Helping Minot Businesses With Website Problems

Minot's business community is large enough to have local web design options, which is good for most businesses in the area. But I've worked with several Minot operations over the years, usually when they needed someone to fix problems rather than create something flashy.

The common thread with most of these clients is they're practical operations: contractors, ag-related businesses, small shops. They don't need elaborate websites with dozens of features. They need something that works reliably and doesn't require constant attention.

Outdated Sites and Slow Performance

A lot of the websites I've rebuilt for Minot businesses were technically functional but practically useless. Pages taking ten or fifteen seconds to load, especially on mobile devices. Navigation that made sense to whoever built it but confused actual customers trying to find basic information like hours or a phone number.

Sometimes the problem is technical. The site is running on outdated software or hosted on a server that's overloaded. Other times it's just poor planning from the start. Either way, the result is the same: potential customers leave before they see what the business offers.

Fixing these issues usually means rebuilding from scratch rather than trying to patch an old site. A clean build with modern, efficient code loads faster and causes fewer problems down the road.

Hosting Problems Nobody Talks About

I've helped several Minot businesses move away from hosting arrangements that weren't working. Sometimes it's a shared hosting plan that's cheap but unreliable, with the site going down during busy periods. Other times it's an expensive managed hosting plan that doesn't actually include much management.

Good hosting should be stable and fast without costing more than it needs to. For most small business websites, that means VPS hosting with proper caching, automated backups, and SSL certificates. Nothing fancy, just solid infrastructure that doesn't cause problems.

When something does go wrong, which happens occasionally no matter how good the setup, it helps to have someone who can actually fix it. A lot of hosting companies will tell you what's wrong but won't fix it because it's "not their responsibility." When I host a site, fixing problems is part of the service.

Semi-Static vs WordPress

For most small businesses, a semi-static website is the better choice. It's faster, more secure, and requires almost no maintenance. That doesn't mean it looks simple or dated. It means the underlying structure is straightforward and reliable.

WordPress makes sense when you need specific functionality: an online store, a booking system, a blog with multiple contributors. But for a business that just needs a professional web presence, WordPress often creates more work than it saves.

I've dealt with plenty of WordPress sites that were set up years ago and then abandoned. Plugins stop getting updated, security holes develop, and eventually something breaks. For a business owner who doesn't want to think about website maintenance, that's not a good situation.

Email Configuration and Reliability

Email is one of those things that should just work, but often doesn't. I've fixed email issues for businesses where messages were being rejected by certain providers, or ending up in spam folders, or just disappearing entirely.

Usually the problem is DNS configuration. SPF records, DKIM records, and proper MX records need to be set up correctly. Most businesses don't know what those are, and they shouldn't have to. But someone needs to make sure they're configured properly, or email becomes unreliable.

Working With North Dakota Businesses

I've been building websites and managing hosting for businesses across the state for a long time. Most of my clients are smaller operations: family businesses, contractors, farms. They need websites and hosting that work without causing ongoing headaches.

If you're in Minot or the surrounding area and that description fits what you're looking for, I can help.