Frequently Asked Questions

A Starter site is $250 and is ideal for individuals or businesses that need a non-complex one-page site. Your Starter one-page site is customized to your brand, with as many sections as you need to communicate your message. We often recommend About and FAQ sections; you may choose services, pricing, or other sections instead.

All Deep Sea Fauna sites include: six (6) months of optional free hosting and support on our server; custom HTML, CSS, and JavaScript; WCAG 2.1 AA compliance; mobile-first responsive design; two revision rounds; access to our client portal; all site files and a guide for moving your site to another host; plus a personalized digital business card for sharing contact details when networking.

Please note: We do not optimize Starter sites for SEO and GEO unless a maintenance plan is selected.

A Standard site is the best option for businesses looking to scale. All Standard sites, up to 10 pages, include a content management portal so you can update content or images. You can choose one component per page such as a blog, gallery, About, client or customer lead database, FAQs, services, pricing, custom forms, or resource downloads.

All Deep Sea Fauna sites include: six (6) months of optional free hosting and support on our server; custom HTML, CSS, and JavaScript; WCAG 2.1 AA compliance; mobile-first responsive design; two revision rounds; access to our client portal; all files and a guide for moving your site to another host; plus a personalized digital business card for networking.

Depending on component choices, Standard sites are typically $1,800–$7,000.

Please note: We do not optimize Standard sites for SEO and GEO unless a maintenance plan is selected.

Premium sites are for businesses that need their website to do real work—for example authenticated client or customer logins to access or upload information, or integrations with calendaring and other tools.

Premium builds (booking, integrations, or 13+ pages) are typically $7,000–$15,000. Adding e-commerce usually runs +$3,000–$8,000; metro clients often need more catalog and checkout work. We always provide a fixed-price quote before any work starts. See pricing tiers on Services.

All Deep Sea Fauna sites come with: six (6) months of optional free hosting and support on our server; custom HTML, CSS, and JavaScript; WCAG 2.1 AA compliance; mobile-first responsive design; two revision rounds; access to our client portal; all site files and a guide for moving your site to another host; plus a personalized digital business card for sharing contact details while networking.

Please refer to the Starter, Standard, and Premium pricing FAQs above for bracket-specific scope.

If you want your site to have a home on the internet where people can see it, it needs to be hosted. If you ask Deep Sea Fauna to host your site, we charge $10/month when paid annually, or $15/month when paid monthly.

If hosting payment is interrupted, your site is removed from our server; however, you keep client portal access to download your files, and you are welcome to restart hosting with us.

Yes. A non-refundable deposit of $125 is required to sign your agreement and begin work. For Starter sites, the balance is due at go-live. For other site types, milestone-based payment schedules are documented in your agreement. We accept bank transfer and major credit cards.

Our clients are individuals and business owners who do not have time to become their own IT department. As long as we host your site, we fulfill support requests that take under 30 minutes and do not require new design decisions—quick copy tweaks, changing an image, fixing a broken link, or resolving a small form issue.

Anything that needs new build work or new decisions, such as a new section, integration, sourcing new photography, or a net-new feature, is quoted separately as a change order. We document this upfront so expectations stay aligned. Read more on Services.

With a typical DIY builder like GoDaddy, you rent a template, supply your own graphics and copy, and get limited help when something looks wrong or breaks—you are often on your own for real fixes.

Deep Sea Fauna delivers custom hand-coded pages you own, with a direct relationship to the team that built your site. When we host your site, small support requests under 30 minutes that do not require new design decisions are in scope. That combination—custom build plus accountable support—is a different product from a template-in-a-box.

After you reach out, we schedule a discovery call (usually about 30 minutes) to confirm fit, goals, timeline, and rough scope. When you are ready to proceed, you receive access to the client portal: agreement, invoice for the first payment, and a short kickoff checklist (brand assets, domain or hosting access if relevant, and content priorities).

We align on page list, technical requirements, and success criteria before design and build begin.

Most projects take 4–8 weeks from kickoff to launch. A one-page site is typically 2 to 3 weeks; a 10-page site with a blog and custom integrations is closer to 8 weeks.

At minimum: a clear picture of what you do, who your customers are, and what you want the site to accomplish. A list of pages you need and any reference sites you like for tone or layout.

Copy can start as rough drafts; photos can be phone shots until you refine. We do not need perfection to start.

Two structured revision rounds are included. In our experience, most clients achieve a final result they are happy with in two rounds when feedback is specific.

Yes. We work remotely across the United States by default. Discovery and reviews happen by video call, and drafts and files live in the client portal. Scheduled calls work across time zones.

If you need on-site photography, we coordinate that as a scoped add-on or refer trusted partners in your area.

Either model works. Many clients supply draft copy; we edit for web readability, headings, and SEO. We can also write or rewrite key pages from interviews and notes as a scoped copywriting add-on.

We do not ship placeholder lorem ipsum as final text—everything that goes live should be accurate and approved by you.

We do not include a full commercial photo shoot by default. We help plan what you need (hero, team, product), give direction for phone or DSLR shots, and recommend local photographers when professional work makes sense.

We also help source licensed stock where appropriate and keep alt text consistent with WCAG.

New pages after launch are quoted as a small project or change order depending on complexity. A single simple page that reuses your layout is often straightforward; new templates, forms, or integrations take longer.

Maintenance covers small text fixes, not whole new sections—ask for an estimate before we start.

Both. We build new sites and also take on accessibility audits, performance fixes, and redesigns when the codebase or platform allows a sensible path.

Sometimes a phased rebuild is right; sometimes targeted fixes are enough. We tell you upfront if your current stack is a poor fit for a hand-off static HTML rebuild so you are not surprised mid-project.

Two revision rounds are there so you can steer the design before launch. If something is objectively out of spec compared to what we agreed in writing, we fix it. If the gap is taste or strategy, we work through structured feedback in those rounds.

Further design iterations beyond two rounds can be quoted as an add-on. Clear written agreements define scope and payment so both sides know what happens next.

WCAG stands for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, an international standard published by the W3C. "AA" is the middle tier (A is minimum, AAA is maximum). WCAG 2.1 AA means your site works for people with visual, hearing, motor, and cognitive disabilities. Practically: your text is readable against its background, your site works with a keyboard, screen readers can parse it, and videos have captions. Read our plain-English WCAG guide.

Yes. Courts have consistently held that websites must comply with the ADA, and demand letters targeting small businesses have increased significantly since 2020. Lawsuits don't require a large company — they just require an inaccessible website. Building to WCAG 2.1 AA is the most reliable way to reduce that risk. Read more about ADA web accessibility lawsuits.

No. Overlays like AccessiBe and UserWay are JavaScript plugins that attempt to fix accessibility problems automatically. The W3C, the National Federation of the Blind, and most accessibility professionals have stated these tools do not make a site WCAG compliant and can actually make it harder for screen-reader users to navigate. The only reliable fix is building the underlying code correctly.

Typically 60–120 days before meaningful ranking movement is visible in Google Search Console. Technical SEO (the structural improvements we make) tends to show results faster than content-based SEO. Local SEO (Google Maps pack) often moves within 30–60 days.

We share a baseline report at launch and a follow-up at 90 days so you have real data to compare.

No, and anyone who does is either lying or selling a very short-term strategy that will hurt you later. We do guarantee: correct technical implementation, structured data that passes Google's Rich Results Test, and Lighthouse performance, accessibility, best-practices, and SEO scores of 95 or better at launch.

Search results depend on competition, content quality, and domain history.

Every site we deliver includes technical SEO appropriate to your tier: clean HTML, fast delivery, indexable pages, baseline structured data, and launch checks. That is not the same as an ongoing authority program aimed at competitive visibility in Google and in AI-driven answers.

The SEO Authority package targets organic search and AI surfaces (AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and similar—sometimes called AEO or GEO). It typically includes: entity and name-address-phone consistency; expanded JSON-LD where it helps; Google Business Profile alignment recommendations; citation and internal-linking review; llms.txt and signals for AI crawlers; and reporting with prioritized next steps.

Authority work is priced separately from your build. Many clients use an ongoing retainer (often roughly $400–$900 per month for typical small-business scope) or a defined 90-day authority sprint (often about $2,500–$5,000 depending on market and deliverables). Exact fees are quoted after discovery. Read more on Services.

Yes. Getting your business surfaced in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and similar tools is increasingly important. It involves entity consistency (describing your business the same way everywhere), structured data, and deploying a llms.txt file that AI crawlers can read.

Deeper ongoing authority work is part of our SEO Authority package; baseline builds include appropriate technical hooks but not a full authority program. Read more about AI search.

You do. You always have access to your site files, and you own the site code and your domain. We hope you keep your site hosted at Deep Sea Fauna; you are always free to move your files to any host you choose.

Most clients host with Deep Sea Fauna at $10/month when paid annually or $15/month when paid monthly (see the hosting FAQ above for what happens if payment lapses).

If you prefer to self-host, standard Apache shared hosting with cPanel and file upload access is enough for our static builds—common providers include SiteGround, A2 Hosting, or InMotion. We help you choose and configure third-party hosting during the project if you are starting from zero. You do not need WordPress hosting, a VPS, or a heavy managed stack unless we scope server-side features separately.

Yes, if you are comfortable editing HTML files. We write clean, well-commented code that a non-developer can navigate for small text changes. For clients who prefer not to touch the code, our maintenance plans cover content updates with a 2-business-day turnaround.