By Jennifer Eggersdorfer

Crookston, Minn. — These days, AURI clients don’t just surf the Web, they’re surfacing on it. Through a section of AURI’s Web site called Client Connections, AURI is giving a boost to small companies that want to highlight their unique products and services on the Internet.

Last June, William Gilger of Minnesota Beef Industries, Inc. welcomed an opportunity to participate in Client Connections. With technology moving at such a fast rate, Gilger feels the “painless effort” to be included in the project was worth it. “It shows a certain ‘keeping up with the times.’ We want to demonstrate to our customers and vendors that we are savvy in terms of technology.”

Since their page appeared on AURI’s site, Minnesota Beef, a cutting-edge meat processing company, has received many approving comments from customers and is looking to create its own site in the near future.

For clients who already own a Web page, Client Connections is a way to add weight to their Internet presence and pick up more site hits. Companies such as Feeding Time, Starch Tech, Pet Care Systems and Renaissance Fertilizers have all included a link to their own site from their AURI page.

“The interest was in seeing how the link situation would work for us,” says Steve Anderson of Feeding Time, a maker of novelty birdseed cakes. “It worked out well.”

Clients send their company information to AURI’s information systems specialist Marie Fournier and interns Henry Cyr and Dave Kuehn, who develop the Web page. AURI’s effort to help clients market their products and services also includes work on the Web’s search engines, helping people surfing the Net to find the companies easier. Since the project began a year ago, 17 clients have been included in Client Connections and their pages have been submitted to some of the Web’s most popular search engines.

To reach AURI clients on the Web, check out http://www.auri.org/clients/clientms.htm