Acorn Websites

Salmon Arm web design

Web design in Salmon Arm, from forty minutes up the highway. Custom sites and local SEO for trades, clinics, professional firms, and food brands in Salmon Arm, Sicamous, and around the lake.

Recent work

Four recent builds, all within an hour of Salmon Arm.

Screenshot of the Armstrong Spallumcheen Chamber of Commerce website

Armstrong Spallumcheen Chamber of Commerce

Association. Member directory rebuilt: 116 businesses, each with its own page instead of one long list.

Screenshot of the Fresh Valley Farms website

Fresh Valley Farms

Farm and food brand. Certified organic meat sold online. Shop, pre-order pickups, and farm stays on one site.

Screenshot of the Nature Delivered website

Nature Delivered

Local food delivery. A page for each of 51 farms, so every product shows who grew it.

Screenshot of the The Health Nest Clinic website

The Health Nest Clinic

Health clinic. Multi-practitioner site with a custom booking page that sends each patient to the right schedule.

Screenshot of the Wild & Wise by Pam Dhillon website

Wild & Wise by Pam Dhillon

Retreats and wellness. WordPress rebuilt as a fast static site. 54 pages, nine offerings, and booking through Jane.

Screenshot of the Amie Roussel Photography website

Amie Roussel Photography

Portrait photographer. Moved off Showit to WordPress. From zero ranking keywords to top three in Vernon photographer searches.

Screenshot of the Famous Photos website

Famous Photos

Dance photography. Moved off WordPress to Pixieset. Parents now view and order photos in one place.

Screenshot of the Armstrong and District Garden Club website

Armstrong and District Garden Club

Nonprofit garden club. WordPress and Divi rebuilt as a fast static site. Every post, newsletter, and agenda came across.

Screenshot of the Vernon Performing Arts Festival website

Vernon Performing Arts Festival

Nonprofit arts festival. Moved off Wix with a new brand. Festival info, student results, and donations on one site.

Screenshot of the North Okanagan Minor Hockey Association website

North Okanagan Minor Hockey Association

Nonprofit minor hockey. One home for registration, schedules, and sponsors. Volunteers post the updates themselves.

Screenshot of the Home for the Harvest website

Home for the Harvest

Our own brand: gardening. Nearly 1,200 gardening articles and a newsletter with more than 16,000 readers.

Screenshot of the Mama’s Must Haves website

Mama’s Must Haves

Our own brand: parenting. Moved from WordPress to a fast static site. 218 posts came across and every old address still works.

Screenshot of the Select-A-Plant website

Select-A-Plant

Our own brand: plant finder. 60,000 plants. Three quick rounds, and it suggests plants that suit your garden.

Why Shuswap is its own market

Your customers search "salmon arm plumber" or "sicamous marina," not "best plumber." Those are Shuswap searches, and the businesses ranking for them are not the ones ranking in Vernon. A site built for both markets names both, on its own page, with its own copy.

What it costs

Template sites from $2,225. Custom builds from $5,940, and most clients land around $12,000. Hosting & Maintenance from $150 a month. Local SEO setup $2,500. Fixed scope, in writing, before you pay a deposit.

Around the lake

One region, four different jobs.

The Shuswap is not one search market either. A business in Sicamous is found on different terms than one on the Salmon Arm wharf, and a lake business serves customers who are searching from somewhere else entirely. Here is how that changes what gets built.

Salmon Arm
The business centre of the Shuswap, and the market agencies from both Kamloops and Vernon bid on. Neither of them is from here. A page written for Salmon Arm searches, tied to a complete Google Business Profile, is what separates a local result from an out of town one.
Sicamous
Houseboats, marinas, and a season that carries the rest of the year. A site here has to load fast on a phone with one bar and answer the booking question in the first screen. Everything else can wait.
Sorrento and Blind Bay
Lake businesses whose customers search from three towns over. That means a page for each town you actually serve, not one page with the names swapped in.
Enderby
The town between our office and yours. Small market, short drive, and the easiest place to see that local search rewards businesses that name where they work.

South of Enderby instead? The Vernon and North Okanagan page covers that side of the hill.

Local SEO

Found first in Salmon Arm.

Three things decide a local search result: a Google Business Profile that is complete and correct, a website with a real page for each service and each town, and business details that match everywhere else on the internet.

The profile comes first, because a half-filled profile loses to a complete one from a smaller competitor. Categories, services, hours, service area, photos, and the description all get set properly. Then the citations get cleaned up, so your name, address, and phone number agree wherever they appear.

Then the pages. A contractor who covers Salmon Arm, Sicamous, and Sorrento needs three pages, each written for that town. Google spotted the swap-the-town-name trick years ago.

Seasonality changes the order of the work. If ten weeks carry your year, the site has to be finished and indexed before the season opens, not during it. That moves the build earlier and the content work into the quiet months.

Tracking goes in at the same time, so you can count calls and form fills instead of reading rankings. Rankings are a proxy. Calls are the business.

What we will not do is buy links, spin articles, or promise a ranking by a date. If somebody promises you page one by Christmas, ask them how, and watch what happens next.

Local SEO setup is $2,500 and takes four weeks. Monthly search plans run $950 to $2,500 a month with a six month minimum. See what is in each.

Questions

From business owners around the lake.

Do you meet clients in person?
Yes, by appointment. Our office is in the Armstrong Spallumcheen Chamber of Commerce space at the Odd Fellows Hall, about forty minutes down Highway 97A. Most project work happens over email and video, because that is what fits around a working day.
Is the Shuswap a different search market than the Okanagan?
Yes, and that is the main reason this page exists. Somebody searching in Salmon Arm sees a different set of competitors than somebody searching in Vernon, and Google treats the two as separate places. A site aimed at both has to say so on the page.
How long before I show up in Salmon Arm searches?
A rebuilt Google Business Profile usually starts moving within weeks. Ranking a service page against an established competitor takes months, which is why every monthly search plan has a six month minimum. Anybody naming a date is guessing.
Does a Salmon Arm business need a Salmon Arm designer?
For the build, no. Good work is good work, and the whole process runs over email and video. For local SEO, being close helps, because knowing the real competitor set saves months of guessing.
What does a site cost?
Template sites start at $2,225. Custom builds start at $5,940 and most clients land around $12,000. Local SEO setup is $2,500. Hosting & Maintenance is from $150 a month. Every number is on the pricing page, including the payment schedule.

Ready to talk?

A 20 minute call. No pitch. What you need and what it costs.

Or text 778-692-5555 or email hello@acornwebsites.com. We reply within two business days.