/ A Michigan Web Design Studio

Wedesignthesurface,engineerthedepth.

A small studio in Lakeview, Michigan, building modern websites for the small businesses around us. We come from local — and we build local.

Est. — 2025Based — Lakeview, MIDiscipline — Web Design · SEO · HostingScroll
  • Based

    Lakeview, MI · Locally owned

  • Reply time

    Within 24 hours

  • Hosting

    Vercel · 99.9% uptime

  • Building since

    2025

/ Selected Work

Recent work we're proud of.

Douglass Township

Screenshot coming

Project 01 · 2025 · Web Design · Hosting · CMS

Douglass Township

A modern, accessible municipal website for Douglass Township, Michigan. Clear information for residents and a streamlined experience on every device.

View Case Study

Keaton Myers

Screenshot coming

Project 02 · 2025 · Personal Site

Keaton Myers

A minimal personal site for our co-founder. Small, fast, and focused on the work.

View Case Study

/ What clients say

Client testimonials

Lakefront rebuilt our township site end-to-end. Residents can finally find what they need on a phone, and our staff publishes meeting documents themselves — without a phone call to a developer.

Placeholder — Township Official

Douglass Township

Read the case study

/ How we work

A calm, considered process.

No surprises, no last-minute rebuilds. Every engagement follows the same four-phase rhythm — refined over years of shipping work we're proud of.

011—2 weeks

Discover

We listen, study, and map the terrain. Brand audits, competitive scans, and clarifying conversations to lock the brief.

023—5 weeks

Design

Editorial layouts, typography systems, color, and motion principles. Iterative reviews until the surface feels inevitable.

033—6 weeks

Build

Next.js engineering, performance-first. Every interaction polished, every Lighthouse number earned.

04Ongoing

Launch

Deploy, monitor, refine. We stay close after launch — analytics, iteration, and ongoing partnership.

/ Why Lakefront

Built different on purpose.

You have plenty of options for a small business website. Here's what makes working with us different — and why our clients tend to stay.

Local roots

We live and work in central Michigan. We can meet in person when it helps, and we know the towns our clients serve. You're not a ticket in a queue — you're a neighbor.

Performance-obsessed

Every site we ship targets a perfect Lighthouse score. Pages load in under a second, work on any device, and stay fast as you grow. Speed isn't a phase — it's a discipline.

A real partner

We stay close after launch — hosting, security updates, content edits, performance monitoring. You always own your code and your domain. You can leave anytime; most don't.

Built to last

Modern stack, semantic HTML, accessibility baked in, structured data for SEO. No themes, no page builders, no rented widgets. Your site is yours, built right, made to age well.

/ Performance, measured

Lighthouse 100s. Across the board.

Every site we ship targets a perfect score on Google's Lighthouse audit — the same numbers Google uses to grade your search ranking. These aren't aspirational. They're the floor.

100

Performance

100

Accessibility

100

Best Practices

100

SEO

Try it yourself · Chrome DevTools → Lighthouse → Analyze page load

/ Common questions

Quick answers, no jargon.

The questions we hear most often. If yours isn't here, reach out directly — we typically reply within a business day.

  • How much does a small business website cost?
    We build in three tiers. Foundations ($500–$3,500) for sole proprietors and simple 1–4 page sites. Studio ($4,000–$6,500) for most small businesses, with a 5–10 page custom build, CMS, and full SEO foundation — this is where ~80% of our clients land. Signature ($7,000+) for larger or more complex builds. You get a fixed quote up front; no hourly billing, no surprise invoices. Full details on our pricing page.
  • How long does a typical project take?
    Depends on the tier. Foundations sites take 2–5 weeks. Studio (most common) takes 5–8 weeks. Signature builds run 8–12 weeks. We schedule projects so you always know what's happening that week, and we never start until the deposit is paid and the brief is locked.
  • Do you handle hosting and ongoing maintenance?
    Yes. Three hosting tiers: Basic ($50/mo) is just hosting + backups + security patches. Standard ($125/mo) adds 1 hour/month of content edits or small changes — what most clients pick. Premium ($250/mo) adds priority support and 3 hours/month. Hosted on Vercel (99.9% uptime, global CDN). You always own your code and domain — you can leave anytime.
  • What happens if I need updates or changes after launch?
    Standard and Premium hosting clients get a bucket of monthly updates included — adding a new page, swapping out a photo, updating hours. For larger changes (a new feature, a redesign), we quote those separately. Most builds also include Sanity CMS access, which lets you and your team edit text, images, and documents yourselves without touching any code.
  • Do you work with businesses outside central Michigan?
    Our focus is small businesses within roughly 50 miles of Lakeview — that's where we know the community and can meet in person when it helps. We do take on a small number of remote projects each year for businesses we connect with, so don't hesitate to reach out even if you're farther afield.
  • Will my website actually rank on Google?
    Every site we ship is built with technical SEO baked in: fast page loads, semantic HTML, structured data (Schema.org), proper sitemaps, and clean URLs. For local businesses, we also help you set up Google Business Profile so the foundation is solid from day one. We don't sell ongoing SEO retainers — for monthly content + outreach campaigns we'll refer you to specialists we trust. SEO is a long game, but the foundation will always be solid.

/ Where we work

Built local, for local.

Our studio is in Lakeview, Michigan. We focus on small businesses within roughly 50 miles — close enough to meet in person when it helps, in the towns we already know. We take a small number of remote projects each year for businesses we connect with farther afield.

  • Lakeview
  • Greenville
  • Stanton
  • Howard City
  • Grand Rapids
  • Mt. Pleasant
LAKEMICHIGANLAKE HURONGrand RapidsLansingDetroitMt. PleasantLAKEVIEWTHE STUDIO

/ Start the conversation

Tell us about your project.

Whether it's a brand-new launch or a redesign that's long overdue — we'd love to hear about it. We typically reply within one business day.

inbox@lakefrontweb.com— or —Lakeview, Michigan · Serving central Michigan

We'll never share your details.