Houston Web Design and Hosting Delivers High-Quality, Customer-Centric Solutions Locals Can Depend On

TL; DR: Houston Web Design and Hosting, Inc. is a woman-owned business helping local customers build and maintain online presence. The company, which offers everything from domain registration to web design and management, is run with a passion for both quality solutions and top-notch support. In working with Houston Web Design and Hosting, customers receive the peace of mind they need to focus on growing their businesses rather than addressing technical issues.

Recognizing the importance of excellent support, many hosting companies have begun using complex customer satisfaction metrics to measure the effectiveness of their engagements.

For these companies, delivering top-notch customer service comes down to benchmarking performance against a particular reference point — be it a Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), or Customer Effort Score (CES).

For others, excellent customer support comes naturally. Rather than thinking of people as fuel for analytic models, these providers roll up their sleeves and get to work building authentic customer relationships.

Although such companies are few and far between these days, they’re easy to identify. From the beginning, they will be the ones that actually pick up the phone.

“I’ve had a few clients tell me right off the bat, ‘You are the only person who answered the phone as I was calling around about needing a new website,” said Michele Caldwell, Owner and Principal at Houston Web Design and Hosting, Inc. “That is really sad, but I think it is a sign of the times.”

Michele, who has 20-plus years of experience in web services, told us that one-on-one interaction with clients is what she enjoys the most. At Houston Web Design and Hosting, she is known for providing friendly customer service to local businesses, setting aside time to explain technical concepts in an enjoyable way.

In addition to excellent customer support, all web-development packages include SEO-optimized code, advanced caching, and responsive brand-compatible design. Through these and other features, Houston Web Design and Hosting’s ultimate goal is to help clients successfully grow and maintain an online presence.

Michele has hosted client websites for nearly 25 years. She launched her first company, Web Happy, before Google’s heyday.

“I ended up ranking high on a popular search engine at the time called HotBot, so I had a lot of clients coming to me for hosting,” she said. “I would develop websites for myself and for a few organizations that I was interested in working with, but I hosted over 100 clients back then.”

After moving from St. Louis to Houston, Michele spent 10 years providing web development, hosting, and ongoing site maintenance as head of technical operations for a Magnolia-based marketing firm. “People would call my phone even if they wanted to talk to my boss or another person because I was the only one that would answer,” she said.

In 2015, Michele left her job at the agency to start Houston Web Design and Hosting. There, she continued to build a reputation for providing customer-centric web development and hosting, as evidenced by authentic shows of support for clients on her Facebook page and glowing customer reviews on her website.

“Michele is a technical expert in the area of website creation, hosting, and has the unique ability to clarify complex technical terms or problems in a simplified way,” customer Liz Searcy of Celebration Career and Business Support said in a testimonial. “I always come away with a greater understanding of how I need to use technology in my business because of Michele’s patience and expertise. It seems she delights in educating her clients and does so in an uplifting way.”

Michele started her business with a handful of clients and carefully built it up from there. In April 2021, Houston Web Design and Hosting entered its seventh year of business. Today, Michele also works with talented graphic designers and other digital professionals to meet the online marketing needs of her clients.

“I have about nine current projects in the works right now and host about 100,” she said. “I am a reseller for hosting by FlyWheel, and I generally provide hosting for clients when they have us build their website. “That way, I can maintain their site, make sure everything’s running the way it’s supposed to, and if there are any issues, I take care of them.”

Michele develops all of her sites in WordPress, hosts them on WordPress-optimized servers, and meticulously updates core files and plugins. To elevate the site visitor’s experience, she also emphasizes responsive design, which is more important than ever in our increasingly mobile digital landscape.

“When I first started, there were so many websites out there that weren’t built responsively, creating a terrible experience for people looking at them on a smartphone or even on a tablet in some cases,” she said. “I have spent time researching local companies with older websites that I could help update, but it’s funny; every time I make plans to reach out, I start getting incoming phone calls from people who need help and don’t have to make cold calls.”

Michele said that in Houston Web Design and Hosting’s seven years of business, she has attracted clients through word-of-mouth advertising only.

“My own website is pretty much it in terms of advertising,” she said. “I chose keywords based on the search terms I thought my target audience would use, and sure enough, I made my business with those keywords. My URL contains them, and I make sure to use them in my H1 tags and alt images.”

Michele uses her experience with Google’s best-practice recommendations to optimize client sites as well. She said it’s much easier for businesses to find success in SEO when they start with a relevant business name. Still, many see a difference after implementing an adequately built site.

“It’s kind of like a giant ship with a little rudder — you’re turning it the way you want it to go, but it will take a while to get going in the right direction,” she said. “That’s what I explain to my clients, that there aren’t instant results. I also let them know that I don’t do SEO on its own. I build the website using all of Google’s recommendations, but there’s a lot more to SEO than just building a website correctly.”

Considering all that Houston Web Design and Hosting does handle — from domain registration and hosting to web design and management — Michele said many clients are pleasantly surprised to find such reasonable pricing.

“Somebody could get a very similar website going to one of the higher-priced agencies, like the company I used to work for. When people are shocked by my pricing, I just explain that I have no overhead, like those giant agencies. I don’t have to meet a large payroll twice a month or pay rent on a fancy office.”

The common thread between both the products and services Houston Web Design and Hosting provides is undoubtedly quality.

“When you get a site from me, you’re not getting a template that you’ve just uploaded your logo to and chosen some colors,” Michele said. “My graphic designer has been in the industry as long as I have. It’s just a good partnership, and he’s phenomenal.”

The same goes for the company’s services — in fact, Michelle is careful not to spread herself too thin at the cost of customer satisfaction.

“All my clients understand that I view them almost as friends — they know they can call me anytime and ask me for whatever they need,” she said. “I don’t want to grow to such an extent that I will not be able to offer people the personalized help and support that they’re used to.”