Hi, I'm Josh Withers.

I've been saying nice things for a living since 1996 — and building websites for just as long. I started with WordPress in 2003 and spent the next two decades making hundreds of sites on it. In 2024, I saw the light. I moved to Astro and static websites, and I'm not going back.

Before web development became my focus, I spent 17 years as one of Australia's busiest wedding celebrants. Over 1,000 weddings and 1,200 elopements across 23 countries. That experience is why I'm one of the few web developers who can build wedding industry websites with genuine insider knowledge. Before that, I was a radio host. All of it taught me the same thing: if people can't find you, nothing else matters. That experience is why I build websites the way I do now — I've lived the problem I'm solving.

Along the way I co-founded the Elopement Collective with my wife Britt, co-created the Celebrant Institute which has mentored over 10,000 celebrants globally, and have been featured in The New York Times and The Today Show. I'm a lifetime member of the International Association of Professional Wedding Officiants. I've been in small business full-time since 2013 and I understand what small businesses actually need because I've been one for over a decade.

I build websites for three audiences

Every website I build is designed for three groups. First, the humans using it — the site is fast, works on any device, and avoids unnecessary scripts, pop-ups, and friction. Second, the business paying for it — hosting can be free or near-free, the source is portable, and there is no public CMS or live content database required. Third, the computers deciding whether to recommend it — search engines and AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.

That third audience is where most web developers stop thinking. I don't. PageSpeed across Performance, Accessibility, Best Practices, and SEO is a release target on every build. Every site includes comprehensive schema markup, XML sitemaps, properly configured robots.txt, and an llms.txt file that gives compatible AI systems a clear summary of the business. The technical foundations that support discovery aren't optional extras — they're how I build.

From WordPress to static

After nearly 20 years of WordPress, I know it inside out — the good, the bad, and the 2am plugin updates. I now think WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix are the wrong foundation for most local business websites. They are built for everyone, so they carry the architecture, editing systems, and dependencies needed to serve everyone. A purpose-built site should not make visitors or owners pay that tax forever.

Astro renders the website to HTML before deployment and adds no JavaScript by default. The site can be served as simple files on a global edge network, often within a free hosting tier. It needs no public WordPress login, live content database, theme updater, or plugin stack. Static sites do not just start faster; they change the ownership, maintenance, and economics of running a website.

Based in Tasmania, working everywhere

I live on two acres in Tasmania's Huon Valley, just outside Hobart, with my wife Britt and our three kids. It's quiet, it's beautiful, and the internet works fine. When I'm not building websites I'm perfecting lawn stripes, photographing the Aurora Australis, or catching a Foo Fighters show somewhere in the world.

I have clients across Australia, Canada, and the USA. The internet doesn't have borders, and neither does my work. I specialise in small businesses because that's what I know — tight budgets, the need for things that just work, and the frustration of paying an agency thousands of dollars for a slow website that doesn't rank. I take clients directly and build for SEO and marketing agencies who need a specialist static site builder on their team.

If you want a website that's fast for your customers, cheap to run, and visible to every search engine and AI assistant on the internet — let's talk.