Website Help for Mandan Businesses

Mandan sits right across the river from Bismarck, which means businesses there have access to plenty of local web design options. Still, I've worked with several Mandan operations when they needed someone who could handle technical problems without making things more complicated than they need to be.

The businesses I've helped usually have one thing in common: they want their website to work reliably without becoming an ongoing project. They're running operations where the website supports the business but isn't the center of it.

Solving Website Performance Issues

Slow websites are a surprisingly common problem. A site was built years ago, additions were made over time, and nobody went back to clean up the code. The result is a website that takes too long to load, particularly on mobile devices or slower rural internet connections.

For someone trying to find a phone number or check business hours on their phone, a site that takes ten seconds to load might as well not exist. They'll move on to a competitor before your page finishes loading.

Fixing performance problems sometimes means optimization, but often it makes more sense to rebuild with clean, efficient code. That's especially true when the existing site has accumulated years of patches and workarounds.

Hosting Consolidation

I've helped several businesses untangle hosting situations where the domain was registered with one company, hosting with another, and email through a third provider. This setup creates problems when something breaks because nobody's quite sure who handles what.

Consolidating these services makes life much simpler. Having everything in one place means there's a single point of contact when issues come up, and that person can actually fix the problem instead of pointing to someone else's responsibility.

Good hosting should be straightforward. Fast loading, consistent uptime, automated backups, and security handled in the background. When I set up hosting for a client, that's what they get, along with support that actually solves problems when they occur.

Choosing the Right Technology

WordPress has become the default option for a lot of web designers, but it's not always the right choice. For a small business that just needs a professional online presence, WordPress often creates more complexity than necessary.

A semi-static site loads faster, requires almost no maintenance, and doesn't break when plugins update. It still looks modern and includes all the features most businesses need: contact forms, service descriptions, location information, photo galleries. The difference is in the underlying structure, which is simpler and more reliable.

For businesses that actually need WordPress functionality, online stores, booking systems, regularly updated blogs, I build those too. But I only recommend WordPress when the features justify the added complexity and maintenance.

Email Reliability Issues

Email should just work, but it doesn't always. I've fixed problems for businesses where messages were being rejected by certain providers, ending up in spam folders, or failing to send at all. The usual cause is DNS configuration: missing SPF records, no DKIM authentication, or incorrect MX records.

These problems aren't difficult to fix if you know what you're looking at, but they can be baffling for someone without technical background. When I set up hosting and email for a business, configuring these records properly is part of the process. Email reliability shouldn't be something you have to worry about.

Long-Term Website Support

I've been working with businesses across North Dakota and northwest Minnesota for over twenty years. Most of my clients are smaller operations in trades, agriculture, or services. They need websites and hosting that function reliably without creating ongoing headaches.

If you're in Mandan and that describes what you're looking for, I can help with that kind of work.