Website Development and Implementation Services

The Vendor is required to provide website platform will need to be informational, functional, and user-friendly for the public and staff.
- Website and police website is to provide simple, intuitive electronic access to township information; create a dynamic public communication tool; streamline business operations; and provide greater accessibility to township services.
- The redesigned website should also be able to incorporate modules such as document management and storage, permit applications and issuance, payments, and other existing and future software systems.
- Functions desired
1. Design
• Professional graphic design appearance representative of the quality and character of the township.
• Shall submit a minimum of six (6) initial design concepts for the township website and six (6) initial design concepts for the police department website for evaluation
• Proposers must have in-house graphic design capabilities.
• Provide a unified township user interface but allow flexibility for sub-levels of distinguished branding among departments.
• The design should be unique for homepage and several subpages.
• Support for delivery of website content to mobile devices through a web browser.
• Scrolling and slideshow elements that allow for a highly engaging and visually appealing website where upcoming events, blog articles, media content, and other information can be featured
• All photo and videos on the website should have an enlarging function (lightbox) that allows users to click on a photo or video to see it in a larger format.
• All photos and videos supplied from the township’s archives will need to be properly credited when used on the website and copyright information will need to be embedded in larger photos to prevent theft.
2. Regulatory compliance
• Provide reasonable compliance with act 508, the Americans with disabilities act, the digital millennium copyright act, and other appropriate and applicable regulations and guidelines without comprising the usability of the site.
• Compliance with World Wide Web consortium (w3c) capabilities.
• Compliance with web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG) 2.2.
• Create a website with a secure sockets layer (SSL) to create an encrypted link between the web server and internet browser.
3. Core functionalities
• Improved user experience with ease of navigation and information retrieval.
• Improved staff experience with ease of editing, reorganizing, updating, and creating features and information when logging in with appropriate credentials.
• Effective sitemap that select staff will have the ability to change independently after the website launches
• Automatic archiving of content that meet or exceed applicable archiving standards and public record regulations.
• Administrative functionality that requires designated users to log in with their credentials to access analytic and editing functions to the website
• Ability to link multiple independently hosted uniform resource locators (URLs) through the primary website and create vanity URLs.
• Ability to accommodate user needs, including but not limited to language translation and font size modification.
4. Integration with other systems
• Compatibility with the latest versions of multiple major web browsers, including, but not limited to Microsoft edge, google chrome, Mozilla Firefox, safari, and opera.
• Mobile compatibility is required for all platforms.
• Artificial intelligence (AI)-powered search functionality, the website shall include an advanced AI-powered search feature capable of understanding natural language queries and delivering intelligent, context-aware search results.
• The search system should:
o Provide predictive search suggestions and autocomplete functionality
o Recognize synonyms, common misspellings, and related terminology
o Prioritize high-traffic or critical content when appropriate
o Index documents, pdfs, meeting minutes, agendas, forms, and departmental content
o Offer filtering capabilities by department, content type, or date
o Provide analytics and reporting on search queries to improve content strategy
o Include ADA-accessible search interface and mobile optimization
• Provide recommendations for “friendly” or vanity URLs that make pages more accessible to search engines and stakeholders.
• Should supply ongoing maintenance of Meta data within the content management system (CMS), which should include keywords, page titles, and Meta tags.
• The CMS software system should be specified in the proposal.
• Should routinely audit and correct issues that could potentially impact website traffic and ranking.
• The audit is to include, but is not limited to, header tags, duplicate content, html sitemap, etc.
• Integration with major social networking sites, including Facebook, X, and Instagram, including the capability for messages posted to either platform to be published on social media.
• The website should have the ability to integrate with different social media accounts within the same social media platform in different departmental pages of the website.
• Calendar platform compatible with Microsoft outlook, google calendar, apple calendar, and other equivalent calendar platforms that allows users to sync events to their personal calendars through an “add to my calendar” feature.
• Ability to download and view pdf files via adobe acrobat reader in a web browser, including fillable forms.
• Integration with google maps.
• A highly developed, user-friendly secure content management system (CMS) that has multiple levels of administration and access clearances that can be easily updated by nontechnical members of the township staff.
• The CMS should allow for easy linking and embedding of third-party systems the township is currently using or may acquire in the future, including but not limited to ecode360 by general code.
• Ongoing and future integration with software modules including geographic information systems (GIS), citizen complaint tracking, permitting, program event registration, and online payment, among others, with the ability for staff to independently update features.
• Compatibility with all current and future township software systems, including, but not limited to, geographic information systems (GIS), Nixle by ever bridge, and first due.
• The platform must support the integration and display of third-party content through inline frames (iframes) or equivalent embedding methods to allow seamless presentation of external applications, dashboards, alerts, maps, and other data within township webpages.