What "best" should actually mean
"Best" is meaningless without context. A web design company that is best for a hobby site is not the same one that is best for a regional service company with a six-figure lead-gen need. Before shopping vendors, pin down what "best" means for your specific situation.
Useful definitions of best, in plain English:
- Best at making a clean, on-brand site quickly and cheaply.
- Best at ranking on Google for the searches your customers actually run.
- Best at making the site fast enough to convert on rural Kansas connections and mobile.
- Best at integrating the site with your CRM, scheduling, payments, or other systems.
- Best at long-term ownership and flexibility — not handing you to a platform you can never leave.
- Best at being honest about whether a custom build is even the right call for you.
Questions to ask before hiring a web designer
These questions tend to expose the real shape of a provider quickly. Ask them on the first call:
- Will you build my site on a template platform, a CMS, or custom code? What are the tradeoffs?
- Will I own the source code and content outright, or does it live inside a platform?
- What will Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS) look like on the finished site, and how will you measure them?
- What schema.org structured data will you ship, and which page types will have which schema?
- How will the site be optimized for AI engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude), not just Google?
- Who maintains the site after launch? What does month-to-month maintenance actually cost and cover?
- Can you show three sites you built that are similar in scale, with current page-speed and ranking results?
- What happens if I'm not happy with the build mid-project — can I leave with the work-in-progress?
- What's your turnaround on requests after launch?
Template sites versus custom-coded sites
Most local web design companies build on template platforms (Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy, Duda) or on WordPress with prebuilt themes and page builders (Elementor, Divi, WPBakery). These tools are legitimate and serve a lot of small businesses well.
A smaller number of providers build custom-coded sites in modern frameworks (Next.js, Astro, SvelteKit). These sites are slower to build but ship less code per page, hit faster Core Web Vitals scores, allow deeper schema markup and AI-engine optimization, and avoid platform fees over time.
Neither approach is universally "better." The right call depends on what the site needs to do and how much the business relies on it.
SEO, speed, and conversion
Three measurable signals separate strong web design work from weak work, regardless of platform:
- Page speed — sub-1-second Largest Contentful Paint on real-world rural Kansas connections, not just on a desktop in Denver.
- Search visibility — ranking for the searches your customers actually run, with structured data that Google and AI engines can read.
- Conversion rate — a clear, measurable path from visitor to lead or sale, with form analytics or call tracking in place.
- Ask any provider how they'll move all three numbers, and how they'll prove it after launch.
Local knowledge matters
Hays is small enough that a generic agency from a metro market often misses local context — the audiences (Fort Hays State students vs. ag families vs. oilfield contractors vs. healthcare workers), the seasonal cycles, the way local trust signals work (church involvement, FHSU affiliation, multi-generational family business roots), and the realistic search volumes for local services.
A provider that understands Hays will plan for those audiences explicitly in the site structure, not bolt them on at the end.
Why Preisser Solutions is a fit for certain Hays businesses
Preisser Solutions is run by Tyler Preisser in Hays, Kansas. The firm specializes in custom-coded websites and business automation — primarily Next.js and TypeScript with deep SEO and AI-engine optimization, deployed to Cloudflare Pages.
Honest fit profile — businesses where Preisser Solutions tends to be the right call:
- The website is a real revenue channel (leads, bookings, e-commerce), not a brochure.
- Speed, schema depth, and AI-engine citation matter for the search categories you compete in.
- Custom features are needed — calculators, portals, integrations, automation, AI agents.
- You want to own the source code outright and avoid recurring platform fees.
- You want a local provider who understands the Hays / FHSU / western Kansas context.
When another provider may be a better fit
Preisser Solutions isn't right for every business in Hays. Cases where another provider is genuinely a better fit:
- Pre-revenue or hobby site where the lowest possible upfront cost is the dominant constraint — a template platform handled directly by the owner is often the right call.
- Content-first business that needs constant non-technical publishing — a managed WordPress provider may be easier day-to-day.
- Single-event microsites or short-lived promotional pages — not worth the custom build.
- Businesses that already have a strong relationship with another Hays-area provider that is doing the work well — no reason to switch.
- Projects that need to be live in less than two weeks — custom builds are not the right fit for that timeline.
- The goal of this guide isn't to win every project. It's to help Hays business owners choose the right provider for the actual situation, even when that provider isn't us.