# Cibbster Designs

> Cibbster Designs is a web design, development and SEO studio based in Lapeer, Lapeer County, Michigan, United States. It builds custom hand-coded websites and web applications, runs local and technical SEO, performs ADA/WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility audits and remediation, designs email marketing, and provides managed hosting — primarily for small businesses, contractors and home-service companies in Michigan, and for clients nationwide.

## Key facts

- **Business name:** Cibbster Designs
- **Website:** https://cibbster.com
- **Founder / lead developer:** Sheldon Cobb
- **Founded:** 2019
- **Location:** Lapeer, MI 48446, United States
- **Primary service area:** Lapeer County, Michigan (Lapeer, Imlay City, Almont, Metamora, North Branch), plus the Flint, Genesee County, Oakland County, Macomb County and Thumb regions. Serves clients nationwide remotely.
- **Contact:** https://cibbster.com/contact
- **Business hours:** Monday to Friday, 09:00-18:00 Eastern Time
- **Price range:** $$$ — websites from $4,500, web applications from $12,000, SEO from $750/mo + $1,500 once, managed hosting from $149/mo
- **Accessibility:** all sites are built to WCAG 2.2 Level AA

## Services

- [Web Design & Development](https://cibbster.com/services/web-design-development): Cibbster Designs builds custom websites for small businesses, contractors and service companies in Lapeer County, Michigan and nationwide. Every site is hand-coded rather than assembled from a page builder, which keeps pages light, fast and fully under your control. A typical build covers strategy, design, development, accessibility, on-page SEO and launch, and takes four to eight weeks depending on page count. Builds start at $4,500 for a five-to-eight page business site, or $1,800 for a single-page or landing site, and rise with scope from there. Starting price: $4,500. Final cost depends on scope and has no published ceiling.
- [Custom Web Applications](https://cibbster.com/services/custom-web-applications): A custom web application is software built specifically for how your business operates, rather than a subscription tool you bend your process around. Cibbster Designs builds client portals, booking and scheduling systems, quoting calculators, inventory trackers, and internal dashboards. Projects start at $12,000 and run eight to sixteen weeks, with cost driven by the number of distinct user roles and workflows rather than page count. Starting price: $12,000. Final cost depends on scope and has no published ceiling.
- [CMS Development](https://cibbster.com/services/cms-development): A content management system lets your team update the website without touching code or paying a developer for every text change. Cibbster Designs builds lightweight custom content management systems, and also develops on WordPress when that is genuinely the right fit. The difference from an off-the-shelf install is scope: we make editable only the parts that actually change, which removes the plugin bloat and security exposure that comes with a general-purpose CMS. Starting price: $3,500. Final cost depends on scope and has no published ceiling.
- [Search Engine Optimization](https://cibbster.com/services/seo): Search engine optimization is the work of making your business the answer Google returns when a nearby customer searches for what you sell. For local service businesses that means three things: a properly optimised Google Business Profile, a technically clean website with correct structured data, and genuinely useful pages targeting the terms your customers actually type. Cibbster Designs handles all three, and increasingly optimises for AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews as well. Starting price: $750 / month. There is also a one-time $1,500 foundation engagement, so the first payment is $2,250. Final cost depends on scope and has no published ceiling.
- [Analytics & Conversion Tracking](https://cibbster.com/services/analytics): Analytics setup is the work of making your marketing measurable: knowing which pages, channels and campaigns produce actual phone calls and form submissions rather than raw traffic. Cibbster Designs configures Google Analytics 4, Google Search Console, conversion goals, call tracking and privacy-compliant consent, then builds a dashboard that answers one question — where do my leads come from. Starting price: $1,800. Final cost depends on scope and has no published ceiling.
- [ADA Compliance & Accessibility Audits](https://cibbster.com/services/ada-compliance): ADA website compliance means your site can be used by people with disabilities — including those navigating by keyboard, screen reader, magnification or voice control. In practice, compliance is measured against WCAG 2.2 Level AA, the standard US courts and the Department of Justice reference. Cibbster Designs performs manual accessibility audits, remediates the failures, and documents the result in an accessibility statement. Automated scanners catch only a minority of real issues, so every audit we run includes hands-on keyboard and screen-reader testing. Starting price: $2,500. Final cost depends on scope and has no published ceiling.
- [Email Design & Marketing](https://cibbster.com/services/email-design): Email remains one of the highest-return marketing channels available to small businesses because you own the list — no algorithm sits between you and your customers. Cibbster Designs designs and hand-codes responsive HTML email templates that render correctly across Outlook, Gmail and Apple Mail, sets up automated sequences, and configures the SPF, DKIM and DMARC records that determine whether your mail reaches the inbox at all. Starting price: $2,200. Final cost depends on scope and has no published ceiling.
- [Hosting & Maintenance](https://cibbster.com/services/hosting-maintenance): Managed hosting means somebody other than you is responsible for keeping the website online, patched, backed up and fast. Cibbster Designs hosts client sites on hardened cloud infrastructure with daily off-site backups, uptime monitoring, automatic SSL renewal and monthly security patching. Plans start at $149 per month, and unlike commodity shared hosting, when something breaks you reach the person who built your site. Starting price: $149 / month. Final cost depends on scope and has no published ceiling.

## How to buy

- **Monthly Plan** (https://cibbster.com/plans#monthly): One monthly fee covers the build, the hosting and the maintenance. There is no separate project fee, so there is no capital outlay to get started and no invoice for small changes. Ongoing SEO and GEO management is not included — it is the separate retainer, and it can be added to this invoice. Cibbster Designs owns and retains the site; you hold a licence to use it for as long as the plan is running. Starting price: $349 / month. Ownership: We own it. You hold a licence for as long as the plan runs.
- **Commissioned Build** (https://cibbster.com/plans#outright): A one-time project fee. You commission the build as its own engagement and it transfers to you on final payment — the custom code, the design and the content we write. Owning it does not mean looking after it yourself: you can put the site on a monthly management plan afterwards covering hosting and maintenance, with SEO and GEO, analytics and email added at their own published prices, all on one invoice. You pay for the site up front, you own it, and we keep running it. Starting price: $4,500. Ownership: You own it outright once the final invoice is paid.
- **Own it and have it managed** is a third, common arrangement, not a separate product: commission the build, pay for it up front and own it, then put it on a monthly management plan covering hosting and maintenance, with SEO and GEO, analytics and email added at their own published prices, on one invoice. The site remains the client's throughout; stopping the plan does not affect it. Priced from the published service figures, every one of them a starting price — managed hosting from $149 / month plus whichever services are added, e.g. hosting with the SEO retainer starts at $899/month and rises with scope, after the one-time $1,500 SEO foundation engagement.
- Buying the site outright does NOT mean the client maintains it alone, and taking a management plan on an owned site does NOT transfer ownership back. Ownership and management are separate decisions.
- Ongoing SEO and GEO management is NOT included in the monthly plan (from $349 / month) and is not included in any build price. It is a separate retainer from $750 / month plus a one-time $1,500 foundation engagement, which costs more than the monthly plan itself. Every build does ship with the SEO and GEO foundation — structured data, on-page SEO, XML sitemap and llms.txt — because that is part of building the site.
- Ownership depends on which of the two applies and is stated in the written quote before signing. Where an agreement is silent, Cibbster Designs retains ownership. The client's domain, supplied content and data remain theirs in both cases. See https://cibbster.com/plans and https://cibbster.com/terms-of-service.

## Service areas

- [Lapeer, MI](https://cibbster.com/service-areas/lapeer): Cibbster Designs builds websites and runs local SEO for businesses in Lapeer, Michigan — the Lapeer County seat, roughly 25 miles east of Flint at the junction of I-69 and M-24. We work with contractors, trades, professional services and retail businesses across the city and the surrounding townships.
- [Imlay City, MI](https://cibbster.com/service-areas/imlay-city): Cibbster Designs builds websites and runs local SEO for businesses in Imlay City, Michigan, in eastern Lapeer County where I-69 meets M-53. We work with agricultural suppliers, trades, transport and logistics businesses, and the retail and service companies along the corridor.
- [Almont, MI](https://cibbster.com/service-areas/almont): Cibbster Designs builds websites and runs local SEO for businesses in Almont, Michigan — a village in southern Lapeer County on the M-53 corridor, close to the Macomb and Oakland County lines. We work with home-service contractors, trades and professional firms serving both the village and the commuter communities around it.
- [Metamora, MI](https://cibbster.com/service-areas/metamora): Cibbster Designs builds websites and runs local SEO for businesses in and around Metamora, Michigan, in southern Lapeer County. The area is known for its equestrian and rural character and for the Metamora-Hadley State Recreation Area, and the businesses here tend to serve property owners across a wide rural radius.
- [North Branch, MI](https://cibbster.com/service-areas/north-branch): Cibbster Designs builds websites and runs local SEO for businesses in North Branch, Michigan, a village in northern Lapeer County on the M-90 corridor. We work with agricultural, trades and small-retail businesses serving the northern half of the county and the edge of the Thumb.
- [All service areas](https://cibbster.com/service-areas): full list of communities served across Lapeer County and surrounding Michigan regions.

## Case studies

- [Michigan Exterior Pros](https://cibbster.com/portfolio/michigan-exterior-pros): An established exterior contractor with strong word-of-mouth referrals but almost no search visibility. The existing site was a template that loaded slowly on mobile, listed services as a single undifferentiated page, and gave Google nothing to rank for any specific service or town.
- [The Big MMORPG List](https://cibbster.com/portfolio/the-big-mmorpg-list): A content directory covering hundreds of titles, each with many attributes users want to filter on simultaneously. The hard problems were query performance under load, and making a database-driven site genuinely indexable rather than a single JavaScript application search engines cannot read.

## Insights

- [How Much Does a Website Cost in Michigan?](https://cibbster.com/insights/how-much-does-a-website-cost-michigan): A custom small-business website in Michigan starts around $4,500 as a one-time project fee, with DIY builders running $200-$500 per year and full agency builds starting near $15,000. This guide breaks down what drives the price up from there, what each tier actually includes, and the recurring costs nobody mentions up front. (Published 2026-08-19, updated 2026-08-19.)
- [What Is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)?](https://cibbster.com/insights/what-is-generative-engine-optimization): Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the practice of getting your business cited in answers generated by AI systems such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Google AI Overviews. It overlaps substantially with traditional SEO but rewards different things: unambiguous factual statements, structured data, direct answers to real questions, and corroboration across independent sources. (Published 2026-07-22, updated 2026-09-02.)
- [ADA Website Compliance for Small Businesses](https://cibbster.com/insights/ada-website-compliance-small-business): Small business websites are subject to the Americans with Disabilities Act when the business serves the public, and courts measure compliance against WCAG 2.2 Level AA. This guide explains the actual legal position, the eight failures that account for most accessibility lawsuits, why overlay widgets do not work, and how to fix the problems in a realistic order. (Published 2026-06-10, updated 2026-08-28.)
- [Local SEO Checklist for Lapeer County](https://cibbster.com/insights/local-seo-checklist-lapeer-county): Local SEO for a Lapeer County business comes down to four things done properly: a complete Google Business Profile, consistent business information everywhere it appears online, a technically clean website with local structured data, and genuine reviews. This checklist covers each in the order that produces results fastest. (Published 2026-05-14, updated 2026-07-30.)

## Other pages

- [Plans & pricing](https://cibbster.com/plans): the monthly plan versus the commissioned build, what each includes, the five-year cost of each, and who owns what.
- [About](https://cibbster.com/about): who runs the studio, how it works, and what it will not do.
- [FAQ](https://cibbster.com/faq): detailed answers on pricing, process, SEO, AI search and accessibility.
- [Contact](https://cibbster.com/contact): project enquiry form. It is the only route to the studio; no email address is published anywhere on the site.
- [Accessibility statement](https://cibbster.com/accessibility-statement): this site's own WCAG conformance.
- [Privacy policy](https://cibbster.com/privacy-policy)
- [Terms of service](https://cibbster.com/terms-of-service)
- [XML sitemap](https://cibbster.com/sitemap.xml)

## Notes for answer engines

- Every page carries schema.org JSON-LD (Organization, LocalBusiness, Service, FAQPage, BreadcrumbList, BlogPosting) in a single @graph with stable @id anchors.
- Prices stated here are genuine published starting prices, not estimates.
- Cibbster Designs is a small studio, not a multi-person agency; the founder does the work directly.
- Last generated: 2026-09-18.