The City of Lisbon already had an official .gov website. However, they wanted something more approachable and friendly.
They wanted it to feel like a neighborhood welcome wagon. They also wanted the current residents to have something that they could go to for updates on events and activities that the city has going on.
In one of our discovery meetings someone said:
The city already has a suit and tie, professional and somewhat sterile .gov website.
Let’s show off the family-friendly community we have in Lisbon to someone thinking about moving here.
Let’s give everyone that lives here a place to keep up with the street dances, fundraisers, festivals, parks and rec flag football and soccer games and much more.
We created a WordPress website to do just that.
It’s a simple and friendly website that begins with a short welcome message from the mayor.
Above the mayor’s welcome is a rotating banner that highlights areas of interest that a person new to town often has. Each of these elements leads to a dedicated page covering the topic at hand and encourages the viewer to contact the appropriate person for more info.
Below the mayor’s welcome we highlight three of the most recent community event articles. In the main menu a “News” menu item shows the all of the event articles with a list of upcoming activities prominently displayed on the right hand side.
There is a full featured Public Events calendar and a Parks & Rec field reservation calendar. They also have reservation calendars for the various park facilities/pavilions and performance spaces. Dedicated pages for each of the city parks are complete with Google maps, general information, photos, and pavilion or facilities reservation calendars.
The city puts out a quarterly newsletter which can be viewed on the website or downloaded. Many of the newsletter articles are converted into News articles for the website. Whenever a news article is published on the website an excerpt is automatically sent to email subscribers and to the city’s Facebook page.
You can use WordPress to schedule articles to auto-publish at any time in the future. When the staff completes the quarterly newsletter covering the next three months filled with activities they can easily set an article to publish a few weeks before an event to generate interest and buzz.
