West Michigan Cavaliers
Client: West Michigan Cavaliers
Challenge
A 20-year-established AKC breeder was paying $200/month for an enterprise marketing platform she didn't own, with placeholder text and broken links live on her site
Solution
Built a fast, SEO-optimized static site with proper content structure, responsive images, structured data, and a deployment pipeline Linda fully owns
Result
A professional breeder website with sub-second mobile load times, clean local SEO foundations, and full client ownership — at nearly half the annual cost of the previous solution
The Challenge
Linda, owner of West Michigan Cavaliers, has been breeding AKC Cavalier King Charles Spaniels for over 20 years. Her reputation and rankings were built entirely on the strength of her business — not her website. Despite paying $200/month to an out-of-state developer, her site was built on a GoHighLevel sub-account she didn't own, had Lorem Ipsum placeholder text live in dog profile cards, a broken "About Linda" link pointing to /undefined, and no meaningful SEO implementation beyond a title tag. Enterprise marketing automation was being used as a five-page brochure site, and her domain ownership was uncertain.
She needed a website that matched her reputation — one she actually owned.
Our Solution
We are building a purpose-driven static website using Statiq.Web and Tailwind CSS, deployed to a Netlify account in Linda's name. Every decision prioritizes ownership, performance, and local search visibility for puppy buyers across West Michigan.
Key features include:
- Proper Site Structure: Breaking the single-page mega-scroll design into dedicated pages for Available Puppies, About, Testimonials, and Contact — improving both UX and crawlability
- SEO Foundation: Meta descriptions on every page, correct H1 > H2 > H3 heading hierarchy, image alt text, and removal of 16-year-old deprecated meta keyword tags
- Structured Data: LocalBusiness and AKC breeder schema markup to improve search engine understanding and local visibility
- Responsive Images with Lazy Loading: Replacing 70-80 unoptimized homepage images served at 1200px regardless of device with properly sized, lazily loaded assets
- Lead Capture: Contact form via Netlify Forms — no backend, no server, no ongoing cost
- Analytics & Search Console: Google Analytics and Search Console configured from day one for ongoing visibility into traffic and rankings
- Full Client Ownership: Source code in Git, deployed to our Netlify account, but easily transferable as contract states all content is client owned
The Result
West Michigan Cavaliers will have a website as established as the business behind it. Sub-second mobile load times will replace the previous 3-5 second experience driven by GoHighLevel's platform JavaScript overhead. Proper SEO foundations will be in place to protect and build on the organic rankings Linda has earned through 20 years of reputation. And for the first time, Linda will own her site outright — if she ever wants to leave, she takes everything with her.
The total cost in year one will come in under what she was previously paying annually, with a lower monthly rate and no lock-in.
Technologies Used
- Statiq.Web with Razor templates for static site generation
- Tailwind CSS for responsive, mobile-first design
- Netlify for hosting, forms, and continuous deployment
- YAML data files for puppy listings, testimonials, and site configuration
- Schema.org structured data (LocalBusiness / AKC breeder type)
- Google Analytics and Search Console integration
- Minimal vanilla JavaScript (mobile menu only)