A website that is fast, hard to break into, and entirely yours.
I'm a web developer in Petaluma. Every site I build loads before a visitor thinks about leaving, sends every browser the instructions that lock out common attacks, and carries labels in its code that tell Google and tools like ChatGPT exactly who you are and what you do. You own all of it from day one.
Greg Drake Digital builds custom websites in Petaluma, California for businesses across Sonoma County. Every build ships with no database, no plugins, and nothing bolted on for attackers to break through, plus machine-readable business facts and before-and-after measurements published with tools and dates. Rush builds ship in days. Consolidations fold several aging sites into one.
Six things ship with every build. They are not upgrades.
Speed
Measured, not promised
How fast a visitor sees your page decides whether they stay; Google's own research measured 53% of mobile visits abandoned when a page takes longer than three seconds (published 2016). The last site I rebuilt went from 6.1 seconds to 2.9 until the main content appeared, measured with Google's own public tools on June 5 and July 6, 2026. Your numbers go in your report the same way, dated, so you can re-run them yourself.
Security headers
Free to check, graded A through F
Instructions your site sends every browser that lock out common attacks. There are six standard ones, and most small-business sites send none: my judgment from the audits I run, free for anyone to verify. Every site I build sends all six, and a free public checker will confirm it whenever you like.
Nothing to hack
No database, no plugins
No database, no plugins, nothing bolted on for attackers to break through, and no admin login for anyone to guess. In 2025, security researchers catalogued more than eleven thousand new security flaws in WordPress, the most widely used site platform; six were in the core software, and all the rest were in plugins and themes (Patchstack, 2025 count). This construction has none of those parts, which is cheaper than defending them.
Machine-readable facts
How the machines learn who you are
Labels in your site's code that tell Google and tools like ChatGPT exactly who you are, what you do, and where you work. Visitors never see them. The systems that answer "who should I hire?" read little else, so getting these right makes it more likely that AI answers describe you accurately.
Accessibility in the code
Not a widget stuck on later
Built so a screen reader can read every page and a keyboard can reach every control. Good for the people who need it, expected by the fine print lawyers and regulators read, and scored by search engines.
Ownership
Yours from day one
The domain, the site, the content, and every account, registered to you and handed to you with the passwords. If we ever part ways, everything goes with you. Nothing is held hostage.
The site you are reading is built the same way. Run it through your own tools.
The build, the rush, and the consolidation.
The AI-Ready Build
A new site or a rebuild, done right: your story, clean code, and everything on the list above. It runs on infrastructure with no server to crash or delete, so the hosting bill stays small and the middle-of-the-night emergencies stay rare.
The Rush Build
The same construction, compressed for a real deadline: a launch, a listing, an event. Days, not months, and the corners that get cut are named in writing up front, not discovered later.
The Consolidation
Aging sites folded into one that can actually be maintained: one platform, one identity, one set of facts for the machines to read. Every old web address forwards to the right new page, so nothing you earned in search is lost.
From first reading to handover.
Read what you have
Every build starts with measurements of your current site, or the gap where one should be. You see the same numbers I do, each one dated and explained in a sentence. If a repair beats a rebuild, this is where I tell you.
One fixed written quote
Scope, schedule, and price in writing before money moves. No hourly meter running while you wonder what the bill will be. Every proposal includes what I recommend you not buy.
Build in the open
You watch the site take shape at a private address, not at a big reveal. The words and pictures come from you or with you, and nothing goes live without your eyes on it.
Measure again, hand over the keys
The same instruments, re-run in front of you, before and after side by side. Then the domain, the site, and every account go into your name, if they were not there already.
Care afterward is optional, and it is a subscription, not a hostage situation: month to month, leave anytime, and you own the domain, the site, and the content regardless. The care plans are here.
Not every site needs replacing.
If your current site can be fixed for less than a rebuild, the reading says so and I fix it instead. Rebuild recommendations come with the evidence attached: the measurements, the dates, and what each one means for your business. And if there is nothing worth fixing, I will tell you that too, in writing, for free.
Read first. Build second.
The free baseline reading is the right first step even for a brand-new build: you send me your web address, I send back five dated measurements of how your site is doing, each explained in one sentence, free. No site yet? Email me what the business does and we start from there.
Looking for a web developer in Petaluma? Details here.