INDUSTRY:
Construction.MN does something genuinely useful and genuinely misunderstood. They aren’t contractors — they don’t pour concrete, frame walls, or install roofing. What they do is guide Minnesota homeowners through the complexity of construction projects: helping them understand what a project actually requires, connecting them with vetted professionals, and making sure nothing falls through the cracks. The problem was that their website didn’t say any of that clearly. Visitors landed on the site and left thinking they were looking at a general contractor — and the inquiries that came in reflected that confusion, with people asking Construction.MN to do the actual work rather than guide them through it. The business had a real value proposition. The website just wasn’t communicating it.
The original plan was straightforward: update the homepage messaging and correct the heading structure, which had been built for visual styling rather than content hierarchy — a focused fix, not a full rebuild. But once we gained access to the existing site to begin work, something unexpected surfaced: the site couldn’t be edited at all. Whether a permissions issue or something deeper in the build, the changes simply weren’t possible to make.
Rather than spend time troubleshooting a site that was already working against them, we made the call to rebuild — which turned out to be the right decision, not just because it solved the access problem, but because it opened the opportunity to clarify the message across every page, not just the homepage. The rebuild started where every JCD engagement starts: with the audience. Who was landing on this site, what did they need to understand immediately, and what action did Construction.MN need them to take? The answers shaped everything — structure, copy, hierarchy, and calls to action were all rebuilt around a single goal: make it immediately clear that Construction.MN is a guide, not a contractor. The site structure was organized the way search engines expect and the way visitors actually read, not just the way it looked on screen.
Since the new site launched, Construction.MN has shared it with colleagues and their business coach. The response has been consistent — the site is a significant improvement, and the message of what the company actually does is now immediately clear. That’s the standard every website should meet. It just rarely does without deliberate strategic work to get it there.
Bob Martens and Don Mathews, Co-Founders,