Wishing everyone a happy, prosperous New Year.

At Clearsite, we’ve worked with all manner of businesses and clients: ranging from personal websites, to tiny upstarts, to large integrated marketing concerns for regional and national enterprises. We like to think we’ve seen it all and done it all in the past 13 or 14 years, but every once in a while we’re reminded that we haven’t. This was one of those occasions.

Despite the wide variety of our combined experience, this was the first time either Paul or I had taken a a look at building a B2C website for an individual breeder. As we worked on this project, we were intrigued by some of the nuances of this niche that we discovered along the way. For starters, puppies are not like other products you might try sell to promote online. There are few decisions that are made on a more personal, sentimental and less business-like basis. As such, features from the “old days” of personal hobby sites – like guest books, web rings, repeating image backgrounds and animated GIFs – are not only common, but expected! To design a website that satisfied the expectations of this unique audience, we had to reach outside our modern conventions geared toward conversion and funnel marketing. Instead, we worked closely with J&S Boxers to build a site that demonstrates all the organization and expertise expected from a sophisticated and experienced breeder, while incorporating these quirky, personal touches that our client wanted to help make the site friendly, fun and approachable.

In the end we were thrilled to see J&S Boxers’ new website develop into website with as much personality and charm as the dogs they (and their customers) love.

Project Summary

Website Link: J&S Boxers of Faribault, Minnesota

Business Location: Faribault, Minnesota

Target Markets: Minneapolis / St. Paul, Southern Minnesota

Notable Features:

• Graphic slide show
• Custom animations of actual J&S dogs in homepage header
• Updateable listings of puppies for sale
• PayPal buttons for placing deposits or registering for puppies
• Photos, pedigree and profile information for Male and Female parents
• Contact page featuring Google Maps integration

A full description of the project is in our portfolio or you can click here to go directly to the website.

One of the key things we set out to do in this revision was to make information about us, our company and our services clearer and easier to find. We did a complete overhaul on our company profile, and we highlighted many services that previous visitors and our current clients may not have been aware of.

We went through quite a few website concepts before we were satisfied with the direction. Here are a few pictures from the more important points of our re-design process.

We’ve been hard at work this past year on a full portal website and branding campaign for the City of Waseca. You can check out the website at discoverwaseca.com or you can view the project in our portfolio.

The success of Waseca’s city marketing campaign is largely attributable to the creative efforts of a volunteer marketing/steering committee. Committee members represent a wide range of community organizations and have leveraged local talent to keep the development costs reasonable. Clearsite’s award-winning “small town pride” community branding project for the City of Faribault, Minnesota, created a template for the process used in Waseca. In both communities, Clearsite brought creative input to the volunteer committee and then executed the portions of the plan that needed the skill and experience of a design firm.

This project has been a great experience for us, and we’re excited to see the results that come from the website and branding efforts that we and the Waseca Marketing Committee have put into getting the logo, banners and website completed.

If you’re a small business looking for some information to get you on the right path to getting a website, Paul Schell owner of Clearsite, Dave Correll of Brushwork Signs, and Caleb McGuire Head Web Designer at Clearsite were all featured on Small Business Connections, a local television program on KSMQ. KSMQ is a PBS channel that reaches over 655,000 people living in Austin, Albert Lea, Rochester, Mason City, Mankato, Faribault, Winona, Owatonna and surrounding areas.

You will need Real Player to view the webcast, but it’s a relatively painless installation that is well worth it. Visit http://www.real.com/, click Free Download and follow the on screen instructions.

If you already have real player installed, click here to go directly to the webcast.