I’m Kayla Sox. I run a small Pilates studio off Dixie. I also help my sister with her food truck site. I live right here in West Palm Beach. Salt air, palms, and all.
If you want a second opinion from another local who went through the same ups and downs, check out this deep-dive on West Palm Beach web design.
I’ve hired two local teams. I’ve tried a cheap route too. Here’s what actually happened, what broke, and what got fixed.
The short story first
- For a full site: THAT Agency did my studio site. 4.5/5.
- For fast promo pages: Digital Resource was solid. 4/5.
- Cheap freelance? It looked cute. It cost us time.
You can stop there. Or keep reading and see the messy bits that made it real.
My studio site with THAT Agency
I met the team on Clematis. We talked on a patio with loud birds and a hot latte. They listened. They asked about class sizes and parking. Weird detail, but it mattered for my map and “Book Now” buttons.
- Platform: WordPress
- Design: Figma mockups first
- Build time: 6 weeks, plus a few days for fixes
- Cost: $8,500 all-in (design, build, launch, basic SEO)
- Vibe: soft teal, coral, and sand—very Palm Beach, not tacky
They gave me three homepage drafts. One had a hero video of the marina at sunrise. Pretty, yes. Slow, also yes. On my phone it dragged. You know what? They didn’t argue. They swapped in a lighter loop and lazy loaded it. They used WebP images. They turned on Cloudflare. Load time went from “ugh” to “okay.” On 5G it felt snappy.
They wired in “Book Now” with Acuity Scheduling. They set up GA4 and events so we could track clicks and calls. Fancy word, simple win: I could see what worked.
After launch, my numbers:
- Calls per week: 6 to 14
- New bookings per week: 3 to 9
- Bounce rate: down from 68% to 44% (home page)
- Top page: “Pilates Classes West Palm Beach” (they wrote that title; it’s boring but it shows up)
Did everything go perfect? Nope.
- Spam hit our forms. They added reCAPTCHA and a simple honey pot. Spam dropped to near zero.
- A button broke on Safari (old iPhones). They pushed a fix the same day.
- I didn’t like a font on mobile. They bumped the size and contrast for ADA. Easy to read, even in sun glare.
They trained me on how to edit text and swap photos. We did a 45-minute Zoom. No jargon soup. I can change a class time without fear now.
Would I hire them again? Yes. I liked the calm. I liked that they spoke plain English. Small knock: the first mood board felt too “Miami club.” We pulled it back to “calm studio by the water.”
Fast campaign work with Digital Resource
Different need. Summer promo for private sessions. Short window. I needed a landing page and Google Ads. People in town, lots of tourists too.
- Turnaround: 10 days
- Page: WordPress, one page, clear offer
- Tracking: CallRail for phone, GA4 events
- Cost: $3,200 for page and setup, plus ad spend
Results in 3 weeks:
- 32 leads (calls + forms)
- 9 paid sessions
- Most calls came from 4–7 p.m., right after work
They A/B tested the headline. “Private Pilates in West Palm Beach” beat “1:1 Training Near You.” Not a shock, but nice to see the numbers. They also swapped the hero photo from a beach shot to an in-studio shot. The in-studio pic won. People want to see where they’ll be, not just the sand.
One hiccup: a tracking goal fired twice. The numbers looked too good. I flagged it. They fixed it and re-published. Honest miss, quick fix.
Would I call them for a full site? Maybe. But they shine with speed and campaigns.
My neighbor over in Wellington had a different experience—she spilled the details in her honest first-person take on Wellington web design, and it’s worth a skim if you serve that side of the county.
The cheap route we tried for my sister’s food truck
Lake Worth freelancer. $1,200. Squarespace. Sweet kid. Cute layout. Palms, pink, and a fun menu.
But. Deadlines slipped. Twice. The map pin was off. Mobile nav covered the logo. And no one set up basic SEO. The title tag said “Home.” That hurts. She sold out at the fair anyway—because her churros slap—but the site didn’t help.
We moved her to Wix later and cleaned it up ourselves. It works now. Lesson learned: cheap can cost time. And time is money when your fryer is hot.
For a perspective on hiring far outside Florida, I found myself nodding along to this story about bringing on an Orange County web design company—same headaches, different coast.
Speaking of casting a net beyond Florida, my cousin in Dana Point sells beach cuffs and likes to test new offers through Backpage San Clemente—the local classifieds board lets you drop quick ads, gauge interest from surfers and locals, and drum up foot traffic before you spend big on formal campaigns.
What felt very “West Palm Beach” about all this
- Mobile or bust. People search from the beach, from Publix, from the boat ramp. If it lags, they bounce.
- Sun glare is real. High contrast text matters. Fancy gray on gray looks chic indoors. Not at the marina.
- Storm prep week is chaos. Build in buffer. Power blips, shoots get moved, folks go buy water.
- Local photos win. Show Clematis, the bridge, your doorway, your crew. Not stock palms.
- Parking notes help. It sounds dull. But it cut “Where do I park?” calls in half.
Tiny nerd corner (plain words, promise)
- Core Web Vitals: we aimed for “Good” on mobile. LCP under 2.5s after they trimmed the video.
- Schema: they added LocalBusiness info. It helps Google show hours, phone, and reviews.
- Hosting: we moved to WP Engine. Fewer hiccups. Backups every day. Sleep is nice.
If that flew past you, no stress. Just ask your team for speed, clear tracking, and backups. Then ask them to show you, not just tell you. For a deeper dive into those behind-the-scenes tech bits, I liked the plain-English breakdown over on Design Web Magic, which walks through speed tests, schema, and hosting without the jargon fog.
Another resource I bookmarked while squashing my first CLS warning is Chad Bites—he posts bite-size tutorials on WordPress fixes, performance hacks, and practical marketing tweaks that even a non-coder can follow and put to work right away.
A quick checklist I wish I had on day one
- Can I edit text and photos myself?
- How fast will the site load on my phone on 4G?
- Will you set up GA4 and call tracking?
- What’s the plan for spam, backups, and updates?
- Can I see two local sites you built this year?
- What happens if a page looks off on Safari?
- Who fixes it, and how fast?
My final word
THAT Agency gave me a steady, pretty site that works. Digital Resource gave me fast pages that helped us book sessions. The freelancer gave us charm and stress. All three taught me something.
Would I do it all again? Yes. I’d still meet on Clematis. I’d still ask to see mobile first. I’d still push for real photos. And I’d still keep a towel in my trunk—because shoots in West Palm get sweaty fast.
If you run a shop near Rosemary Square or a yacht charter on Flagler, you can get a site that feels like here and still loads quick. Ask simple questions. Watch it on your phone, in the sun. And if a button feels weird, say so. Good teams don’t roll their eyes. They fix it.