Rooting deeper into its community
The City of Belmont had recently updated its branding to better resonate with the needs of its local community and was ready to extend this to its digital presence.
The council wanted to enable remote access for residents and staff and to provide better internal tools that would ensure a smoother user experience, while also keeping a keen eye on suitability, scalability, and on-going costs. Kentico ticked all the boxes.
Challenges
The City of Belmont’s website was attempting to provide a wealth of information to a wide range of user types while also taking bookings for community events and facilities. However, it was stuck in the dark ages and cumbersome.
Firstly, its user base comprised of an array of user types (the elderly, people with special needs, longstanding community members, new residents) needing content that ranged from bin days to event bookings. Secondly, while site operational management was complete, maintenance of all this constantly-shifting content was time consuming.
However, the site provided a huge opportunity to set the standard for all local government websites. The City of Belmont represented a growing vibrant community. Partnering them with a modern technology such as Kentico would support them in transforming their image online.
The main goal was to provide an integrated experience for its diverse range of users by:
- Creating personas for each type of user to truly understand their needs
- Digitizing and automating as much as possible
- Seamlessly integrating and syncing with required third-party tools
- Presenting a design and function that actively encouraged uptake by the local community
Solution
The City of Belmont worked closely with Integranet Digital to define clear personas from the outset. The website needed to be highly functional, so not only were a wealth of features seamlessly synced with third-party tools, but the team made excellent use of the sophisticated built-in features of Kentico.
They implemented advanced workflows to automate community-submitted events and business-directory submissions. They used events management to allow administrators to set repeat frequency of events, as well as online payments that leverage Bpoint to enable fast online ticket purchases.
The team enhanced security by setting up user roles to create tiered levels of control and access for staff and utilized the Media Library to keep the backend neat and tidy. The site now provides user-relevant content thanks to automatic personalization through Kentico personas and content personalization variants.
By marrying the strong foundations of Kentico with an expert-driven and design-first approach, Integranet Digital was able to bring the City of Belmont into the digital age.
Results
The City of Belmont now has a comprehensive end-to-end website solution built in line with future trends that can be independently managed by their internal team. The website now showcases all the council has to offer and highlights information users will find most relevant.
Through their new Kentico website, the authority has succeeded in:
- Building a modern, responsive, and easily navigable website
- Successfully migrating old content to the new platform
- Improving user journeys and information architecture
- Getting staff on board for independent internal management
- Considerably reducing website licensing and maintenance costs
- Developing a secure and scalable website compliant to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
Testimonials
Rajan Sharma, A/Manager Information Technology, City of Belmont:
“Working with Integranet Digital has greatly enhanced the City of Belmont’s website. Our new website using Kentico has not only improved our residents’ online experience but also their ability to search and access information quickly and intuitively.”
Phil Allen, Director of Integranet Digital:
“Local government bodies like the City of Belmont offer a wealth of value to their community. Our goal was to make their services even more accessible to residents. They were ready to adopt and leverage the power of digital to streamline processes and support their community and staff alike. Using Kentico enabled them to have a solution that had many cost-saving benefits, can be independently managed internally, market leading security, plus the ability to easily scale and grow as they do.”
increase in page views
increase in average session duration
decrease in bounce rate