Case study · Build 001
Branson Dinosaur Museum
- Client
- Branson Dinosaur Museum
- Location
- 76 Country Blvd, Branson, Missouri
- Scope
- Audit, strategy, design, development, copy
- Year
- 2026
The museum was never the problem. The website was.
Over 45 life-sized dinosaurs. A real fossil you can put your hand on. One ticket good for three days, and kids five and under get in free. A great afternoon out — and almost none of it survived the trip to the website.
01Before
The teardown
We opened the old site the way a family planning a Branson trip would — on a laptop, then on a phone. Five things stood out.
Keep scrolling. The screen walks down the old homepage and spotlights each problem, one at a time.
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Problem 1 of 5
The front door was broken
Every page opened on an empty grey box and a loading wheel that never stops. The slideshow plugin behind it failed as the page loaded — on all four pages.
At the museum, that'sA sheet of plywood nailed over the front door.
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Problem 2 of 5
Nobody could buy a ticket
No price on screen and no way to pay. Prices were buried in the footer, and the only instruction was a line of red text: buy at the box office. Online, families ended up at resellers who keep a cut.
At the museum, that'sThe ticket window shuttered, with a note: buy from the fella down the street.
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Problem 3 of 5
Google could barely see it
Four pages to answer hundreds of searches — and one of the four was a list of links to 25 other attractions. Search data put it at roughly 550 visits a month from Google, with 454 searches already pointing at a site that had nowhere for them to land.
At the museum, that'sNo sign anywhere on Highway 76.
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Problem 4 of 5
It looked abandoned
A blank starter page from 2015, still published. Hashtags pasted into the copy. The two biggest photos were the office cats. The sign out front said 50 dinosaurs; the page said 45. The hours were listed two different ways.
At the museum, that'sA faded COMING SOON banner, still hanging eleven years later.
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Problem 5 of 5
On a phone, it was worse
Most people deciding what to do in Branson are holding a phone. They got the same grey box, then a wall of text — no button to call, no button for directions, nothing under the thumb.
At the museum, that'sA front desk with nobody behind it.
02After
The rebuild
Same museum, same dinosaurs, same prices. We rebuilt it from a blank file so a family can decide before they even scroll.
Same idea, new site. Scroll and the screen walks down the rebuild, one fix at a time.
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Fix A of 6
The whole pitch, before the scroll
A life-sized T-Rex fills the screen. Over 45 dinosaurs, a ticket good for three days, kids five and under free — then Get Tickets, Plan Your Visit, and a phone number that dials.
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Fix B of 6
Prices, before anyone has to ask
Every ticket type with its out-the-door price, tax included. Tickets are sold at the museum, so the page says so plainly — four different ways — and nobody arrives surprised.
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Fix C of 6
"Are you open?" It already knows
A live hours engine reads the real seasonal calendar and holiday exceptions, then says whether the museum is open, how long until it closes, or when it opens next. The seven-day strip runs off the same schedule, so it can't disagree with itself.
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Fix D of 6
Directions that don't end at a church
GPS apps send visitors to the church driveway next door. So: one-tap directions to the right pin, three plain steps to the door, and a photo of the big sign to watch for.
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Fix E of 6
Answers to what people actually ask
Do we need to book? How long is the ticket good for? Is it OK for little kids? "My GPS is sending me to a church — help!" Written the way people ask, not the way a brochure talks.
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Fix F of 6
A real person, one tap away
Call and email are one tap from anywhere on the page — twelve tap-to-call links in all — and on phones, an action bar keeps Call, Directions and Tickets under the thumb.
03In the hand
Phone first
Most visitors are holding a phone — in a hotel room, in a parking lot, halfway down Highway 76.
Both homepages, side by side. As you scroll, both phones scroll from top to bottom together.
A grey box, then a wall of text. Nothing to tap.
Tickets, hours, directions and a phone number — all under the thumb.
04The dyno sheet
Measured, not guessed
Same museum, same week: the live homepage against the rebuild.
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Tap-to-call links
0
12
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One-tap directions
0
7
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Scripts on the page Lower is faster
53
3
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Network requests Lower is faster
96
33
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Seconds watching a loading wheel
0
-
Visitors who act, per 100 Projected
2
14
Measured September 2026 on the live homepage and the rebuild — headless Chromium, desktop, cache off. The last line is the projection from our audit, not a measured result.
05Where it started
A free audit. Seventeen pages.
Before we touched a line of code, the museum got a plain-English teardown: what was broken, what it was costing them, and exactly what we'd do about it. Every build starts this way — and it costs you nothing.
Get yours free
06Your turn
Our next build could be yours.
Get your free audit
Tell us where your website lives. We'll go through it the way your customers do — on a laptop, then on a phone — and send back a plain-English audit: what's costing you business, and exactly what we'd do about it.
- 01You send the address
- 02We send the audit
- 03You decide. That's it.
No cost · No obligation · No jargon
Got it.