Spokane Frequently Asked Questions

I work with businesses all over the state and, in fact, the entire country. My primary areas of focus and expertise in the Spokane metro are: Airway Heights, Boise, CdA, Chattaroy, Chelan, Cheney, Chewelah, Coeur d'Alene, Colbert, Colville, Deer Park, Elk, Kennewick, Liberty Lake, Mead, Moses Lake, Newport, Nine Mile Falls, North Spokane, Pasco, Post Falls, Richland, Sandpoint, Spokane, Spokane Valley, Tri-Cities, Veradale, Wenatchee.

It starts with a real conversation — usually a Zoom call where I share my screen and show you actual data, not a sales deck. Before I even look at your website, I want to understand where you genuinely stand: your digital reputation, your reviews, and whether you have a real, commercially-zoned business location (more on that below). Then we look at the site itself. From there, you tell me the services and search terms you want to rank for — or get cited for in AI answers — and I research them live, right there on the call, using tools like SE Ranking and Surfer SEO, so you see the real opportunity and the real obstacles with your own eyes.

I price by meeting you where you are. If the numbers make sense and you've got the budget and the will, I'll take on a robust plan and more responsibility for the outcome. If you're just starting out, I'll either set you up with a simple turnkey option I keep on hand or — honestly — suggest you begin on something like Squarespace and come back when you're ready to grow. I'd rather tell you the truth than sell you something you're not ready for.

For local search, mostly yes — and I'll be straight with you about it. The businesses that do best have a real, commercially-zoned address (a private office or storefront — not a coworking desk, a PO box or mailbox service, or a home address dressed up as a business), plus a Google Business Profile and a genuine effort to earn reviews. If you have those, or a concrete plan to get them, we're in good shape.

If you've got a business license and a spare bedroom — no profile, no reviews, and no plan to change that — I can't honestly promise you much, and I won't pretend otherwise. Ranking locally is hard-to-impossible without the fundamentals, and I'd rather tell you that on day one than take your money and let you down.

Think of it like working with an architect: I bring the engineering and the craft, and you bring the inside knowledge of your business that I couldn't possibly have. In practice, I handle the initial content population myself — I'll ask about the voice you want and anything genuinely novel or differentiating about what you do, then carefully build out your content (yes, working with AI as a tool, with a heavy hand on the wheel) as well as I possibly can for an industry I don't personally work in. Then I hand you the keys and ask you to go through all of it with a fine-tooth comb.

Here's the honest truth I've learned over 25 years: the clients who actually do that combing are the ones who get the best results. My systems are good enough that even hands-off clients do well — but the ones who throw up their hands and say "Luc's got this, I don't need to look" leave real ceiling on the table. The more you put in, the more you get out.

It's a fair question, but it's a bit like asking "how much does a house cost?" — the honest answer is that it depends entirely on what you need. There's no set price and no minimum: I've built everything from a simple site for a brand-new sole proprietor to full platforms for established companies, and I scope each project to your goals and your budget. Tell me as much as you can in your quote request and I'll come back with a real number. The consultation and quote are always free. (And no, I won't promise you the moon to win the job — here's why I'll never guarantee a ranking.)

Anywhere from about a week to roughly twelve weeks, from your first message to launch. A focused, informational site moves fast; a larger site with custom functionality or a deep content library takes longer. Either way, I'll give you a realistic schedule up front, before any work begins.

I can, but I rarely do, and I no longer advertise it as a standard service. After 25 years I've built plenty of apps, and I keep a modern cross-platform stack that ships to web, iOS, and Android from a single codebase — so if your project has a genuine, specific need for an app, I'm more than capable. In practice, though, most businesses that think they need an app are better, and far more cheaply, served by an excellent website. If you think yours is a real exception, tell me about it and I'll give you an honest opinion.

SEO and AIO are billed monthly — the onus is on me to keep earning it, and you can leave any month I'm not delivering, with no annual contract. One honest caveat: real results take time to compound, so it works best as a sustained effort, not a month-or-two experiment (here's how I think about that). Website projects are billed once the work is finished and you're satisfied. For special cases like rush jobs, I'll tailor the terms to fit.

I accept all major credit cards, checks, and cash. I'm also open to Bitcoin and certain other cryptocurrencies on a case-by-case basis — if you'd like to pay in a crypto other than Bitcoin, just ask first, since I can't guarantee every currency will work.

Yes — gladly, especially if yours is a straightforward informational site. When I take it over, I'll migrate it onto a cloud provider of your choosing (Digital Ocean, AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure) or onto my own platform — whichever genuinely fits your situation. Either way, you can own the infrastructure yourself or let me handle it, and I'll recommend the right path for your circumstances.

I wouldn't reuse the existing code, but you'd be surprised how easy and cost-effective it is to take over a WordPress (or Wix, or Squarespace) site without actually using any of those turnkey tools. You don't have to change your design or rewrite your content — you can keep everything you have and move onto a far more capable, more secure platform at the same time. Ask me how — it's more painless than you'd expect. (Here's what you'd be moving onto.)

No. Internet Explorer was discontinued by Microsoft years ago — and note that Microsoft Edge is a completely different, modern browser, not the same thing as Internet Explorer. I do, of course, fully support Edge.

I host and manage sites myself, on infrastructure I build and harden, with every site placed behind a Cloudflare security edge — a web application firewall, bot mitigation, rate-limited forms, and strict end-to-end encryption, with certificates that renew themselves and round-the-clock health checks. If you'd rather own the infrastructure yourself, I can build and maintain your site on a cloud provider you control (Google Cloud, AWS, Azure, or Digital Ocean) — a bit more expensive, but the option's there if ownership or mobility matters to you. Cost scales with your traffic, how often you update, and how much media you host. Most clients pay a nominal $150/year, and I'll tell you up front if your situation will be different. There's more detail on the hosting page, and I wrote about why I hardened every site to bank-level security.

Absolutely. I stay on top of the latest shifts in web development and search — especially changes to Google's core algorithms and the rapid rise of AI answer engines — because staying ahead of the curve is existential for my own business. Beyond just keeping up, the platform itself is proactive: security is handled centrally at the edge across every site I run, so your site is being looked after even on the days nothing lands in your inbox. As a client, you're the direct beneficiary of all of it. (I explained the security side of that in this post.)

I generally won't work strictly for equity, for a handful of reasons — chief among them simple math. If I spend the hours I'd otherwise bill a paying client on being your unpaid tech co-founder, I'm effectively paying you in time and giving up the income those hours would have earned, both at once. That doubles my burn rate, which a one-person shop can't sustain. I'm always glad to talk through a fair paid arrangement, though.

There's no mandatory monthly maintenance plan. Your site launches on the latest stable version of whatever I build it with, and ongoing security is handled centrally at the edge across my whole fleet of sites — so you're not buying a separate patching program on top. Over time, browsers, search algorithms, and design tastes all shift, and a site generally stays current for about three to five years before it's worth an overhaul. When yours reaches that point, I'll tell you and recommend the right next step. I won't invent busywork in the meantime. (Curious how I keep my whole fleet current automatically? I wrote about it here.)

Great question. Every site is a package of priorities, and here's mine, in order: first, make you money and get you leads; second, make something genuinely easy and intuitive to use; third, communicate the value of your product or service clearly; and only then, make it look great. If you want aesthetics above all else, I'm probably not your guy — I'll always trade a little vanity for leads and revenue. That doesn't mean my work is ugly (far from it), it just isn't flashy for the sake of flashy. There's nothing wrong with going vanity-first in fields like fashion or fine art; I simply don't work in those, because the philosophy clashes with mine.

What a good looking question. Long live Kelly Kapoor.