Websites Built to Convert, Rank, and Grow
Premium website design for local service businesses across the Twin Cities and Western Wisconsin. Built on connected systems that turn visitors into booked jobs.
Live work, not mockups
A selection of client websites, every one of them live
Plumbing, roofing, concrete, physical therapy, mortgage lending, a barber school, a wedding venue, a Spanish immersion academy. Every site in the portfolio is live and clickable, so you can open any one of them and judge the real thing instead of a screenshot in a case study.
Most Small Business Websites Are Quietly Losing Leads
A beautiful website that does not convert is a cost center, not a growth engine. Most local service business websites fail in the same predictable ways. Slow to load. Unclear positioning. Buried phone numbers. Forms nobody fills out. Disconnected from the CRM, the follow-up, and the rest of the marketing system.
Unclear positioning
Visitors land and cannot tell what you do or who you help in under 10 seconds, so they bounce.
Slow on mobile
Most of your local traffic is on a phone. Every extra second of load time burns leads before they scroll.
No follow-up system
Forms submit into an inbox that never gets read. Calls go unanswered. Leads cool off in hours.
Invisible in search
No real SEO foundation, no schema, no local signals, no presence in AI answer engines.
A Complete Website System, Not Just a Design
Every MCV website includes the design, development, hosting, performance, security, SEO foundation, and CRM integration that make the site actually work. You do not get handed a pretty file and left to figure it out.
Design and Build
- Custom layout and visual design
- Mobile-first responsive structure
- Conversion-focused page architecture
- On-brand typography and imagery
- Montserrat or custom typography system
- Accessibility-compliant color and contrast
Technical Foundation
- Fast hosting on high-performance infrastructure
- HTTPS enforced site-wide
- Core Web Vitals optimized
- SEO foundation (title tags, meta, schema, sitemap, robots)
- Local SEO, GEO, and AEO structure built in
- Analytics and conversion tracking configured
Ongoing Management
- Updates, backups, and security monitoring
- Performance tuning and uptime management
- Content updates as needed
- CRM and automation integration
- Review generation workflow connected
- Quarterly strategy reviews
Built for Local Service Businesses That Take Their Growth Seriously
Our best-fit clients are established local service operators who rely on inbound leads, referrals, and reputation to grow. If your business depends on people finding you, trusting you, and booking you, your website should do that work every single day.
We build regional authority for businesses across the East Metro, whether you're a Woodbury contractor, a Stillwater venue, or running cross-state marketing in Hudson, WI.
- Home Services (HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, concrete, cleaning, handyman)
- Real Estate and Mortgage
- Professional Services (legal, financial, consulting, technology)
- Health and Wellness (physical therapy, med spa, clinics)
- Hospitality and Events (venues, retreats, experiences)
- Education and Organizations (schools, networking groups, nonprofits)
- Brand and Creative Projects
A Process That Produces Websites That Actually Work
Discover
We dig into the business, the market, the audience, and the competition. We map the exact conversion path the site needs to produce. No assumptions.
Design
Every page is architected around a single conversion intent. Positioning, hierarchy, visual system, and proof placement are all designed before a single pixel ships.
Build
We build on performance-first infrastructure with full SEO, GEO, and AEO foundations. Every integration, form, and automation is wired before launch.
Grow
We host, monitor, update, and optimize the site every month. The site is never static. It evolves with the business and the market.
Websites Built to Work Together.
Every site built on connected SEO, CRM, and automation foundations. Portfolio spans home services, professional services, health and wellness, hospitality, education, and trades.
Who This Is Built For, and Who It Is Not
I build websites for local service businesses that get most of their work from people searching, calling, and referring. The work suits owners who want one person accountable for the whole thing, from the first sketch to the form that fires at 9pm on a Saturday. It does not suit everyone, and I would rather tell you that on the call than three weeks into a build.
This is a good fit if
- Established service businesses in the Twin Cities East Metro, St. Croix Valley, and western Wisconsin that run on inbound calls and booked appointments. Plumbing, HVAC, auto body, roofing, concrete, cleaning, therapy clinics, mortgage, and the trades around them.
- Owners sitting on a site that was built once and abandoned. The phone number is buried, the forms go to an inbox nobody checks, and nobody knows the password to the host anymore.
- Businesses that want the website connected to the rest of it. Forms that land in a CRM, booking that syncs, tracking that shows which page produced the job, not just a design file handed over at the end.
- Anyone who needs a real tool and not just pages. Quote calculators, multi-step booking flows, interactive maps, internal estimators. I have built all four, and they are still running.
- Owners who want to text one person and get an answer. No ticket queue, no account manager relaying questions to a developer you never meet.
This is probably not for you if
- Ecommerce stores with large catalogs, inventory sync, and shipping rules. That is a different discipline and a Shopify specialist will serve you better than I will.
- Anyone who wants a cheap one-time build with no ongoing relationship. I host and manage what I build, because a site nobody maintains starts decaying the week after launch. If you want the files and a handshake, I am the wrong call.
- Businesses hoping a new website alone fixes slow lead response. A faster site sends the lead sooner. If nobody answers it, the rebuild changes nothing.
Worth Understanding
Four Things Worth Knowing Before You Rebuild
Most of the money wasted on local business websites gets wasted on things nobody warned the owner about. Here is what I would tell you on a call, whether or not you hire me.
Rebuilds Lose Rankings Because of Redirects, Not Design
When a site gets rebuilt, the URLs almost always change. The old page at /services/water-heater-repair becomes /water-heaters, and unless somebody explicitly tells search engines where it moved, every link and every ranking pointed at the old address hits a dead end. Traffic drops six to eight weeks later, and by then it gets blamed on a Google update or the new design. The fix is boring: crawl the old site, list every indexed URL, and map each one to its replacement with a permanent 301 redirect before you switch DNS. On a rebuild I did for a plumbing company, that map was over 150 URLs long.
Page Speed Is Mostly About What Has to Happen Before the Page Paints
A typical WordPress page load asks a server to wake up PHP, query a database, run a dozen plugins, assemble the HTML, and only then send anything to the phone. A static site skips all of it. The HTML already exists, sitting on a server geographically near the visitor, and it starts painting immediately. That is why I build on Astro and host on Cloudflare Pages: not because it is trendy, but because the slowest step in the chain gets deleted entirely. The other half is images. An unoptimized 4MB photo straight off a phone will undo every other optimization you made.
The Five Second Test Beats Every Opinion in the Room
Open your homepage on a phone, look at it for five seconds, then look away. Can you answer what the business does, who it serves, where it operates, and what to do next? If any of those four take more than five seconds, you are losing people before they scroll. This is also the test that settles internal arguments, because it replaces taste with a pass or fail. Most local sites fail on the where, they never name the towns, and on the what next, because the phone number sits in tiny grey text in a corner.
There Is a Real Line Between a Page and a Web App
A page presents information. An app takes input from the visitor and gives back something calculated, scheduled, or personalized. The threshold is usually this: if a customer has to email you and wait for a human to do arithmetic or check a calendar before they can move forward, that step can often become a tool. I have built a multi-step quote estimator for a video production company, a six-step booking flow spanning multiple service brands, and a map that tells homeowners their local water quality and routes them to the right service. Each one replaced a phone call that used to happen before the sale, which means fewer leads leaking out while they wait on you.
Featured Recent Projects
Recent Work We Are Proud Of
A closer look at four recent builds spanning plumbing, education, roofing, and financial services. Every one is live and built on the same connected SEO, CRM, and automation foundation.
A.J. Alberts Plumbing
Plumbing and water conditioning experts serving the Twin Cities East Metro since 1989.
Alma Flor Ada Spanish Immersion Early Learning Academy
Spanish immersion early childhood education with a warm, family-focused brand.
Community Builders Roofing
Locally owned residential roofing, repairs, and storm damage restoration across the East Metro.
New Horizons Boutique Financial Services
Personalized financial advisory and planning built around each client's goals.
Selected Website Portfolio
A sample of websites designed, built, and managed by McKinney Creative Ventures across local service, professional, health and wellness, hospitality, education, and creative industries. Every site below is live, actively maintained, and built on the same connected systems approach.
Local Service Businesses
A.J. Alberts Plumbing
Plumbing and water conditioning experts serving the Twin Cities East Metro since 1989
Community Builders Roofing
Locally owned residential roofing, repairs, and storm damage restoration across the East Metro
Bodywerks Auto Body Repair
Collision repair, custom paint, and classic restoration in the south metro since 1966
AB CAM Services
Commercial and residential service operations
Alpha Steam Services
Professional steam cleaning services
Seamless Gutter Solutions
Residential and commercial gutter systems
NPS Handyman Services
Full-service handyman solutions
High Country Portable Toilets
Event and construction portable sanitation
Concrete and Foundation Solutions
Foundation repair and concrete services
Perfect Concrete Construction
Custom residential and commercial concrete work
St. Croix HVAC
Heating, cooling, and indoor air quality
Superior Carpet Cleaning
Residential and commercial carpet cleaning
Nordic Shine
Post-construction and deep cleaning
Professional Services and Consulting
Schneider Genealogy
Professional genealogy research and services
New Horizons Boutique Financial Services
Personalized financial advisory
Andrew the Mortgage Guy
Personal mortgage lending services
Genius Network Solutions
Network marketing and business development
Sol-I.S. Technology Solutions
Business technology and IT consulting
Health, Wellness, and Lifestyle
Hospitality, Events, and Experiences
Community, Education, and Organizations
Brand and Creative Projects
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take to build a new website?
Do I own the website when we are done?
What platform do you build on?
Do you handle the copywriting too?
What happens after launch?
Will my site be optimized for AI answer engines like ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews?
Do you work with businesses outside the Twin Cities and Western Wisconsin?
Added Services to Pair With Your New Website
CRM & Automation
Connect the website to a CRM that answers in seconds, follows up on its own, and shows you where every lead sits.
SEO, GEO, and AEO
Make sure the website does not just look good. Make it rank in Google, get cited in AI answers, and show up in voice search.
Brand & Copy
A logo you are proud to put on the truck, and site copy, blogs, and proposals written to sound like you talk.
Listen
Websites, In My Own Voice
I host East Side Enterprise and record a short Tech Tips episode most weeks. Here is the one on how a site gets judged in seconds, plus two long conversations with local owners I have built for.
The 5-Second Website Test
Four minutes on whether a stranger can tell what you do before they leave. Run it on your own homepage before you ask anyone to rebuild it.
Episode 5 · 3:56
Henry Schneider of Open Window Productions: Storytelling, Skate Shops, and the Business of Video
Henry Schneider runs Open Window Productions in Oakdale, and I built the instant quote tool that sits on his site, so the custom build side of this service has a face on it.
Episode 3 · 1:00:33
Steve Grohn of AJ Alberts: A Winding Career and a Culture of Care
Steve Grohn owns AJ Alberts Plumbing and Water Conditioning in Woodbury, and I build and manage their site, so you can hear the kind of owner I work with for an hour before you call me.
Episode 1 · 1:04:27More on Websites That Actually Convert
I write up what I learn building these. These go deeper than a service page can.
Modern Website Design for Local Service Businesses: What Actually Converts in 2026
The longest thing I have written on what separates a site that books jobs from one that just looks fine. Read this before you approve anybody's design.
Read the article
7 Small Business Website Mistakes Quietly Killing Your Conversions
Seven specific failures I find over and over in audits. Open your own site next to this list and count how many you have.
Read the articleThe 5-Second Website Test
The fastest way to judge your own homepage without needing an opinion from a designer. Takes about a minute and settles a lot of arguments.
Read the article
When Off the Shelf Software Stops Working: A Guide to Custom Web Applications for Small Businesses
Where the line sits between a page and a real tool, and how to tell which side of it your problem is on before you spend anything.
Read the article
Do Local Service Businesses Still Need a Website in 2026?
A fair question now that AI answers and Google Business Profiles do so much of the work. The answer is yes, but not for the reason most people assume.
Read the articleReady for a Website That Actually Works?
Book a 30 minute strategy call. We will walk through your current site, your goals, and whether a rebuild makes sense. No pitch. Just a plan.
Book a Strategy CallOr call/text +1 651-661-3551. Based in Woodbury, MN. Serving the Twin Cities and Western Wisconsin.
Still deciding? Look through the portfolio and see whether the work holds up.