Partnership creates attractive functional city marketing website

Municipality of Roerdalen wanted to develop a new city marketing website. It had to look playful and fresh, show lots of images and be accessible. Another requirement: a flexible homepage that fits the campaign-oriented work of team Communications. Is that feasible with SIMsite powered by Drupal? The municipality's team had its doubts.

The front page of Roerdalen's new subsite

Team communications and the municipality's tourism colleagues discussed their wishes for the new website with Shift2. Webmaster Bianca Peeters - van Elteren: "We were already working with Shift2 for the municipality website and the previous tourism site, but found the available templates too static. As an example we showed the Visit Zuid-Limburg website. We like the playfulness and many visual elements on that website. Shift2 doesn't offer anything like that, but consultant Marc van Tintelen was convinced that they could provide a template where our desired design and the technical possibilities came together."

The front page of Roerdalen's new subsite

Partner in crime

Together they set to work. The Municipality of Roerdalen has opted for city marketing under the banner "Little happiness from Roerdalen. The city marketing website forms an important basis for this. Within the happiness concept, specific products have been developed in which 26 places of happiness form the common thread. This unique concept with its accompanying philosophy had to be given a clear place of its own on the website. In addition, there had to be room for further tourist and recreational offerings under the heading 'Discover Roerdalen'. Bianca: "It was quite a challenge to integrate these two parts. They are equally important and both needed a place on the homepage without being crowded. It had to remain clear, playful and calm. Marc was a real partner in crime in this and made good suggestions for the structure so that it still fit into an existing template."

 

Successful Small Luck

"Www.Kleingelukuitroerdalen.nl shows that much more is possible with Shift2site powered by Drupal than we initially thought," Bianca enthuses. "The website invites you to click through. In the survey we conducted among residents and business owners and in the emails people can send us through the website, we received positive feedback. The website is associated with cheerful, beautiful and modern. Findability scores positively. And in terms of form and content, they find it logical, attractive and informative."

 

Hiking and biking routes

Good accessibility is also essential. That's not just about the standard 'increase contrast,' 'read for,' and 'enlarge text' buttons that are obviously in there. Bianca: "We still have wishes. Visitors to the website like to see maps with cycling and walking routes. Shift2's geo solution doesn't work well for that. But we don't want to post PDFs, which don't meet accessibility requirements. We have now created our own maps using Google Maps in combination with junctions. That's not an optimal solution, but it meets visitors' needs."

 

Good card solution

As a tip for Shift2, Bianca likes to offer something about a functionality: "Make sure you have a good map solution. That is crucial and you can better anticipate requirements for this type of website. And see what you include at the development level, for example in new templates. At least if Shift2 also wants to focus on tourist sites of municipalities.
We are extremely satisfied with the service, support and service. You really have a partner who brings relevant experience and goes that extra mile to achieve a great result together. I would gladly give Marc an 11 on a scale of 10 in that respect," she concludes with a laugh.

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