Why I built it
Mike is a close friend starting his own cleaning company. I didn't want to just hand him a nice website. I wanted him to own his whole business: his site, his bookings, his customers and his data, in a standard database he can take anywhere, so no platform can ever hold his business hostage.
How the layout came together
His logo is gold embroidery on a royal-blue shield, so that became the whole identity: navy, gold and warm cream. I started by auditing his old homepage: the "No charge" box was red and read like an error, the Book button was hidden on phones, and the page was about eight phone screens long. Then I made nine homepage options and scored them with a five-second test (can a visitor tell what this is and how to book in five seconds?). The best ideas became Alpha and Beta, then six rounds of Epsilon, a shorter Omega Mini, and finally Omega, the full site, now live on his own Cloudflare account. Every round fixed what the last one got wrong.
What's inside
- Book Now on the very first screen, on phone and desktop
- Instant estimate calculator for homes, condos and businesses
- Online booking: card saved, nothing charged until the job is done
- Private admin page: bookings, leads, invoices, staff
- Cleaner app on any phone: jobs, checklist, before/after photos
- Automatic error alerts, backups and a test copy of everything
- About half as long as the old homepage, images about 95% lighter
- No invented reviews, prices or promises
