I had something happen this morning that has never happened in the 10+ years I’ve been designing and developing websites.

I received a call from the client, of our client, to let us know how impressed and satisfied she was with their website.  Again, it wasn’t our client … it was the end-user of the website, a general consumer.

Wow. Of course this is one person’s opinion, but the fact they took the time to locate that we had designed the site and then picked up the phone to let us know their happiness is just plain cool.

Her name was Pam and she sure made our day start off great in the Five office.

Pam let me know that the combination of visual elegance and how easy the website was to use and navigate made her want to call and thank us.  The website she’s referring to is Simonson’s Salon & Spa, which we redesigned earlier this year.

With the end goal of our web designs always being user satisfaction, it was great to get a first hand account of this.

Sure analytics, conversions and all that user data goodness can let you know it’s a job well done, but having Pam take the time to call you is rock solid.

The most recent web design project to hit the Five starting line-up is for the Minnesota Twin’s own Joe Mauer and his Quickswing baseball training product.  This e-commerce website sells the signature Joe Mauer baseball hitting aid and other batting tools to develop an All-Star swing.

A Focus On E-commerce Fundamentals
Mauer’s Quickswing has been selling their baseball training products online for years, but their former e-commerce site had holes in it.  We took the Joe Mauer approach and focused on the fundamentals:

• An engaging, unique and clean custom web design
• Clear navigation, content and links to view and buy products
• Well structured and simplified product detail pages
• Search engine friendly build-out leveraging SEO best practices
• Easy e-commerce check out steps
• Flexible and easy back-end management for the client (SMC)
• Secure shopping with SSL & Merchant account services

We’re pleased with the overall outcome of the website and look forward to driving an increase in sales online for the Quickswing.  We’re not mad about having the Mauer team in our dugout of great clients either.

Check out the website: http://www.mauersquickswing.com

Five’s most recent web design project was for Minneapolis deck builder and home remodeler 4 Quarters Design & Build.  This project was a great example of making a good website great.

Making A Good Website Great
4 Quarters was already ahead of other deck builders when owner Brian Jacobson came to Five Technology. He had a custom web design, decent content and had educated himself on search engine optimization best practices.  But Brian also knew he could and should do more.

Five worked with Brian and enhanced the following aspects of his website:

• Custom web redesign – The old site was good, but a new design was sought to punch up the visuals and also give proper attention to further upgrades outlined below.
• Content management – Brian had long sought to be in control. Five built the new website on our CMS and now he can manage text, photos, add new pages and more.
• Enhanced content – Five worked with 4 Quarters to increase the amount of valuable content on the site.  The website went from 9 pages to over 25 by getting more specific on construction services like cedar wood decks, composite decks and remodeling.
• Custom blog design – 4 Quarters was already blogging, but used a WordPress site and not their own.  We moved the blog within the website to give users easier access to the posts and 4 Quarters the SEO benefits.
• Photos, photos, photos- Five added more photo elements to all pages as well as created photo galleries that will show clients what 4 Quarters can do.  It also allows 4 Quarters to add to and create more galleries.

A Complete Design & Build
Just as the 4 Quarters name says, Five executed a great web design and solid build of new features in this web project. We were also impressed with the level of decks that 4 Quarters builds, they truly are exceptional.  We really enjoyed this web design project.

View website: http://www.4qdb.com

The latest web design project from Five Technology is for the accounting and cpa firm of Johnson Mattson Peterson + Co. located in Buffalo and Waconia, Minnesota.

Johnson Mattson Peterson + Co. provides accounting and tax services to businesses, non-profits and individuals. Their old website was just a handful of pages in a stale accounting industry template.  The new website is clearly organized with multiple routes of navigation to find what you’re looking for.

The firm also offers a robust range of business consulting services.  JMP + Co. has offices in two cities to the west of the Twin Cities, located in Buffalo and Waconia.  We made sure to offer clear information and integrated Google maps on both office locations within the header, footer and office pages to make working with them easy.

A Web Design To Avoid The Norm

When working with firm partner and CPA Casey Mattson, it was clear that JMP + Co. was not the standard CPA firm. Our first goal was to drive home the people, personality and engagement level you’ll find with them.  Getting the staff front and center with the “We are people people” statement felt like a great fit.  We had fun taking the photo and also creating this clean and well organized web design.

Recap Of This Web Design Project

• Custom web design
• Photography
• Content management with the SMC
• Search engine optimization
• Local search and customer reviews
• Enhanced location pages
• Custom tax blog
• Internet marketing consulting

The Johnson Mattson Peterson + Co. web design project is a great web design and website if we say so ourselves.  Five didn’t deliver the “normal accounting” website and that was the point.  Who wants to look the same as everyone else when you’re not?

Visit the website: http://www.jmpcpas.com

While I didn’t see any Blog Bombs get tipped back, I did catch quite a few Twitter-tini’s getting sipped at last nights Twin Cities Thursday Happy Hour event at the Shorewood Bar & Grill in Fridley. Social media themed drinks rock.

April’s TCTHH event was sponsored by Five Technology and I presented on Mobile Web Design basics.  Lisa Foote, founder of MixMobi also presented on mobile marketing and their great service.

Here is my slide deck from my presentation:

The night was full of great Twin Cities professionals connecting with new people, sharing ideas, laughs, winning some gift cards and eating some awesome food from the Shorewood.

I want to say thanks everyone who came out last night, thanks to TCTHH founder Jeff Nolan, the Shorewood (client), Aaron Darling and numerous others for their support.  There are too many to name, but you know who you are.

Here are a few photos from the night, starting off with a few people enjoying their Twitter-tini’s!

Paul Jahn also posted a great photo set to his Flickr account.