One person, in Valparaiso.
You are about to consider giving money to a stranger on the internet for something you cannot inspect first. Here is everything I would want to know if I were you, including the parts that do not flatter me.
Who I am
Eric Ingram. I live in Valparaiso and I build websites for small businesses around Porter, Lake and LaPorte county. Dunes Web is a registered assumed name of Trend Circuit LLC, an Indiana limited liability company, which means it is a real registered business and not a page with a logo on it. That registration is on file with the Indiana Secretary of State and you are welcome to look it up.
What I have actually built
This is the part most people in my position are vague about, so here it is straight.
- An online store I run myself, at trendcircuitresale.com. It is mine, not a client's, and it is built on Shopify rather than the way I build these, because a shop with hundreds of products is a different problem. Mentioning it as a client project would be dishonest, but it is where I learned most of what I know about making a page load fast and convert.
- A photographer's site, in progress right now. Real client, real build, not finished at the time of writing.
- Five complete example builds, on the front page of this site. They are invented businesses, clearly labelled as demonstrations on every page. I built them properly rather than as mockups: real content, real photographs, each with its own typefaces, each one measured at phone width.
What I do not have yet is a long client list, and you will not find one pretended to anywhere on this site. I would rather you judged the five example builds, which you can open on your phone right now, than a page of logos. If having a long reference list matters to you, hire an agency. That is a legitimate requirement.
The research on this site
I opened 1,282 local business websites on a phone and wrote down what was wrong with each one. 166 of the independent ones returned nothing at all. That work is published in full, with its method and its limitations, in the 2026 audit, and there is a page for each town.
I did that partly to find people to sell to, which I am not going to pretend otherwise about. I also did it because I could not find anybody who had, and because the findings are genuinely useful to a business owner who never hires me.
How I work
- Online, and no salesman. You email me, I ask what you do, I send a price. Nobody turns up at your shop and there is no meeting to sit through.
- A flat price, paid once. $499 to $899 depending on size. No monthly fee to me, no retainer, no percentage.
- Everything in your name. Domain and site registered to you from the first day. You can leave whenever you like and take it with you. I think this should be standard and it is not.
- The scope in writing before you pay. On this page, published, where you can read it before there is any money involved.
- Built to not need me. Static pages, no plugins, no database, nothing to update. Why that matters.
- I will remind you to renew your domain, forever. If we have worked together once you are on that list, whether or not you ever pay me again.
What I will tell you not to buy
If your business needs a real shop with stock levels and variants, you want Shopify, and I will say so. If you need to log in and publish a blog post every week, you want WordPress and a different person. If a free Google Business Profile and your existing Facebook page would genuinely get you what you need, I would rather point you at the free guide than sell you a website you do not need. A bad fit costs me a lot more in the long run than a lost sale.
Getting hold of me
Email hello@dunesweb.com, or use the form on the front page. A real person reads it, usually the same day. If you have a website already, send the address and I will tell you what I find when I open it on a phone, whether or not there is a job in it.
Go and look at the work
Five complete builds, on the front page, openable on your phone in ten seconds. That is the only credential I would trust in my position either.