5 Year Anniversary for La Crosse, WI Web Design Company, Bernadot Studios

Bernadot Studios celebrated its 5 year anniversary on December 1, 2008. We are so thankful to all of our clients, service providers and colleagues. If there is anything I have learned over the years, it is that business is about people and relationships. No man or woman is an island, and it has taken the ideas, suggestions, help, guidance, work, encouragement, and trust of others to create a successful web design firm.

Ok, let’s have some fun at our expense. Step into our time machine an let’s head back to 2003.

Here is a series of our home pages* from over the years (courtesy of archive.org).
*Please note that some of the images do not appear as the original, as archive.org is not always able to save all images and settings.

I must admit, I did like that fish.

Other changes and future offerings include:

My wife Meghan (defintely my better half) is now working with me, and our 6 month old daughter helps out when she can, too (one word - naps).
We have created strong alliances with DigiSage, QTH, PlugandPress and MediaCore Studios and some other top secret people. These folks are among the best in the business in my eyes, and I am happy to work with each of them.
WordPress is our clay. We like getting our hands dirty. Look to us for websites you can update yourself, post videos, images, polls, integrate a Gmail calendar, and more.
Turn key website solutions (that look great) - monthly subscriptions
We are going to launch an inspirational site for WordPress designers - cool sites to drool over
Lots more good stuff too. Make sure to sign-up for our email alerts to stay in the loop.

So cheers to the first 5 years. The next 5 is going to be a great ride. We hope you join us.

A Real Estate Website Theme for WordPress That Is Easy To Use

Bernadot Studios and PlugandPress.com have teamed together to launch a new Premium Real Estate Theme for WordPress. The theme has been under development for 4 months and was just launched this weekend. I am incredibly proud to be a part of this project and thank Carlos of PlugandPress.com for all of his work and patience.

Why did this theme take so long to build?

Simply put, we wanted the theme to be easy to use.

We spent considerable time and money investing in the administration portion of the theme to help home sellers list their properties easily while looking professional to their clients. Here are the main features of the new theme:

Beautiful, elegant themes
Five colors included: sea blue, red, navy blue, gold and black
Agent can publish picture with biography
Top-Level link to add property listing
Easily publish your home details (including bathrooms, bedrooms, images and lots more)
“No Custom Fields” to hassle with when posting property details and images
Images are auto thumbnailed and display full-size with a cool pop-up slideshow
Featured properties rotate on home page with agent
Cool Property Search Options - includes dropdowns and search box
Agents page to display biography and properties for sale
Payment Calculator
Ad Banner Management
100+ hours into programming, designing and preparing these themes for you.

This is theme is intended for a single agent. We will be releasing the Multi-Agent Theme in December.

Also, all of the WP-Realtor.com licenses are on sale right now, so make sure to check out the Special Pricing.

Click here to get the sale price: WordPress Real Estate Theme

We’ve doubled in size. Welcome aboard Meghan!

As I pointed out in an earlier article, we are growing. The demand for our services is coming from all corners of the U.S., because people are appreciating not only our design work, but our level of care and support for our clients. In addition, we are involved within the WordPress community. We operate WPforSale.com, are releasing a new Real Estate Theme for WordPress with MediaCoreStudios within the next couple of weeks, and are soon to unveil another WordPress site (this is still a bit of a secret that will be revealed soon).

So yes, it’s true. We now have two people on staff here at Bernadot Studios. My wonderful wife Meghan has left her Art Director position at a local start-up to join me in the web design business. Meghan has a B.S. degree in art from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. I am extremely thankful and fortunate that Meghan has made the decision to join Bernadot Studios and I know you will enjoy working with her as well.

Ok - so you may be asking, “What is WordPress?”

Well, WordPress is a free, open-source, framework that allows us to build you a website customized to your needs, that you can manage/update yourself (if you wish). It’s also built to help rank your site into the search engines, so people can find you once we have launched your new site.

If you would like to learn more about our solutions, please contact Bernadot Studios.

Bernadot Studios is Growing

Wow!

What a summer this has been. Has time flown for you as quickly as it has for me?

Well, it’s been a while since I have made a post here because I have so many projects going on right now that this blog has taken a back-burner.

Here’s a quick run down of what we have been working on / doing:

Bernadot Studios has embraced the WordPress platform with a big warm hug. In my opinion, this is the best software available for building user-managed websites. It provides a win - win - win platform for users - designers - and search engines.
I Created a online guide for Premium WordPress Products (Themes, Plugins, Etc.) called WPforSale.com. I got serious about this site in June 2008 and it is proving to be a very helpful tool for WordPress fans. It is also generating a nice monthly revenue, that continues to grow, and exposing me to some of the best WordPress Developers and Theme Designers on the web. It also continues to expand my client base as well.
I am collaborating on a new Premium WordPress Theme with another WordPress guru. This Theme will be released in August 2008. I’ll keep you posted. It is go=ing to be bananas!
Lots of new sites coming about from client projects. The portfolio will be updated as soon as they are finished. Here is a quick list of some of the businesses out there that have selected us to help them build their websites:
- Wolf Industries, LLC
- JMP Associates
- Bath Fixer, Inc.
- The DuBois Group
- and there many more we are working on with our partners

So, much is abuzz here at Bernadot Studios. We are serving people all over the country and working with people all over the world to bring beautifully, custom-crafted websites to our clients.

Interested in having your website built with passion, experience and know-how? Please just send us a line and we’ll be in touch.

Interested in becoming a partner with Bernadot Studios? Send us a message.

That’s all for now. More to come soon.

Enjoy your summer and keep cool.

-Scott

New Website for Stein Counseling and Consulting Services

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Live Site: EffectiveBehavior.com| Onalaska, WI

What a fun project this has been. I was approached by Ted Stein, President of Stein Counseling and Consulting Services of Onalaska, WI, to design a site that would better serve the needs of his customers and staff, while also generating passive income through the site. The new site delivers on all marks and is easily manageable by Ted and his staff.

How we did it!

When I say we, I have to give a big thank you to Bob and Tim Lindner from DigiSage. Their knowledge, expertise and professionalism made meeting the challenges of this site a breeze. They developed three additional modules (i.e. Workshop/Event Management, Information Request Form and Request Appointment Form) for the site and together we seamlessly integrated them into the WordPress framework. This helps Ted’s visitors easily sign up for events, classes and workshops right online, as well as quickly making appointments or receiving more information about a topic of interest.

As I mentioned, I built this site within the WordPress framework, giving Ted and his staff the ability to easily manage their site. This includes posting articles, updating pages and images, inserting video, etc.

In addition, I also introduced a banner ad management system, so Ted can sell and place ads throughout the site. The ad management administration is easy and painless and is a great way to attract advertisers and make money though affiliate programs. This was one of the major improvements over the old site, and will surely generate additional revenue for the business.

How does the new site compare to the old one?

New fresh , professional design that allows visitors to easily locate the information they are looking for
Site is designed using WordPress for easy site management
Search Engine Friendly - Each page/post can be optimized
Visitors can sign-up online for classes, events and workshops online - payment can be made with a credit card
Secured forms are used to help visitors make appointments or request more information
A banner ad management system is in place to sell, place and track ads with ease
Amazon products can easily be added to the site to help people find inexpensive solutions as recommended by professionals

Testimonial

Bernadot Studios did an outstanding job redesigning our website. We have tripled our web traffic since the redesign. I recommend Bernadot Studios to others who are contemplating website redesign or creating a new site.

Ted Stein, Principal owner of Stein Counseling and Consulting

2007-2008 Web Award Winner

Bernadot Studios was just awarded the DesignFirms Web Award for this website. There were 227 winners of the award in 2007-2008, from design firms all around the globe, and we are very proud to be one of them.

Here is an excerpt from the email I received.

We know this project took time, dedication and a lot of hard work. The
judges at DesignFirms would like to announce that your site has been
found as one of the best on the Internet and hereby award you with the
DesignFirms Web Award.

Visit our listing on DesignFirms.org

Design Firms Award Badge

What does this mean for you?

It means you can have the confidence to know that Bernadot Studios can deliver beautiful and quality web design to meet the needs of your business. Call us today to get started on your project at 608-790-4000 or contact us online.

Thank you DesignFirms.org for your recognition!

Feedback from one of our newest clients

“I wanted to take a moment to drop you a line to thank you once again for the wonderful job and outstanding support you provided to our company in the redesign of our new web site. We have received numerous compliments regarding the ease in navigation of the site, along with the quality of work you provided. You were extremely prompt and curteous during the entire process and I could not recommend a more qualified and professional person and would highly recommend you to others. From the time of implementation to the completion of the site was exactly what you promised to deliver. Thank you once again and we truly appreciate the support you have provided.”

Sincerely,
Scott L. Enervold, President
Tri-State Financial Services Inc.

Thank you so much Scott Enervold for the kind words. Your feedback is instrumental in helping others understand the quality and service that our clients receive. Thanks a million! - Scott

New Website: ShopWordPress.com

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Live Site: ShopWordPress.com | La Crosse, WI

What Bernadot Studios has done:

We designed this site for ourselves, in an effort to assist other designers in finding elegant solutions for WordPress
Created a WordPress resource site for premium WordPress products
The site uses affiliate links to generate revenue
Site design and WordPress customization