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HomeMy WebLinkAboutBLF Committee Minutes 11-20-24ELK GROVE VILLAGE BLF COMMITTEE MEETING NOVEMBER 20, 2024 Present: Trustee Stephen Schmidt, Chair Trustee Kathy Jarosch Trustee Tammy Miller Staff: Sue Dees, Director of Business Development Matt Higgs, Business Development Specialist Maggie Jablonski, Deputy Village Manager Colby Basham, Director of Public Works Guests: Vince Lombardo, DHD Eirika Romeo, DHD Bob Dion, DHD The meeting began at 3:33 p.m. S. Dees explained that the purpose of this meeting is to get direction to finalize the redesign of the Village's primary business website (currently EGVBizHub.com). The main goal of the redesign stemmed from the analysis done through Envision Elk Grove, identifying that it was difficult to navigate and find desired information the current site, and was also not designed in accordance with best practices for search engine optimization (SEO) to get content to appear high up in online search results. B. Dion and E. Romeo introduced some of the work DHD has been doing to support business communications for the Village, since they started working for the Village at the end of the summer. Their work has included cleaning up and organizing the Village's business contact list, transitioning the back end of business websites from Red Caffeine, the Village's previous business communications partner, and redesigning the business e-newsletter. For the past month they have been focused on designing a new business website to replace EGVBizhub.com. In addition In addition to meeting the website modernization goals outlined in the Envision Elk Grove plan, the redesign was a priority because the existing website was built on an outdated platform that is unable to transfer from being hosted by the Village's previous business communication partner. Business Website URL The current business website uses Bizhub both as a design theme and a URL. E. Romeo explained that when DHD reviewed the Village's overall business communications assets, they felt that the branding of the website as "BizHub" was competing with other, more important concepts. In order to move away from the BizHub branding, it is necessary to update the URL (currently EGVBizHub.com). The DHD team reviewed available URLs, and identified Elkgrovebusiness.org and EGVbusiness.org as good possible alternatives. The URL ElkgGroveBusiness.org plays off the Village's primary website ElkGrove.org. The Committee discussed whether there would be any confusion with this URL about Elk Grove, California. V. Lombardo explained that online search results do take into account the locale being searched from, which would help direct traffic to the right place, but that also the content on the website could be used to help that distinction. Staff noted that while the EGVbusiness.org alternative was presented in case that was a concern, that businesses commonly refer to the community as "Elk Grove" and that EGV does not have the same familiarity. B. Dion explained that they would generally recommend using ".org" in order to signify that this is a government website, however, if possible they would also plan to secure the matching ".com" URL to redirect any mistaken web traffic to the correct ".org" website. B. Dion noted that ElkGroveBusiness.com is currently taken, but not being used, and it is likely we could negotiate the purchase of this url in order to redirect traffic to ElkGroveBusiness.org, if that is chosen. The consensus of the Committee was to recommend moving forward with ElkGroveBusiness.org, and trying to acquire ElkGroveBusiness.com if possible in order to redirect that traffic to ElkGroveBusiness.org. Beyond Business Friendly Logo E. Romeo noted that as we move away from the BizHub website, we also need new branding for the business website. She displayed a new Beyond Business Friendly logo for use in branding the site. The new logo uses the elk head from that is being used for the Public Works Department logo. This new Beyond Business Friendly logo resembles entryway signage for the Village, and is a little more oriented towards Elk Grove Village, than the existing Beyond Business Friendly script logo. The new logo is cleaner, and lends itself better to use in both the website and new print marketing materials. The consensus of the Committee was to move forward with the new Beyond Business Friendly logo to anchor the website design. Business Website Design Concepts A & B V. Lombardo introduced the architecture of the website, showing how content on the new business website would be put together. This is used to identify how information will be organized within the website for ease of access and use. V. Lombardo explained that a new proposed feature for the website site will include a matchmaking form to help businesses identify connections they are looking for, which will go to the Business Development team for follow-up. This service is intended to highlight how the Village can help make connections within our Business Park. The Committee discussed that making connections is an important value to being in the Elk Grove Business Park. M. Jablonski noted that this feature helps fill that need, but in a more personal, and sustainable way. It will replace the business directory feature of the old website, which was not practical to maintain, and didn't include the kind of details important to business introductions that Sue and Matt would be able to provide. V. Lombardo explained that two concepts had been created for review by the Committee, but that elements could be mixed and matched between them. He introduced the homepage for Concept A, which features a video background with mostly local shots in Elk Grove Village, and a few stock videos to supplement. The "Contact Us" and "Business Resources" buttons are highlighted, as these are the two main reasons why businesses visit the website. The remaining content can be found through the navigation at the top, where information is designed to be accessible within two clicks. V. Lombardo explained that concept A plays with the Village's business friendly tagline by aligning design toward the answer to what is Beyond Business Friendly. The base of the website is blue, with green accents tracing the eye towards content, and yellow used to make action items or important information pop. The Committee noted that the "Business Matters" newsletter is also based in blue. V. Lombardo explained that when you scroll down on the homepage, the content is intended to help direct people to areas of the site they may be looking for in a more visual way than the navigation bar. He reviewed some of these content features, including an interactive map feature that will change into a more local map highlighting the feature identified. Chairperson Schmidt noted that the information on O'Hare airport needed to be updated to show that the Village is directly adjacent. M. Jablonski noted that the team would make that change, and also that not all of the content was finalized in these concepts, and that once the design is selected, there will be a deep review of text and photo content for accuracy. V. Lombardo displayed additional homepage features, including scrolling area of business logos that links to content featuring local businesses, information on the Village's new e-newsletter, and an aerial photo with Chicago in the background fading into the website footer. Chairperson Schmidt suggested that the enewsletter subscription button "Join the Herd" be changed to "Join the winning team". He also noted that the skyline photo focused too much on Chicago, and suggested replacing it with an aerial more focused on our proximity to O'Hare. V. Lombardo explained that the full site map in the footer helps with google search engine optimization. Trustee Miller noted that Workforce did not have any subpages, and looked a little strange on its own. The Committee discussed the importance of finding talent to businesses and that the content on the Workforce page would focus on Harper College and District 214. Staff noted that currently the content planned for this area would be better presented as one page rather than individual links. V. Lombardo noted they would look into what changes would be possible to the footer without resulting in too much blank space. V. Lombardo shared two version of the Business Resources Page for Concept A —one with large photos showing different resource categories, and one with smaller icons that included more explanatory text. The consensus of the Committee was to move forward with the larger images. The Committee discussed that the large images are easier to identify, and that this is a big positive step from our existing website resources page, which is almost all text. V. Lombardo explained features of the About Us page, including a highlight of the Village's 4P's, an introduction to the team, and a section on investing in the future. Staff noted that the investing in the future section currently shows the Envision Elk Grove logo, but will 4Ps highlight Like the blue background —makes buttons pop V. Lombardo presented Concept B of the website, which will also have the video on the homepage, though it is not running live in design. He noted that the design focused more on green and blue, and used blocks of color behind title text. The consensus of the Committee was to move forward with the overall design of Concept A. Staff asked if there were any elements of Concept B that the Committee preferred or would like to see included in Concept A. The Committee noted that they liked the use of iconography for statistics, and would like to see that incorporated. Additionally, the liked the "History of Forward Thinking" element from Concept B, but would want to see more representative dates. Trustee Jarosch asked whether the website could better highlight the Village's excellent service delivery, evidenced by accreditations and award. Staff noted that this would be a good idea to add as a section within a page on concept A and they would make sure to include this. The Committee discussed additional content to include, such as statistics demonstrating success, possibly a satisfaction rate or highlighting private reinvestment dollars into community. Staff noted that they could find information like this to include and update each year. The Committee also discussed highlighting how businesses interact with the community, such as the recent donation from Aligned Data Centers to the Food Pantry, or support for the parade and concert series. This may be a good feature for the Overherd newsletter. Next Steps S. Dees thanked the Committee for their input, which will allow us to move to the next phase of design. Staff will be working with DHD to update content and design in order to launch in January or February of 2025. This early launch date is necessary to transition away from the Village's former business communications partner. Before launch, the focus will be on ensuring all content is accurate and functional, but staff will likely continue to work with DHD to build out additional content and enhancements on the business website following the launch. The meeting adjourned at 4:44 p.m.