Web design / Fargo, ND
Selling to farms from an office park
A good part of Fargo’s economy sells to people who aren’t in Fargo. The Microsoft campus on the south side grew out of Great Plains Software; Bobcat runs its North American headquarters in West Fargo; and around the NDSU Research and Technology Park, smaller software and ag-tech companies sell to growers, co-ops and equipment dealers across the Plains and beyond.
Their buyers are a hard audience. A grower comparing precision-ag tools often reads on a phone in a spare minute between chores, is skeptical of vendor claims, and will ask a neighbor before trusting any website. What persuades them is concrete. Show what the product does on a real operation, how it works with the equipment they already own, and who answers the phone when something fails in the middle of harvest. Marketing language bounces off. We build those sites around plain explanations and real screenshots, and our startups guide goes into the structure.
Many of these companies also need a brand identity that holds up in front of an investor or a corporate partner without looking slick to the people who actually buy the product. That’s a narrower target than it sounds, and it’s worth getting right before the site is built around it.
Moorhead is across the river
The Red River is the state line. Moorhead sits on the Minnesota side in Clay County, home to Concordia College and Minnesota State University Moorhead, with Dilworth just east of it. On the North Dakota side the metro keeps spreading through West Fargo and Horace. People cross the bridges daily without thinking about it, until they need a licensed tradesperson or are working out sales tax.
If you work on both sides, spell it out on the page, with license numbers for each state where your trade requires them. If you only work in North Dakota, say that too. A homeowner in Moorhead would rather know now than after a phone call.
Winter, then the river
Winter here is long, and people check whether a business is open before they scrape the car. Spring brings its own trouble when the Red River rises. In both seasons the site needs a closure notice or changed hours you can post yourself in a minute, from a phone, without calling anybody. We build every site in Framer for that reason, and before launch we’ll show you exactly where that banner lives.
The studio has no Fargo office and works remotely; calls keep to Central Time, and drafts reach you as review links whether or not the roads are open. Web design for a Fargo shop and for an ag-tech company look very different, and the opening call is where we work out which one you need.
One Fargo question
Our customers are farmers who mostly phone us. Does the website matter?
More than it seems. Most of those calls come after someone has already looked you up, often on a phone in the evening, to decide if you’re worth calling. The site does the first round of screening, quietly. If it’s out of date or vague, you never hear from the people it turned away.
For equipment and ag-tech companies the effect is sharper still. A dealer in Montana isn’t going to drive to West Fargo to size you up, so for most of your buyers the site is the visit. Write it the way you’d talk to them across a table.