Laramie County Content Audit Analysis

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ABOUT

This project involved a content audit of the Laramie County, Wyoming local government’s website and analyzing its current state to propose more effective changes going forward. The report involved a brief on its current content, images, text, search engine optimization metrics, competitive analysis and creation of wireframes. The goal of the project was to build upon a site’s existing content to make it overall more optimized for the web.

PLANNING

To determine the improvements that could be made to Laramie County’s website, I observed the current state of the site’s content from a navigational standpoint as well as search engine optimization (SEO) and accessibility standpoints. What I gathered from looking through the site was that there is a very high volume of information that visitors are met with when they attempt to make their way to their desired destination. Additionally, there appeared to be little regard towards visual aesthetics and the information was thrown together in what is likely the most practical way.

In order to look at the site’s SEO functionality, I plugged it into a tool called the Screaming Frog SEO Spider. At this point I was able to determine that the site was missing some important SEO aspects such as meta descriptions, or the brief descriptions for each page when they appear in search results, as well as the state of the page headings, which all appeared quite short.

Next, I plugged the site into another tool called WAVE which provided an in-depth look at the accessibility functions. Although there are not too many images on the site, none of them included alternative text, which provides a description on what the image shows when the page is not loading or for users who are using screen readers. Additionally, there were some text boxes that were flagged for low contrast and low visibility, meaning that it was hard to read the information.

STRATEGY

Using my findings from the research, I moved on to building the content strategy of the website. I came up with a core strategy statement which helped me align my goals for the next stage.

Next, I developed the messaging framework, where I looked at what I wanted viewers to take away from visiting the site and the specific components that would make them feel that way. I then looked into this further as I came up with three scenarios for potential users, which allowed me to come up with more concrete user segments and how they might navigate the site and pages they might visit.

I then organized the important content into a site map to determine the best way to have the website flow. From here I was able to select a few of the most relevant pages to create newly designed wireframes for - including the “Home,” “Planning & Development,” “How Do I…” and “Contact Us” pages.

I finished off the report by outlining ways for determining success, which included looking at trends seen through Google analytics or comparing engagement with county representatives as well as offering a survey to hear specific feedback.