Website Redesign Services

The Vendor is required to provide for the restructuring, redesign, and development of its institutional website.
- Primary Goals:
•    Enhance user experience and accessibility.
•    Improve navigation and content strategy for SEO and recruitment.
•    Transition from outdated systems, templates, and technical debt.
•    Streamline back-end processes for scalability and ease of maintenance.
•    Reduce reliance on marketing/IT for front and back-end support.
- This includes implementing an intuitive content management system (CMS) that empowers non-technical users to manage content and includes tiered permissions for approval workflows. 
- Approximately 50 contributors across departments will need access to update their own pages, directories, blogs, news, and office or program information.
- We anticipate needing approximately 5-6 user roles, with varying permission levels such as Admin, Edit, and Publish.
- The project will also establish a user-friendly intranet for internal use, ideally leveraging Microsoft SharePoint or a similar solution. 
- While exploring an intranet is part of this project, it is not a core requirement. 
- We are open to creative recommendations for an intranet on a separate platform from the main website CMS, and bidders are not required to deliver a SharePoint-based solution to be considered. 
- The news blog should be externally positioned, and we are open to integrating it using a third-party module or plugin rather than custom development. 
- We would like departments to be able to post their own news/blogs for admin review. 
- A dynamic events calendar should be included, displaying both campus-wide and departmental events, including athletics. 
- We currently use Engage for campus events and are open to leveraging it or exploring another tool if needed to meet our goals. 
- For athletics events, linking out to the athletics site is acceptable, though displaying a feed of upcoming events in a campus calendar would be appreciated. 
- The new website must feature responsive design, be compliant with FERPA and PII security requirements, and include SEO tools, Google Analytics, and other necessary plug-ins. 
- The selected vendor will also support a seamless transition into ongoing maintenance and development. 
- Crucially, the redesigned site must meet accessibility standards, aligning with both federal WCAG 2.1 and State’s stricter WCAG 2.2 requirements, with accessibility integrated throughout the design, development, and testing processes.
- The system suffers from outdated code, inflexible templates, a non-intuitive editing experience, and inadequate user role management.
- Partner with a full-service firm that has proven experience in designing and implementing digital communication solutions for higher education—specifically focused on undergraduate and graduate student recruitment.
- The website’s primary focus is to attract and engage prospective students and their families, but it must also serve a diverse public audience.
- The website’s primary focus is to attract and engage prospective students and their families, it must also serve a diverse public audience that includes alumni, donors, job seekers, high school counselors, community members, media outlets, current students, faculty, and staff.
- This centralized structure, combined with outdated CMS architecture, restricts content freshness and autonomy for departments hoping to share timely and relevant information.
- There is minimal integration with internal tools like the academic catalog, resulting in siloed workflows.
- The website employs a mix of menu styles, including main navigation, footer links, sticky headers, and hamburger menus.
- This fragmentation has also negatively affected the site’s search engine optimization (SEO) performance and user engagement. 
- The site integrates with the slate CRM and receives paid traffic to landing pages.
- Mandatory Post-Launch Services
•    Security, module and core updates and patches
•    Diagnosing and resolving issues to keep site running smoothly
•    Performance monitoring and optimization
•    Recommending opportunities the agency Poly team may not otherwise recognize, estimating, and carrying out continuous improvements and enhancements as business needs evolve and user expectations shift.
•    Expert guidance and/or assistance with SEO, UX, IA, analytics, and accessibility as needed
•    Quality Assurance testing assistance as needed
•    Account and project management tasks, including resourcing, issue management, communications, budget, risk management, reporting, and internal and client communications
•    Regular meetings to track progress
- There are currently around 3,000 pages with relevant content to be transferred, though this number may decrease after a content audit.
- Project management tasks, including resourcing, issue management, communications, budget, and risk management. Regular meetings to track progress
- Site launch including a plan detailed with responsibilities on content migration and optimization. Content migration will be a major part of this project. 
- It will likely be a shared responsibility, with the vendor assisting with strategy and large-scale moves, while agency staff will audit and revise content. 
- We anticipate working with the selected vendor with content design, strategy, and assistance.
- The public-facing website launch is desired within the first 12–18 months of the contract, with the remainder of the term used for support, training, and potential enhancements like an intranet.

- Contract Period/Term: 5 years
- Questions/Inquires Deadline: October 08, 2025