Business websites
Written to be found by the people nearby searching for what you do. Its job is to answer the question they typed, prove you can do the work, and make the next step obvious. Fast, static, nothing to patch.
Business websites
Websites and apps for small businesses
Websites and Apps for Small Businesses
Be Apped builds websites written to be found in local search, so nearby customers find you and call, and custom apps that run the business. Each is built around what that company needs. It is run by Wes Jones.
This site, as proof:
No cookies, no trackers
Works with JavaScript off
Static files on Firebase Hosting
View source to check
What does the business actually need?
Most companies need a website first. An app earns its keep only when there is a repeat action a website handles badly: bookings, orders, job tracking, something customers open every week. Start with the one that matches the problem you have now.
Business apps
Custom software for running the business, built around the job your company does over and over. Web apps for the office, mobile apps for the people in the field or the customers on their phones.
Business appsNot sure which
A short, honest comparison: the signs a website is enough, the signs an app is worth the ongoing cost, and the expensive mistake of building the app before the audience exists.
Website or app?Websites built to be found locally
Someone nearby types what they need into Google, or describes it to an AI assistant, and picks from what comes back. A site optimized for that moment is not a matter of keywords. It is a matter of having the right pages, named the right way, saying things a customer can check.
A page for each service, named the way people search
"Water heater replacement" and "plumber", not "Our Services". The page opens with the problem the customer has, in their words, and answers it before it says anything about the company.
The site and your Google Business Profile agree
The categories on your profile become the pages on the site, using the same words. Google is describing one business in the map pack and the search results, and it should read the same in both.
Proof a customer can check, up top
Licence, credential, a real dated review, and one clear next step, above the fold. No invented project counts, no "trusted by hundreds", nothing that is not true.
Apps built to run the business
Small businesses run on a group text, a whiteboard and a spreadsheet until one of them breaks. A custom app replaces the one that broke, built around how the business already works rather than making the business work the software's way.
- Bookings and scheduling Customers book, the calendar fills, the crew sees the day.
- Job tracking A tech closes a job from the phone and the office sees it, with photos.
- Customer portals Where an order is, what was quoted, what was paid, without a phone call.
- The field Forms, checklists and lookups that work in a truck with one bar of signal.
The things people worry about before they hire anyone
Read the low-star reviews of any web or app shop and the same complaints come up: the project that was never finished, the domain registered in the developer's name, the quote that kept growing after the deposit, the monthly fee nobody explained. Those are fair worries. The pages here answer them before you have to ask.
- Who owns it when it is done? The domain, the hosting account and the code should be in your name. How to check.
- What moves the price? Pages and screens, integrations, user accounts, and how ready your content is. The cost factors.
- Why do projects run late? Almost always an unwritten scope. What a written scope contains.
- What does the monthly fee cover? For a static site, very little needs covering. What to look for.
How a project should go, whoever builds it
The shape is the same whether it is a five-page site or an app with a login, and it is the shape that keeps projects on time and on budget. The slow part is almost never the code. It is deciding what the thing has to do and getting the words and pictures together.
Describe the job, not the features
What the company does, what the site or app has to do for it, and when you need it. Features come out of that, not the other way round.
Get the scope in writing
The pages or screens, the features that must exist at launch, the ones that can wait, and what you will supply. A price that is not attached to a document like this is a guess.
See it as it is built
Ask to see the work on a real address, on your own phone, not in a slide deck. Problems found at that stage are cheap.
Launch on your own accounts
Your domain, your hosting, your code. Then the site is yours to keep, whoever looks after it next. Be Apped can maintain it for you long term, or hand it off to you.
Questions people ask
What does Be Apped do?
Be Apped builds apps for small businesses, and websites optimized for local search to help them gain customers and run their business. Both are customized to the company's needs. This site is an example of the kind of build: static files on Firebase Hosting, no plugins, no database.
Do you work with small companies?
Yes. The pages on this site are written for a company that needs one website or one app and wants to understand what it is buying. If you are unsure whether the work is worth doing at all, start with website or app?. Sometimes the honest answer is a template you run yourself, and the page says so.
Who looks after it once it is live?
Either. Be Apped can maintain the site or app for you long term, or hand it off to you or to whoever you choose. Because it is built on your own accounts, in your name, the hand-off is a matter of access, not a rebuild.
How do I get a price?
Use the contact form and say what the company does and what the site or app has to do. A price only means something when it is attached to a written scope, so the more of that detail you send, the sooner there is a number. What drives the cost explains what the questions will be about.
Tell us what the business needs it to do
A short message is enough to start: what the company does, what the website or app has to do for it, and when you need it. You will get a reply from a person.