your Aloha is when you’ll prepare as much content as possible.
- In a Lu’au, we’ll map out all of your content and make sure the text, images, video, etc. are ready to go when development time begins.
- In a Kahuna, we’ll work together to create your content, source images, and polish everything to perfection together.
And hey, it’s your project. If you need more time, want to change your mind a hundred times, or shift directions halfway through a project, you can. It’s why I set up all of these packages with the option to add customization time at the end.
Some projects are destined to extend into Customization territory, and in many cases, we’re counting on it. If your project is better suited to an “Aloha + customization” rather than a full Lu’au (which we’ll know after Discovery Day), then that’s what we’ll do.
Once the party train leaves the station, it doesn’t stop. So it’s good to be sure you can give enough time to your project once it begins (the only thing I don’t do is refunds – but delays, I understand, and can usually be flexible with).
Yes… and, not exactly. I create custom child themes based on the Genesis framework, so you don’t pay for a designer to re-invent the wheel just for you. But all the styling is 100% customized to how you like it.
Why is this better? Mainly to save you incredible amounts of time and money. Building a theme from scratch involves phenomenal amounts of testing to ensure it will work well on all platforms, browsers, devices, etc. While I can build 100% custom themes — and I used to — there’s really no reason to. It costs you more if I start from scratch each time, and most people agree they’d rather put their resources towards crafting the best experience possible.
Absolutely.
If you’re a new client, then your redesign is a new site for us, and follows the path of “Discovery Day + Package” as described above.
If you’re a previous Bright Coconut client, then you’ve gone through the “Discovery Day + Package” process already, so in most cases, we can skip the Discovery Day and just jump into the redesign. Go ahead and get in touch, and we’ll talk!
Shouldn’t be a problem, but I’ll need to look it over before I can give you clear estimate of what it’ll take to create.
Yes. Sorta. I don’t do e-commerce projects that involve a custom shopping cart or complex shopping solutions (solutions like Woocommerce, or something off-site like gumroad for digital product sales, yes; projects involving developing separate sites on platforms like shopify/bigcartel or non-WordPress solutions, no).
Of course! Same things goes for pdf’s, video, etc.
And if you want a referral to a graphic designer, I know a couple really good ones I can put you in touch with.
Absolutely – I don’t not do responsive design these days. Having your site look good on any device, from desktop to tablet to a phone, is crucial in this day and age. And that’s not just for humans – Google gives preferential treatment to responsive sites, too.
I don’t, but I have a few solid hosts I recommend, depending on your needs. And once you decide on a host, I’ll help handle as much of the site setup as you want.
I’m not a graphic designer, but if you’re looking for something minimalist or text-based, then let’s talk (if you like what you’re seeing on this site and in the majority of my portfolio, then we’re good). For a completely custom logo, you’ll want to talk to a logo designer, and I know a few good ones I’m happy to recommend.
Absolutely. As long as your site runs on WordPress, I’m happy to take care of it for you.
No problem! It’s what I live for. Drop me a line, and we’ll you all sorted out.
Hey! You made it. Just fill in the form, and I’ll be in touch very soon.