bekee gibson

Services

Small Madison businesses should be able to take their website for granted.

When the site is built right, it’s stable, performant, and self-sufficient enough that it doesn’t pull you away from your actual work.

Most people who find me aren’t looking for an agency. They have a website that’s broken, expensive to change, or just isn’t theirs anymore, and they want one person who treats it like it matters. That’s what I do. I build it, I get it running, and if you want to run it yourself, I’ll show you how. I’m in Madison; the web doesn’t care where either of us sits, so I take on people beyond it too.

What I take on

Start with a diagnostic

Not every project needs a quote on day one. When the starting situation isn’t clear, a short fixed-scope diagnostic gives both of us an honest read before anyone commits to a bigger plan.

Site Triage

A few hours of investigation into what you are running, and an honest read on where it stands.

What platform you’re on, what’s installed, who owns the domain and hosting and DNS, where accessibility and performance currently stand, and a plain-language summary with a recommended next step. The honest precursor to a migration, rescue, audit, or build when the picture is murky. More about a rescue engagement.

You get

A plain-language summary and a recommended next step.

Best when

The picture is murky and nobody should be quoting yet.

Accessibility audit

A WCAG 2.1 AA read on an existing site, handed back as a prioritized fix list in plain language.

I run a multi-lane process (automated scanning, AI-assisted review, manual human review) and hand you a plain-language report with a prioritized fix list. It also measures the contrast of text sitting over photos and gradients, the one case axe, WAVE, and Lighthouse all hand back as “needs manual review.” Mine measures it. Remediation is quoted separately, once we both know what’s there. More about the accessibility audit.

You get

A report and a prioritized fix list.

Best when

You want the site to work for everyone, or there is legal exposure.

Technical SEO audit

Whether search engines and AI crawlers can even reach, read, and index your site.

Crawlability, indexing, valid structured data, broken links, and whether the AI crawlers (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, and the rest) are allowed to see you at all. This one reads whether the foundation lets you rank; the ranking audit reads how you show up. A prioritized fix list, in plain language.

You get

A prioritized fix list.

Best when

The foundation is in question.

GEO/SEO ranking audit

A six-part read on how your site shows up in traditional search and in AI search.

AI search here means ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. The questions your buyers are asking, where your site answers them and where it doesn’t, and a roadmap of what to write and where. The roadmap is the deliverable; the writing stays yours or your writer’s. I don’t write content.

You get

A roadmap of what to write, and where.

Best when

Buyers are asking and the site isn’t answering.

The Whole Picture

All three audits run side by side, plus the part you only get that way: the synthesis.

When the stakes are higher, an RFP, a grant requirement, legal exposure, or a rebuild where the whole site has to be on the table first, I run all three audits together, accessibility, technical SEO, and ranking, and add the part you only get that way: the synthesis. One prioritized view of the entire site that shows where a single fix clears more than one problem (the cleanest example is structured data, where one change serves both technical SEO and AI search). It’s its own product, not three audits at a discount; the synthesis only exists when the lanes run side by side.

You get

One prioritized view of the entire site.

Best when

An RFP, a grant requirement, or a full rebuild.

Remediation

Fixing what an audit found, quoted from the findings.

The audit’s fix list already separates code from content, so this picks up the code side: the theme, the templates, the markup. The content and brand calls stay yours, and I tell you which are which. When it’s done I re-run the same scan on the same pages. What moved is measured rather than claimed, and anything you chose to leave is on the record as a decision rather than a miss.

You get

The fixes, and a re-run showing what moved.

Best when

You have findings in hand and want them cleared.

Build, move, or sell

The main work: building a new site, moving an existing one to WordPress, or running a small online store. I build accessibly by default, never bolted on at the end. A formal WCAG 2.1 AA audit and the remediation to pass it is separate work you can add.

Site builds and redesigns

Custom WordPress on the block editor, with a content model you can use yourself.

No page builder fighting you every time you want to change a phone number.

You get

A site you can edit yourself.

Best when

You are starting over, or starting out.

Migrations and rescues

I move sites to WordPress and hand you the keys.

Stuck on a platform that charges for every edit, or a builder nobody supports anymore? Craft, Joomla, Squarespace, an old theme from 2014; I’ve moved them all.

You get

Your site on WordPress, and the keys to it.

Best when

Every edit costs money or waits on someone else.

WooCommerce

Online stores for small shops: products, checkout, and the seasonal rush that has to work on the busy day.

Built so you can run the day-to-day without calling me first.

You get

A store you can run day to day.

Best when

You sell online and one day of the year decides the year.

Stick around

When something breaks or needs changing later, you’re not starting over with a stranger. I keep working with the sites I build, and the relationship lasts because clients want it to, not because they’re locked in. This is the Self-Sufficient Site in practice: you should own and operate your site, not rent it from me.

Ongoing support

Hourly when you need an occasional fix, or a custom monthly arrangement when ongoing capacity fits both of us.

I don’t bill for an edit you could make yourself; I do bill for the time spent walking you through how to make it, because the walkthrough is the actual deliverable when knowledge transfer is the point. No on-call coverage, no emergency response, no after-hours work; my practice is part-time, and response is within one business day.

You get

Hourly help, or a monthly arrangement.

Best when

Something needs changing and you’d rather hand it off.

What impressed us most was that the improvements didn’t come at the expense of our brand. The Marigold personality, colors, and overall feel remained intact while making the site more accessible and easier to navigate for everyone.
Kristy and Clark Heine, Marigold Kitchen

How I work

Two ideas shape every Gibsonworks engagement. I name them so they’re easier to talk about, not because they’re trademarked or sold separately.

The Usability Triangle

I treat accessibility, user experience, and build as one discipline, not three separate passes. I build accessibly from day one: no contrast failures I could have caught, no controls you can’t reach by keyboard. That floor is included. A full WCAG 2.1 AA audit, and the remediation to pass it, is a separate engagement; so is keeping a site accessible once other people are adding content and choosing colors.

The Self-Sufficient Site

Knowledge transfer is part of the deliverable. I train you and document the parts you can reasonably run yourself, so billable hours go to work that genuinely needs a developer. Nobody should be paying me an hourly rate to update a popup.

  1. Tell me what’s wrong, or what you want.
  2. I come back with a quote and a plan, in plain language.
  3. I make it work, and I teach you how to keep it that way.

The honest first step is a short note about what you’re working on; I’ll tell you what it would take.

A lot of my nonprofit work comes through DANEnet, a Madison organization that provides technology support to nonprofits. If you’re already a DANEnet client, that’s the path. If you’re not, you’re welcome to come to me directly.

Send a note

Common questions

Most are small, fixed-scope or hourly. Rather than a price list, send a short note about what you need and I’ll come back with a real number.

A short, fixed-scope diagnostic for when you’re not sure what you have. I spend a few hours on the investigation (platform, plugins, access, a quick accessibility read, a quick performance read) and come back with a plain-language summary and a recommended next step. It’s the honest precursor to a migration, rescue, audit, or build when the picture isn’t clear yet.

Yes, in two shapes. Hourly when you need an occasional fix or a small change. A custom monthly arrangement when ongoing capacity is the right fit for both of us. I don’t do on-call coverage, emergency response, or after-hours work; my practice is part-time, so response is within one business day, not minutes.

Accessibility audits and ADA compliance

That’s the work I do. I audit WordPress sites against WCAG 2.1 AA, the standard the ADA is measured against in practice, and then repair what the audit finds. I’m in Madison, and audits start at $1,500. Remediation is quoted separately, from the findings.

Most sites land between $2,500 and $4,000, set by size and complexity before we start. The smallest sites start at $1,500. The fee is fixed, so it doesn’t move if the work runs long, and remediation is quoted separately once you have the findings.

Yes. The automated pass, the AI judgment pass, and the keyboard check all run on every page in the sitemap, not on a ten-page sample. The manual review is where my judgment goes, and that part is scoped to the templates and the paths people take. So the findings cover the whole site; reading them is where the human time is.

A free scanner reads the code and reports what it can measure. It cannot tell you whether a person can finish a task. My audit runs an automated pass, an AI review, and a manual pass covering keyboard and focus order, then returns prioritized findings in plain language with an estimate for the non-content fixes.

I do. A failed scan is a starting point, not a verdict. Automated scanners flag findings that are not real barriers and miss ones that are, including text over images, which axe, WAVE, and Lighthouse all return as “needs manual review.” I read the results by hand and tell you which ones affect a real person.

An overlay is a script that patches accessibility from the outside without changing the site underneath. In 2025 the FTC fined an overlay vendor $1 million over claims that its widget made sites conform to WCAG 2.1 AA; menus, headings, tables, and images still failed. I don’t install overlays. An audit finds the real barriers so they can be repaired in the code.

Talk to a lawyer first. I’m not one, and a demand letter is a legal matter before it is a technical one. What I can do is the technical half: an audit documenting where the site stands against WCAG 2.1 AA, and a remediation plan your attorney can point at. Having that evidence early tends to matter.

I audit public-entity sites against WCAG 2.1 AA and deliver findings your team can budget and work from. Wisconsin cities over 50,000 by the 2020 Census have until April 26, 2027; smaller entities and every special district have until April 26, 2028. The audit comes first either way, because remediation can’t be scoped without it.

Working on something?

Send a short note. I read each and every one.

Send a note