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, 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
