Bear Web Design continued to attract major organizations and agencies throughout Wilson County during this era by leveraging custom-designed template development. Providing these organizations with the ability to request and direct website designs that accurately showcased their brand identity and business model became a key driver of our success.
At the first Joomla World Conference at Harvard University in 2013, Vicki Payne (Beare) selected a new base Joomla template that would become the foundation for all future custom design work. This decision aligned with the launch of a newly redesigned Bear Web Design website. Vicki worked closely with Dana, who quickly developed strong expertise in utilizing the base template for custom design and development. This in-house proficiency enabled Bear Web Design to efficiently promote and deliver its highly sought-after services.
This transition to website builders modernized the way websites were designed & developed, expanding creative flexibility and scalability for clients.
Team Bear – (left to right) – Jennifer Folsom, Dana Bryson, Brad Dawson and Peter Beare meeting at our office (Circa 2018-2020) at Center 615 in East Nashville.
WordPress
Joomla became the core website development platform for Bear Web Design during this era. Attending multiple World Conferences, engaging with developers around the world and engaging heavily with our clients website needs, Bear Web Design become specialists at customized Joomla Websites for small & medium size business.
The mobile revolution is highighted during this era as Joomla! 3.0 was released as their first responsive websites allowing us to design core websites that would respond to the device they were being viewed on but only having to use one template (and not an additional mobile template). This mean’t managing one version of content allowing us to focus more on marketing content and blogging in particualr
Joomla 3.0 was officially released on September 27, 2012. It was the first major release of the Joomla CMS in the Standard Term Support (STS) track, succeeding the Joomla 2.5 series. The 3.0 version introduced several significant technical advancements, most notably becoming the first major CMS to be responsive by default through the integration of the Bootstrap framework.
Joomla! 3.5 was officially released on March 21, 2016. This major update in the 3.x series brought significant improvements, most notably support for PHP 7, which provided substantial speed increases for websites.
Our first WordPress Website
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) officially launched in October 2020. It was announced as the new default analytics property and the replacement for Universal Analytics (UA) at that time, introducing a new event-based data model.
On January 27, 2012, Bear Web Design purchased its first domain through GoDaddy—JMInsuranceAgency.com—for $10.17. Prior to this, we had been using Aplus.net as our primary domain registrar. While the exact reason for exploring GoDaddy at the time is unclear, it quickly became evident that GoDaddy’s user-friendly portal and management tools were a strong fit for our needs.
Over the following years, we purchased more than 100 domains for both our company and our clients, as GoDaddy became our primary platform for domain registration, management, and renewals. In 2016, we officially closed our Aplus.net account and fully transitioned to GoDaddy.
To this day, GoDaddy remains our primary domain registrar, continuing to support our operations and client services.
Rochen
BeareWare established one of its most important relationships as a technology company when it moved its web hosting to Rochen, a leading hosting company heavily invested in Joomla! Having a dedicated server opened up many great opportunities but also required significant partnerships to ensure our server (and client websites) were also up and running at all times.
Rochen is a web hosting company founded in 2003 in Scotland, with a history of providing innovative, simple-to-use hosting services on a global scale. The company’s operations now include data centers in Dallas, Texas, and London, UK, and a support team spread across four continents. Rochen is known for its support of open-source platforms, including being a long-time hosting partner for Joomla, and has developed its own fully owned and managed infrastructure for services like WordPress, Joomla, and Magento hosting.
Moqups is a streamlined and intuitive web app that helps you create and collaborate on wireframes, mockups, diagrams and prototypes
In 2014, Bear Web Design launched a Help Desk system using Zendesk to better support our growing client base. As we expanded to serve well over 100 clients, managing design and development projects—as well as ongoing client needs—through standard email alone became increasingly inefficient.
To address this, we introduced HelpDesk.BearWebDesign.com, a custom client portal that streamlined communication and centralized support requests.
Since implementing the Zendesk Help Desk in 2014, Bear Web Design has consistently handled an average of approximately 1,000 client project and support tickets per year, significantly improving our organization, response times, and overall client experience.
Bear Web Design started using Harvest in 2014 providing a time tracking system that allowed for full integration with Zendesk. Harvest quickly become the primary time tracking system for team members and the primary invoicing initiater for our billing.
Bear Web Design began using Harvest in 2014, implementing a streamlined time-tracking system that fully integrated with Zendesk. Harvest quickly became the company’s primary platform for employee time tracking and the foundation for client invoicing and billing operations.
At the time, Harvest was already emerging as one of the leading platforms for creative agencies, web studios, consultants, and other service-based businesses that billed by the hour. Its appeal centered on simplicity and efficiency — allowing teams to track time, generate invoices, and monitor project profitability without the complexity of enterprise-level software.
Over the years, Harvest helped Bear Web Design improve workflow organization, strengthen billing accuracy, and create a more seamless connection between project support and financial management.
Bear Web Design signed up for a Google Apps for Business account on January 1, 2012, and Google’s suite of products has been a foundational part of our operations ever since. During that time, we onboarded all team members to @bearwebdesign.com Google accounts, giving us access to essential collaboration tools such as Gmail, Calendar, Drive, and Docs—tools we continue to rely on every day.
In 2014, Google Business Profile was introduced, and we quickly adopted it as a key part of our client strategy. We ensured that every client we managed established a presence on the platform, which has since become a cornerstone of local marketing and visibility for the businesses we serve.
Watchful Joomla & WordPress Management Tool
In 2011, Bear Web Design transitioned from a manual billing and accounting system to QuickBooks Online. This initiative was led by my sister, Rosemary Goodman, based in Melbourne, Australia, who serves as our Accountant and Bookkeeper. The move to an online platform made remote collaboration seamless and reinforced the value and efficiency of cloud-based systems.
Since then, Rosemary has meticulously maintained Bear Web Design’s financial records. Her consistent attention to detail, timely invoicing, and monthly oversight have ensured that our books remain accurate and up to date at all times—providing a strong financial foundation that has supported our growth.
It is also worth noting that QuickBooks underwent a major rebuild in 2013, evolving into the modern, fully cloud-based platform that businesses rely on today.
Jennifer Folsom
Designer & Developer
VirtueMart became Joomla’s flagship eCommerce extension
As Joomla grew as a world class CMS demand for online shops that would integrate into Joomla grew with several great shops being offered including Virtuemart which became our primary Joomla shop during this era.
Combining Joomla and Virtuemart Bear Web Design produced custom designed online shops that provided the marketing look and feel to attract customers, while combining the shop functionality to generate sales and secure customer payments. These shops came with full inventory management that is managed through the website’s administration area.
VirtueMart evolved from a Mambo-era shopping cart into Joomla’s flagship eCommerce extension, growing alongside the CMS. Bear Web Design used Virtuemart 2X as our primary shop during this era.
Joomla World Conference
The Joomla! World Conference (JWC) 2016 was held from November 11 to 13, 2016, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. This fifth annual global gathering for the Joomla community took place at the Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre in downtown Vancouver.
I had just attended the conference and was now heading to Melbourne Australia so I figured with 16 hours of flying ahead this would be the perfect time to recap the conference I just attended.
It was the best conference I have attended to date. The leadership of Joomla was so much more focused on the end user experience than I have ever seen before. This is very good for our clients (and their web visitors) as the bottom line to any websites success is a great user experience…
Peter Beare
Sales & Support
Vicki Payne
Design Director
Dana Bryson
Web Designer
Patty Williams
Easy Blog Coach
Rosemary Goodman
Bookkeeper
What Makes Great Website Content?
In 2014 this blog from the past focused on what website content and content marketing were are at the forefront of any results focused website. So what was great content? What was its frequency? (how many times would you update your website), what it fancy fonts and highlights with every page designed uniquely? Or, was it content copied from a leading competitors website that you know must be good since they are a great company? (Oh My)…
During this period we recognized three basic forms of content on a website…
Joomla! World Conference
Vicki and I attended the 2nd Annual Joomla! World Confence which was held at Harvard Univeristy in Boston in November 2013.
The Joomla! World Conference 2013 bought together developers, designers, business leaders, and open-source enthusiasts from around the globe to explore the rapidly evolving Joomla Content Management System (CMS).
Attendees from dozens of countries gathered to share knowledge, build partnerships, and learn about the latest advancements in the CMS. The conference also featured prominent speakers from across the web industry—including WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg and responsive web design pioneer Ethan Marcotte—highlighting collaboration and innovation within the broader open-source community.
Bear Web Design Training for Sanders Manufacturing (SAMCO) – circa 2014
Client Training Classes
We continued to teach Joomla CMS classes in 2012 thru 2016. Clients were becoming more sophisticated in their needs and requirements during this era. During this time we began shifting to more personalized, one-on-one training while expandng our training locations.
Joomla! CMS training classes empowered clients to manage their own websites and also gave us a great understanding of our clients needs and expectations with their website.
