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Websites are the gateway to a company or organization’s philosophy, products and services. And Google estimates there are about 80,000 searches submitted every second on its search engine. The last time the City updated the overall look of its website was about eight years ago and a lot has changed in cyberspace since then.
“It was time for our website to reflect a more modern and organized look and feel,” says Mary Elliott, director of Communications and Marketing. So the department sat down in late 2019 with Tech Services and web content administrators to determine where to begin.
Each City department and many divisions have at least one employee who is responsible for writing and updating the content of their department’s information on the website. The City’s 28 web content administrators are the ones who provide updated and accurate information, photos, forms and links on their respective webpages. And website updates are typically one of many duties those content administrators juggle each day.
During the past year, members of the website team gave their feedback on ways to improve the City website’s navigation, organization and design. An outside vendor helped bring the design concepts to life.
When you go to our new website, the first thing you’ll notice is the large photographs across the top of the homepage with the City’s marketing tagline: Come Eat. Come Shop. Come Downtown. “We hope the photos and new marketing tagline will attract more interest and keep people on our website so that they can discover news about our city and get the information that residents want and need,” Elliott says.
The goal of Phase I of the website refresh was to update the appearance and design. Phase II, which begins in January, will focus on improving the navigation and user experience. For now, Elliott hopes web visitors will embrace the small changes that are intended to make a big difference.
“Thank you to everyone for your hard work and patience,” Elliott says. “It’s a work in progress and we think it is well worth the time and effort we will spend to continue making our website attractive and informative.”