fisicx

I used to run a 'websites for dummies' evening class. Apart from getting paid to teach it generated some decent leads.
And I've done a 'fix your website' thing at the local library where people come and ask questions. Again, a useful source of leads.
Everywhere has a tradesmans pub. Go there when the knock off work and you can pick up loads of work - you just need to be chatty.
Getting out the house and talking to people still works. Those letters I used to write were followed up with a visit. Sit in their office and listen to them talk about their business. Nod and agree and the contract is pretty much yours for the asking.

Hi Charlotte and welcome to the forum.
Spending money on marketing is a good investment. Back in the days when I used to build websites I wrote to hundreds of local businesses. Whilst most went in the bin it did get me a number of good leads. Trawling through Google Business Profiles can also generate decent leads. I paid for a billboard for a while - that made more than it cost.
The trick on all of this was to sell business improvement not websites. I showed how to increase income for a small expenditure.
But now I do custom plugins. Far more lucrative and less stressful. Don't have to deal with clients who don't have a clue about what they want.

I used to run a 'websites for dummies' evening class. Apart from getting paid to teach it generated some decent leads.
And I've done a 'fix your website' thing at the local library where people come and ask questions. Again, a useful source of leads.
Everywhere has a tradesmans pub. Go there when the knock off work and you can pick up loads of work - you just need to be chatty.
Getting out the house and talking to people still works. Those letters I used to write were followed up with a visit. Sit in their office and listen to them talk about their business. Nod and agree and the contract is pretty much yours for the asking.

Welcome to the forum!
Another opportunity is to participate in various Wordpress related forums, Slack channels etc - anywhere where WP developers gather. The trick here is to get known for offering advice, solving issues and so on. Once you get known and build a good reputation it's more than possible people will approach you, or you can prove your abilities when bidding for work. This approach has served me well with the CMS I use (going back 20+ years!).
Also don't rule out going to any real world gatherings/conventions you can attend. Look for local groups that have things like speaker evenings, there may be one or two down your way.

LOL all too true. I've had more than one client over the years who paid an arm and a leg like that only to not get their monies worth and jump ship to us.

There is an agency in London charges over £5000 for anything. Businesses pay because they think they are getting a superior service. What they are actually paying for are some expensive offices in the city.
A freelancer could do just a good a job at a fraction of the cost.
As an aside: almost everyone who tells you they do custom work and not use pre-made templates is lying through their teeth. Everyone uses templates. Nobody designs from scratch. The template they use might be coded in-house but everyone uses something on which to build the design. Most of the custom bit is CSS.

Yep those factors are all bone fide.
I've been freelancing for 20+ years, now semi retired, so in my experience here's a few more:
Private vs business clients can be a thing, I've always offered reduced rates for private customers, businesses usually have bigger budgets.
Complexity can have an effect, even for a "small" site, it's easier to build a news portal than an fully featured ecommerce site.
The platform you build on can be huge factor, if you use something like Wordpress it doesn't take much time to add a theme and a bunch of plugins to get most functionality in place at a lower price (although custom work will be extra). Conversely if you build on a "start from a blank sheet" system like Craft or ExpressionEngine everything is tailored to the clients publishing and managing process so naturally takes longer to build.
Accessibility can take up development time, especially if the site has to adhere to certain minimum guidelines, along with client training if needed.
Performance is another thing that's often overlooked. A good developer will spend time during the build to ensure good performance from the start, if you go to the cheaper end performance is often overlooked so you end up spending extra later "fixing" what shouldn't need to be fixed.
Ask what kind of support is available and how quickly would they respond. Things can happen, even with the best developers.
What is always worth doing is asking for references from the developer, look at the sites they have built, but even more valuable are references from their customers. I had a bunch of customers whom I could put potential clients in touch with directly to vouch for my work and services. Sometimes it can be beneficial to have an experienced 3rd party developer to cast an eye over things to spot any potential issues, it'll cost a few hours of their time but could save you more in the long run.

@Peter Billings posted so their mate could reply with a link drop to a naff directory posting service. That advert has no been deleted.

Take a complete backup of the files and databases of the sub-domain which you wish to move.
Create a new cPanel account for the new domain.
Upload the files and databases.
Finding all the databases can be fun.
Or pay your host to do it for you.
I've got a fully managed dedicated server. Worked out far more cost effective than a VPS. I host about 20 sites for clients and that pays for the server.

Ask your server support to move the account. That way you won't lose anything.

Nothing you have described is new. The search engines have been doing this for years. Those who have done their research stopped focusing on keywords and now consider search intent. It's not even SEO, it's basic marketing.

That message comes from Google PageSpeed.
When you test a website, Google can show two types of results:
Real visitor data from people who have used the site over the last 28 days, collected without users knowledge through Chrome. Test results from Lighthouse, which simulates a visit to the website. If the website doesn't have enough visitors, Google won't have enough real data to show. In that case, you'll see a message saying there isn't enough real visitor data, and the results will be based on the Lighthouse test instead.

I've checked the code:
<a href="tel:07921859802">Call 07921 859802</a> I'll look into adding an H1 without breaking the layout (there isn't an obvious place it can go on the homepage).

Thanks for the further feedback, I appreciate you taking the time to dive into the specifics.
Regarding the audit points, I suspect we’re just looking at two different things. For the phone number, the tool explicitly checks the HTML for standard href="tel:" attributes rather than raw text, which is crucial for mobile UX.
On the H1 front, while Google is smart enough to parse a page without one, skipping it entirely breaks WCAG accessibility guidelines, and ensuring a site is usable for everyone, including screen-reader users, is a non-negotiable standard for me.
Regarding the audit timeout you experienced, there are really only two reasons that happens: either the PageSpeed API hit a temporary network timeout, or your server's firewall/security settings are actively blocking the automated request. If you want to see the business metrics working, you can always try running it against my URL or any other standard live site.
As for the lazy loading, you actually hit the nail on the head and proved my point from the previous post; implementing it above the fold does slow things down, which is precisely why I said in the previous post that if anyone approached me with that concern, id tell them why it said that.
Ultimately, you're right that marketing strategies are highly subjective. A strategy built around heavy portfolio-only conversions works beautifully for some, while personal branding, SEO-driven content hubs, and interactive lead magnets work better for others. Different audiences, different funnels.
That plugin and custom app pivot sounds lucrative, maybe even a smart move but not something i want to do right now.
Lastly, I never said that I've never tried it with a lighter background, I've just never published it with one. It was a light blue and it looked terrible, especially since it obscured the neon design elements and other 'functional decrative' elements around the site.
Thanks again for putting eyes on the site. I've got plenty of data to start gathering now that the site is live, so I'll let the analytics tools do the talking over the next few months.

Nothing you have described is new. The search engines have been doing this for years. Those who have done their research stopped focusing on keywords and now consider search intent. It's not even SEO, it's basic marketing.

Then just do as I suggest. Get a domain name, hosting and pay for forum software.
But...
You idea will not work. Developers don't give away their time for free. If someone needs free help learning how to build a website they can use stackexchange, AI tools, Wordpress tutorials, youtube and so on.

So late last year I was approached by someone to do a design job. I went through all the meetings, asking questions to get the info I need to do a quote. I then spent the time putting a proposal and a quote and send it through to the client. I then contact them again letting them know it's been sent and for them to read it and get back to me. Later on I gave a follow up call to make sure they got it and they said they'll look at it.
After a while I still haven't heard anything back. I call again and ask if they receive and have read it. They tell me they haven't looked at it and ask me when did I send it. I give them the exact date. They then tell me to send them another copy and they'll look at it. Even though they've been sent a copy, I send another one.
This week, I realized it's been weeks and still nothing from this guy. At this point I was fed up and the mental energy with dealing with these kinds of clients isn't worth it. If they can't spend five minutes reading a document, imagine how painful doing the actual job will be. I call up and speak to the client, I tell them that I'm following up the proposal I've now sent twice and that I never heard back from. As soon as he goes to speak, I can tell he never bothered looking at it. I tell him I have had other work offers and because we haven't progressed, I'm going to move on with those. I thank him for his time and wish him the best. He then starts giving me excuses about being busy and says that he'll probably come back to me later in the year. I don't bite on this and just say thank you and have a good day.
As much as we try and accommodate people, I gets tiring having people wanting you to do work but then can't be bothered reading an email, looking at a document or picking up the phone. They drag things out for weeks and months with the same stock excuses. Firing someone like this is a nice weight off my shoulders and something I should do more often.

I stopped building websites a few years back as it was getting harder to find clients willing to pay the appropriate amount.
What is far more lucrative is building plugins. Find your niche and the money can come rolling in. 
The alternative is to build niche websites. I know a chap in the USA who specializes in websites for baptist churches. Word got around and he now has hundreds of clients. most of his money now comes from website maintenance.

I'm basically the same as @fisicx - if you plan well and write what you need instead of what you might need you can avoid bloat. If you need a new component, such as a new grid, it's often as easy as adding just one new CSS rule. 

That wasn't a good idea. If you must use AI claude is far better.
Get rid of bootstrap - it's dated and clunky and adds in load of code you don't need.
You then have two more CSS files you don't need. Instead of icons try using SVG
Experiment with display:grid and display:flex. They will give you far more control than using lists.
But I have to ask. For whom is the website? Is it so you can learn to code or is this just a hobby site?
 
 

You have set a fixed height to your .footer-basic class: height: 238px;
Either remove the height rule, or you could change it to min-height: 238px; in which case it should expand to fit the contents.

I use it for simple task within larger projects. I use it for tasks I don't do very often. For example I needed a regex to format an output. I couldn't remember how to do this but claude gave me the answer in seconds. I could have read the regex documentation and figured it out myself but using an AI tool was faster.

Just had a look at the styles.
Where did you get the template? The code is yuk.
The header is sticky with a z-index of 200.
The menu has a z-index of 100.
The site is following the rules you have set up. 
Chat is baffled because it's useless at writing and debugging code.

Wow - 18mb+ payload not including images for the home page. That's insane.

If you have FTP access download the site files to your local PC and see if the site loads. If it does it's all good. If it doesn't there could be a DB hiding somewhere.