That AI Guy

Pillars / Websites

Hand coded websites, built as a front door, not a brochure

Hand coded HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Schema first. Mobile responsive. A full SEO and AEO baseline. Every site is built to be the public face of a system you own, capable of carrying retrieval grounded in your own data, not a static brochure bolted onto a template.

What this pillar covers

Everything from a five page small business site to a multi audience information architecture with custom design and AI integration. Hand coded, no page builder, no platform lock in.

Most small business websites are built on page builders that end up looking like every other site on the same template, with a content layer that a builder controls rather than you. We build hand coded sites because the design surface and the schema surface are both stronger when nobody is constraining them to a template engine that was never designed with retrieval or structured data in mind.

Every site ships as its own codebase, in your own Git repository, on your own domain, with no platform to be locked into. If you ever want to take it elsewhere, the source code goes with you. Hosting can be included as part of an ongoing engagement, but the site itself stays portable.

Build execution runs through ThatDeveloperGuy, the sister development studio this practice is built under.

Deliverables

What you get

Build

Hand coded HTML, CSS, JS

No page builder, no CMS template constraint on the design or the markup.

Schema

Full structured data graph

Organization, Person, Service, FAQPage, and BreadcrumbList on every page that needs them.

AEO baseline

Built for answer engines too

Speakable markup, llms.txt, and a description written to be quoted, not just indexed.

Performance

Core Web Vitals tuned

Hand tuned load and interaction performance, not whatever a builder ships by default.

Discovery

Sitemap and indexing

Image sitemap, sitemap.xml, and search console submission handled at launch.

Ownership

Your Git, your domain

Source code delivered to you. No lock in to any platform or vendor.

Migrating without losing what you already earned

If your current site sits on WordPress, Wix, or Squarespace and it is already ranking for terms that matter, a rebuild is a risk if it is done carelessly. We treat migration as its own discipline: mapping every indexed URL, preserving search equity through proper redirects, and rebuilding the schema layer so the new site starts ahead of the old one rather than behind it. Nothing about switching to a hand coded build should cost you rankings you already have.

Accessibility ships as a baseline, not an afterthought. Sites target WCAG 2.1 AA, with semantic markup and alt text throughout. We are honest that full ADA certification is a separate legal process most small businesses do not need and we do not claim it as a feature.

FAQ

Websites questions

Why hand coded instead of WordPress, Wix, or Webflow?

Hand coded sites give full control over the design surface, the schema surface, and the performance surface. A page builder is fine for many businesses. We choose hand coded because a federation front door needs to carry structured data and retrieval that most templates were never built to hold.

Can you migrate my site from WordPress, Wix, or Squarespace?

Yes. Migrations are a normal part of this work. Preserving search equity through proper redirects is standard practice, not an add on.

Do you do design only, or design and development together?

Design and development together. Handing a design off to a separate developer introduces a translation gap we do not want to ship.

What about accessibility?

Sites ship targeting WCAG 2.1 AA, with semantic markup and alt text throughout. Full ADA certification is a separate legal process and we do not claim it.

Who handles content updates after launch?

Ongoing content updates are handled as part of an engagement. See the engagements page for how that work is structured.

Begin

Ready to start a websites project?

See how a build is scoped and priced, or start with a readiness assessment if you are still deciding.