A custom cabin rental website built with long-term growth and adaptability in mind. Mountain Getaway Cabin Rentals’ custom CMS and SEO strategy have powered two decades of sustained visibility, proving that great partnerships — like great code — stand the test of time.
When Misti Butler first reached out in 2005, she was looking for more than just a website — she wanted someone she could trust with her business for the long haul. What began as a single project quickly grew into an ongoing partnership that has grown over twenty years and expanded into work for other family-run businesses.
How She Found Me
Before contacting me, Misti spent months researching cabin rental websites in the highly competitive Pigeon Forge market. One site kept appearing at the very top of Google’s results — a site I had built. That ranking consistency caught her attention, and that outreach became the start of what would grow into a long-term collaboration rooted in trust, communication, and shared goals.
Reclaiming Her Domain & Starting Fresh
At the time, Misti was also facing a problem that was surprisingly common in the early 2000s: her previous web person had disappeared and was still controlling her domain name. She had no access to it and no way to make changes. I helped her navigate the recovery process, regain ownership of her domain, and rebuild her online presence with the confidence of knowing she finally had full control over her business assets.
A Partnership That Grew Beyond One Website
As we continued working together, our professional relationship deepened — and eventually extended to her family as well. Not long after her own site launched, I also built a website for her husband Matt’s company, MC Butler Construction, a mountain luxury home builder in North Georgia. It was another sign of the trust they placed in my work and the partnership we were building.
Misti had launched Mountain Getaway Cabin Rentals a few years earlier, back when her oldest child was still a baby. By the time we connected in 2005, she had a few years under her belt and knew she was ready to take the next step to grow her business.
Her main goal was clear: she wanted a website that would rank at the top of Google. But as we talked through her business needs, I saw an opportunity to do more than just help her get found — I wanted to help her convert that traffic into real bookings.
At the time, Misti was still taking cabin reservations over the phone and handwriting all the details — names, dates, cabin preferences, and even credit card numbers. It was time-consuming and hard to scale as demand increased.
I suggested we add a secure Reservation Request Form to the website. This allowed visitors to:
It freed up her time (which was critical with two little ones at home) and gave her the space to focus on growing the business. And that she did — within a couple of years, bookings had surged, more cabins were added to the program, she had moved into her own office space, hired additional help, and was preparing for baby number three. By 2007, it was clear the business had outgrown the semi-automated setup we launched with.
With a growing team, an expanding cabin inventory, and another baby on the way, the manual effort required to process each reservation had become unsustainable. That’s when I suggested we take things to the next level with a fully custom content management system (CMS) and backend business management program.
She was understandably hesitant. It was a big leap — time, money, and trust. But I remember telling her, “This system will let your website make money while you sleep.” That line stuck with her. In fact, she still quotes it back to me from time to time!
During one of our many conversations, I had told her: “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink… but we can sure try to make him thirsty!” I said this to help her visualize the purpose behind the new features I was proposing — not just to make the site look good or rank well, but to convert visitors into bookings and fuel business growth. In fact, that’s still my philosophy today: I don’t just focus on driving traffic to websites — I also strive to drive lead conversions.
The custom platform I built included:
Booking & Guest Management
Calendar & Occupancy Tracking
Reporting Tools
Payment Tools
User Management
This system became the heart of her business, managing thousands of bookings and keeping everything organized as the years went by. It’s held up through major changes in the online world — including one significant tune-up when server updates caused parts of the program to break. Even after all that, it continues to support her daily operations long after most systems of its age would have stopped running. Nearly twenty years later, she still uses much of that original system because it continues to serve her needs.
Testimonial
“My site went from no-man’s land to first-page ranking in no time — and held there. Sherry is always a step ahead and so easy to work with.” — Misti Butler, Mountain Getaway Cabin Rentals (Verified Google Review — October 2025)
As smartphones and tablets became the primary way travelers browsed online, Misti started noticing that some guests were having trouble navigating the website on mobile. She brought it up during one of our check-ins, and we agreed it was time for a refresh.
In 2019, I redesigned the public-facing site with a fully responsive layout — improving the mobile experience, modernizing the visual design, and making the site easier to use across all devices. The original backend system remained strong, so we kept that in place and focused on bringing the front end up to date.
The redesign was a strategic move that not only modernized the user experience, but also helped reinforce her identity as a truly local business with deep, genuine roots in the community. As the market grew more crowded and harder to distinguish between locally owned companies and larger operations posing as such, maintaining a professional, trustworthy online presence became more important than ever. That redesign turned out to be a quiet milestone — the last major update before the public site was eventually retired, marking the close of one chapter and the beginning of another. Earlier this year, Misti transitioned her cabin listings fully to Airbnb and retired the public-facing website — but the custom backend system we built is still quietly supporting parts of her business behind the scenes. And, our friendship will even outlast that, too.
When we first started working together, Misti had two young children under school age and her youngest child was born a few years later. During our time of working together, I’ve seen her family grow, grow up and grow some more! Misti is now a proud meemaw, and her youngest child is about to enter her senior year of high school!
Some projects are more than just code and content — they’re built on real-life chapters and trust that spans decades.
If you’re ready to work with someone who sees your website as a living, growing part of your business — not a one-and-done project — you’re in the right place. Let’s build something that keeps working for you year after year.
Sylvan Park Nashville, Tennessee
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