Brickyard Web Co. · Sioux City, Iowa · Custom websites & web applications, built and cared for by hand

Sioux City, Iowa · Serving Siouxland & the Midwest

Websites built by hand, not dragged into place.

I'm Jon, and I build custom websites and web applications for small businesses, families and organizations. No page-builder bloat, no template you'll outgrow in a year — real code, written for what your site actually has to do. Then I host it, back it up and keep it running.

twineaglesradio.net
TwinEagles Radio — a live station site built by Brickyard Web Co.
Hand-codedNo bloated builders
Hosted & cared forBackups, SSL, updates
Yours to ownYour domain, your data
LocalSioux City, Iowa

Sound Familiar?

Most people don’t come to me for a website. They come to stop fighting one.

“I paid for a site years ago and now nobody answers.”

Here you email — or WhatsApp — the person who wrote the code. No agency queue, no support ticket, no vanishing act.

“I lost a weekend to a drag-and-drop builder and it still looks off.”

Templates fight you because they weren’t built for your business. I start from what your site actually has to do — not from a theme.

“The monthly fee keeps creeping up, and I can’t take the site with me.”

With a builder you’re renting. Here the domain, the content and the code are yours — the monthly fee buys hosting and a human keeping it healthy.

“Honestly, I have no idea if anyone even visits it.”

Sites I build can include simple, private visitor stats — no creepy tracking, no cookie banner — so you know what’s working.

What I Build

Nine kinds of sites, one way of building them.

Every project below started as a real one. Whatever the subject matter, the approach is the same: figure out what the site has to do, then build exactly that — properly, and in a way you can keep using for years.

Small Business & Service Sites

The site people find you with. Clear services, clear pricing, and an obvious way to get in touch.

  • Service and pricing pages
  • Mobile-first responsive layout
  • Local SEO & Google Business setup
  • Free SSL on every site
Read more →

Booking & Inquiry Systems

Turn a visitor into a booked job without a monthly SaaS bill. Built for photographers, trades, and appointment-based work.

  • Session / service packages with pricing cards
  • Inquiry forms with spam protection
  • Date requests routed straight to your inbox
  • Automatic confirmation replies
Read more →

Client Portals & Private Galleries

A password-protected place to hand work off to clients — no third-party gallery service taking a cut.

  • Per-client logins
  • Photo & file delivery with downloads
  • Contracts, invoices and forms
  • Private document vault
Read more →

Membership & Community Platforms

Sites where the members are the content. Accounts, profiles, and everything they need to talk to each other.

  • Member accounts & profiles
  • Announcements, activity feeds, comments
  • Private messaging & group chat
  • Events with RSVPs, newsletters
Read more →

Archive, Genealogy & Database Sites

When you have hundreds or thousands of records, a pile of pages won't do it. These are real databases with a friendly front end.

  • Searchable record databases
  • Family trees & relationship mapping
  • Photo archives with tagging
  • Story and history write-up tools
Read more →

Radio, Streaming & Media Sites

Built around a live stream that keeps playing while people browse — plus everything an audience shows up for.

  • Embedded live player & pop-out window
  • Show schedules & host profiles
  • Song request and shout-out forms
  • News, weather, sports and event feeds
Read more →

Custom Web Applications

When an off-the-shelf tool almost fits but not quite. Admin dashboards and internal systems built to your workflow.

  • Admin dashboards & reporting
  • Role-based permissions
  • Client / customer management
  • Data imports, exports and migrations
Read more →

Domains, Email & Hosting

The plumbing, handled. You own the domain and the mailbox — I just make sure they work.

  • Domain registration & DNS setup
  • Custom-domain email and webmail
  • Hosting with SSL and daily backups
  • Migration from your current host
Read more →

Selling & Content Add-Ons

Bolt-ons for sites that need to earn. Sell direct to your people — I never take a commission on your sales.

  • Merch & digital product stores
  • Blog / news feeds and event calendars
  • Email list signup you actually own
  • Visitor analytics in plain English
Read more →

How It Works

Six steps, no surprises.

You'll know what's happening at every stage, and you'll see it before anyone else does.

Get in touch

Fill out the form below, email, or call. Tell me roughly what you're after — you don't need to have it figured out.

Discovery

A short conversation about what the site needs to do, what content you already have, and where your domain lives now.

Quote & plan

A written quote with a fixed build price and a monthly care figure. Nothing starts until you say go, and build fees can be split into installments.

Build

I build the site on a working preview link you can visit any time — not a screenshot, the real thing.

Review & launch

A structured revision round, then your domain is pointed, SSL verified, and the site goes live.

Care

Hosting, backups, security patches and your monthly update allowance. I stay on it so you don't have to think about it.

Selected Work

Three very different sites. Same workshop.

These are live, in use, and maintained — not mockups.

Rose Photography booking site — session packages and client gallery login
Booking Site

Rose Photography

A photographer's booking site: six session types with pricing, an inquiry form that routes straight to her inbox, and a client login area for delivering finished galleries.

Session packages Inquiry form Client portal
rosephotography.net →
Blackburn Legacy family portal — dashboard with family tree, photos and stories
Private Community & Archive

Blackburn Legacy

A private family portal with a searchable tree of hundreds of ancestors, photo albums, written histories, announcements, group chat, a document vault and custom family email addresses.

Member accounts Genealogy database Messaging Custom email
blackburnlegacy.net →
TwinEagles Radio — live player, news and show schedule
Streaming Media

TwinEagles Radio

A 24/7 internet radio station: a live player that keeps going as you browse, show schedules, DJ profiles, song requests, listener accounts, and regional news, weather and sports.

Live stream Show schedule Request forms Listener accounts
twineaglesradio.net →

Receipts

“Fast” isn’t a promise here. It’s measured.

Google Lighthouse scores for this very page — out of 100. Don’t take my word for it: run it yourself at pagespeed.web.dev.

98Performance
95Accessibility
100Best Practices
100SEO

Measured August 28, 2026 with Google Lighthouse (mobile). No caching tricks, no stripped-down test page — this page.

Build + Care

A one-time build fee, then a monthly care plan.

That's the whole model. The build price is fixed and quoted up front. The care plan keeps the site hosted, backed up, secure and updated — and includes a monthly allowance of changes so your site doesn't quietly go stale. Every project is different, so tell me what you need and I'll put a real number on it.

Hosting & uptime

Fast, reliable hosting with free SSL on every site. No separate hosting bill to chase.

Daily backups

Your site and its database, backed up every day and restorable if anything goes sideways.

Security & updates

Patches applied, forms hardened against spam, and the whole thing watched so problems get caught early.

Monthly changes

An included allowance of edits each month — new photos, prices, hours, pages. Just email me.

The Honest Comparison

Hand-coded vs. the drag-and-drop builders.

Wix and Squarespace are fine tools for some people. Here’s the actual difference, so you can decide with your eyes open.

CategoryPage buildersBrickyard Web Co.
Who builds itYou do, on a template, in your eveningsI do, by hand, from what your business needs
The monthly fee buysA software subscription that never endsHosting, daily backups, security, and a monthly allowance of real changes
OwnershipThe site lives on their platform — leave, and it stays behindYour domain, your content, your data — portable code
SpeedLoads the builder’s scripts before your contentHand-written pages with nothing extra to load
Selling onlineTransaction fees on some plans0% commission on anything you sell
When something breaksHelp center, chatbot, forumYou message the person who built it
Custom featuresWhatever the plugin store happens to haveBuilt to order — portals, archives, streaming, booking

About

Based in Sioux City. Working wherever you are.

Brickyard Web Co. is me — Jon. I'm in Sioux City, Iowa, and I build every site myself, from the database up. That means when something needs to change, there's no agency queue and no support ticket. You email the person who wrote the code.

I like the projects other shops shrug at: a family archive with a thousand records in it, a radio station that has to keep playing while you click around, a photographer who needs booking and gallery delivery in one place. If it needs to actually do something, that's the interesting part.

The name comes from how the work goes. Brick by brick, laid straight, built to hold up. Nothing fancy about it — it just lasts.

At a glance

Based in
Sioux City, Iowa
Serving
Siouxland, IA · NE · SD, and remote
Built with
PHP, MySQL, hand-written CSS
You own
Your domain, content and data
Commission
0% on anything you sell
Support
Directly from the person who built it

Questions

Things people ask before they email.

How much does a website cost?
Every quote is written for the project, so there's no rate card — but most small-business sites land in the ranges you'll see on the inquiry form below. Bigger builds like portals and web applications are quoted the same way: a fixed build price agreed before anything starts, with the option to split it into installments, and the monthly care figure quoted alongside it.
What does the monthly care plan actually cover?
Hosting with SSL, daily backups, security patches, spam-hardened forms, and a monthly allowance of real changes — new photos, prices, hours, pages. You email the change; I make it.
Do I actually own the site?
Yes. The domain is registered to you, the content and data are yours, and the site is real, portable code — not an export locked inside someone's platform. If you ever leave, it goes with you.
I already have a website. Can you fix or rebuild it?
That's a big part of the work. Sometimes it's a repair and cleanup, sometimes it's a rebuild that keeps your domain and content. I'll tell you honestly which one you need after looking at it.
Why not just use Wix or Squarespace?
If you enjoy building it yourself and your needs are simple, they're a fair choice. The comparison table above is the honest trade-off: a builder rents you a template on their platform; I build you a fast site you own — and then I stay around to look after it.
Where are you based — and do I have to be local?
Sioux City, Iowa. Most clients are around Siouxland, but the whole process — preview links, revision rounds, launch — works the same anywhere in the country.

Start a Project

Tell me what you're after.

You don't need a spec or a budget worked out. A couple of sentences about what you do and what you want the site to handle is plenty to get started — I'll come back with questions and a real quote.

Or email me directly at jon@brickyardweb.net. I don't share your details with anyone, ever.