Transforming a Quirky Destination
When Fargo called, we answered. After the quirky North Dakota town rebranded, it sought to highlight its emerging arts community, robust convention scene and funky shops with a new website.
A Destination Brand Update Calls For a New Website to Match
Following a rebrand, the Fargo-Moorhead Visitors Bureau found itself in need of a new website. Its previous site was 15 years old and ran on an obsolete Content Management System that was no longer supported. This made it hard to provide the sort of sleek, intuitive mobile experience potential visitors have come to expect from DMO websites.
As the largest city in North Dakota, Fargo is in a prime position to capture traffic from Canada, Minneapolis, Sioux Falls and other surrounding areas. Great news for stakeholders.
Key Opportunities
Redesign the website to reflect a rebrand
Reorganize content and make it more shareable
Boost traffic from the local drive market
Highlights
-
35
%
Increase in mobile sessions year-over-year
-
103
%
Increase in organic performance year-over-year
-
42
%
Increase in organic traffic
Reflecting the Rebrand
We took on the region’s brand by updating its color palate. We emphasized green and blue to reflect the local university’s color scheme. We also made creative use of angles throughout the site to emphasize Fargo’s unique and quirky aspects.
By delivering a responsive, updated and vibrant site that focuses on events and all the great things to do, Fargo-Moorhead is now able to deliver content that better represents its stakeholders to an increasingly connected audience of travelers.
Reorganizing Content + Making it More Shareable
By moving the site to WordPress, we were able to integrate existing content with the Simpleview Customer Relationship Management API. This allows the Fargo team to accomplish more in much less time, strengthening their stakeholder partnerships and engaging more potential visitors. It also eliminates inefficiencies, prevents lost data, and increases revenue by bringing everything together under one content management roof.
From Sketches to Reality
The new navigation had to be intuitive, but also make it easy to access all of the site’s robust content. We sketched out, then mocked up a wireframe to serve as our guide before we started building.
Boost Local Drive Market Traffic
We crafted a series of blog posts aimed at visitors from specific geographic areas. The keyword-driven content walks travelers through the experience of getting from home to hotel as efficiently as possible. Whether they come from Minneapolis, Las Vegas or anywhere else, visitors can now spend less time planning and more time enjoying Fargo.
Highlights
-
35
%
Increase in mobile sessions year-over-year
-
103
%
Increase in organic performance year-over-year
-
42
%
Increase in organic traffic
Awards
- MarCom Award Tourism Website
- W3 Awards Tourism Website
Lets make this year your best yet.
