The Vernon County website www.vernoncounty.org will be getting a makeover. Upon a recommendation from Economic Development Coordinator Christina Dollhausen and IT Director Connie McCullick, the Tourism, Promotion and Economic Development (TPED) Committee voted to approve the proposal from Revize LLC, a company with more than 20 years of experience specializing in government website design, to develop a redesigned, custom website aimed at improving the experience of site visitors and making it easier to be updated by county staff.
“Approximately 10 years ago, the Vernon County website was created in-house using the technology, functionalities and resources that were available in 2008. Although every effort has been put forth to extend the viability of the Vernon County website, technology has changed and with that, we must change the way we reach out to the individuals and businesses who rely on us,” McCullick said.
The approval to allocate Ho-Chunk grant dollars for this project came as a result of a request from the TPED Committee, who spoke about how the current website could be more user-friendly and how it is the face of the county; the first impression that a current or new resident, business owner, developer and visitors see when they use the County’s services and explore the area.
According to the approved proposal, Revize LLC will be involved in the process from the first creative concepts through to the design phases, from site launch to one-on-one training of departments and continued support of the Vernon County website project. By fall of 2019, the newly developed Vernon County website will be ready to launch. www.vernoncounty.org will be user-friendly for all ages and devices, will provide streamlined access to online payment options like taxes, reserving parks, campsites and more. It will also allow each department to easily update their own page, upload minutes and agendas as well as provide users interactive mapping tools. To ensure the website continuous success, Revize will provide on-call tech support for the lifetime of the website, continuous SEO (Search Engine Optimization), functionality technological advances, CMS (Content Management System) software updates and website health checks.
Dollhausen was selected as project manager and will be the liaison between Revize, LLC and the county to coordinate the implementation of the website project. In the next few weeks she plans to be conducting a county-wide photo submission campaign to involve the photographers/residents in Vernon County and assist the developers with design.
“The new website will better represent what Vernon County has to offer in terms of living, working and playing,” Dollhausen said. “The end result will be incredibly valuable resource for our residents, visitors, businesses, county employees, vendors and board of supervisors.”