Website Design, Development, and Hosting Services

The vendor is required to provide s a comprehensive audit, design, development, hosting, SEO, and ongoing maintenance; the goal is to create a responsive, user-friendly, and visually appealing website that:
• Agency as a travel destination for leisure, group, regional, and national visits.
• Reflects the city’s diversity and drives tourism and economic growth.
• Integrates seamlessly with CRM, email marketing, and third-party tools.
- The new website should be fully responsive, easily navigable, user friendly and content-rich, and represent the diversity of city, experiences and communities.
- The current website to identify limitations, ensure compliance, and deliver actionable recommendations for improvement and redesign.
- Overall Effectiveness:
• Identify and address limitations in navigation, customer journey, and design.
• Highlight areas of inefficiency, including excess pages, duplicate content, and outdated information.
- Content inventory & optimization:
• Take stock of high-value, search engine-optimized pages.
• Determine re purposable content and identify opportunities for improvement or expansion.
• Recommend strategies for better content organization and optimization.
- Accessibility compliance:
• Audit accessibility features to ensure ADA compliance, addressing:
• Visual: alternative text and keyboard navigation.
• Hearing: captioning and visual cues for audio.
• Cognitive: simplified design and plain language.
• Deliver recommendations for an inclusive user experience.
- Agency compliance:
• Ensure privacy policies and practices meet agency standards.
- Alignment with city branding:
• Ensure seamless integration and alignment with the city identity and website.
- Stakeholder engagement:
• Collaborate with the visit city team to understand departmental needs and usage.
- Benchmarking & strategic goals:
• Evaluate current KPIS to guide redesign objectives and set measurable goals.
- Action plan:
• Provide detailed recommendations, strategies, and tactics for the redesign.
• Include potential branding updates to ensure consistency.
- Website development
• Website organization & structure
1. Develop a user-friendly sitemap with intuitive navigation to ensure seamless access to key information.
2. Build a clean, mobile-responsive site optimized for all devices and browsers.
3. Allows staff to easily add or build out pages.
• SEO transition program
1. Implement tools such as Meta tags, redirects, google analytics, google tag manager, and google search console to optimize search visibility.
• Strategic guidance
1. Guide visit city through planning and execution to highlight garland’s heritage, diversity, and unique visitor experiences.
• Project planning
1. Collaborate with visit city staff to establish a detailed project plan, including clear milestones, deliverables, and timelines.
• Dynamic features & functionalities
1. Content management system: implementation of an open-source content management system (CMS) that is both user-friendly and provides visit city staff with a best-in-class content publishing experience
2. Interactive tools: event calendar (ITI digital’s event calendar), sample itineraries, and dynamic maps.
3. Engagement tools: e-newsletter signup, media hub for visitor guides and press kits, and downloadable materials.
4. Third-party integrations: integrate with trip advisor, yelp, the visit city app (visit widget), ITI digital’s event calendar, and threshold 360- virtual tour software.
5. Auto size images and/or provide image resizing option
• Storytelling & branding
1. Develop content and visuals that position city as a premier destination while connecting seamlessly to the city main website.
• Creating a visually appealing design: develop a cohesive visual style that incorporates visit city brand identity, including its style guide, color palette, fonts, and design elements.
• Developing a mobile-first design: prioritize responsive design to ensure optimal usability across all devices, including desktops, tablets, and smartphones.
• Focusing on usability and storytelling: design a layout that balances usability with engaging storytelling to showcase city as a must-visit destination.
• Implementing quality assurance and testing: conduct a rigorous period of quality assurance to ensure the website’s functionality and user experience, including:
1. Beta testing to gather user feedback.
2. Debugging and addressing any reported issues.
3. Providing a streamlined method for users to report glitches or user experience concerns.
- Hosting & CMS Capabilities:
• Implement a user-friendly CMS optimized for the tourism industry with functionalities such as:
1. Dynamic content, alternative text, multi-language support, and image/video hosting.
2. Integration with simple view CRM, email marketing platforms, Visit city app (Visit Widget), ITI Digital’s Event Calendar, and Threshold 360- virtual tour software.
3.Advanced map integrations and ad-units for campaigns.
• Provide hosting recommendations for optimal performance and security.
• Deliver CMS training for Visit city staff, ensuring proficiency in managing and updating content.
• Provide full access and knowledge of transferring information should the site need to be moved.
- Ongoing Optimization & Maintenance:
• Continuous website monitoring and performance updates.
• SEO services, including:
1. SEO plan, on-page optimization, keyword analysis, redirects, and campaign tracking.
2. Monthly SEO reports detailing rankings, traffic, and recommended actions.