The Vendor is required to provide to update its website to enhance the user experience, simplify content management, enhance functionality and information accessibility, improve compliance and data accountability, and expand interactive features and platform flexibility, while elevating visual design and aesthetic appeal across the board.
- The end goal of the project is to develop a single-source location for all municipal government-related information related to the Town.
- The Town aims to facilitate department-level content creation and maintenance through agency based backend that non-technical staff can easily navigate, with editorial gates in place under the oversight of a central administrator.
- The new website must be ADA-compliant, as well as meet any additional accessibility requirements for the State.
- The assistance of an experienced website design and development firm that has a portfolio of experience demonstrating success with project needs and that can not only fulfill the requirements for the website functionality identified here, but also provide proactive consultation to assist the Town in identifying and prioritizing website design requirements to achieve its goals.
- The Town would like the approved vendor to provide a recommendation for hosting services for the website in a secure data center that is compliant with all applicable requirements for local government sector security protections, and that also provides 24/7/365 client support services.
- Project Goals:
• Enhance user experience and accessibility: simplify content access, improve information accessibility, and elevate the overall visual design and aesthetic appeal. The new website must be ADA-compliant and meet all additional accessibility requirements mandated by the state.
• Improve functionality and compliance: expand interactive features, enhance platform flexibility, and improve data accountability and compliance standards.
• Simplify content management: implement agency-based backend that non-technical, department-level staff can easily navigate for content creation and maintenance. This system must include editorial gates overseen by a central administrator.
- Functional Requirements:
• Activities - Create activities/events, display schedules, limit the number of persons that can sign up per event, and email those who have registered for specific events
• ADA Compliance - Site compliance within content display and navigability for Section 508 and other ADA accessibility and usability requirements and considerations
• Agenda Management - Upload existing, create new, categorize, approve, and manage agendas
• Alerts & Notifications - Display alerts prominently on website with the ability for the public to sign up for notifications sent via email and text/SMS messaging to subscribers
• Archive Center – Cloud-based storage of historical agendas, minutes, packets, and other documents
• Browser-Based Administration - Update, delete, and create content from any device with internet access through a web browser (e.g., does not require a specialized locally installed application)
• Browser Flexibility/Support - Display of site content on all recent versions of major internet browsers, including Microsoft Edge, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome
• Calendar - Update/publish calendars for departments/categories (filterable) with a main calendar to display all events
• Content Scheduling - Set dates for content to automatically publish and expire
• Content Workflow - Ability for users to draft content and route through editorial workflow, with review/approval gates, before publication
• Departmental Home Pages - Ability for departments to have dedicated pages within the site that follow the same design as the other interior pages and master aesthetic
• Directories for Staff - Ability to allow citizens to search for staff department information and contact details
• Document Center - Upload/download capability for files up to 1GB, back-end ability to search (through both text string search terms and custom indexed attributes) within published and unpublished documents
• E-Communication Platform Integrations - Create unlimited subscriber lists, and communicate over multiple channels – e-mail, text, and social media from a single point of access using third party platforms (e.g., Mailchimp, Twilio, Facebook, Instagram, etc.)
• E-Notifications - Electronic subscription, scheduled notifications via email and SMS
• Facility Management - Listings with maps, filtered search, and reservation capability
• Frequently Asked Questions - Ability to categorize FAQs by department or page
• Image Center - Store images in a central and searchable location on the website
• Intranet/Extranet - Restrict pages by login (e.g., allow for internally accessible pages only, for instance, an employee-only sub-site)
• Levels of Rights/Permissions - Allow system administrators to establish levels of rights for distinct users to update/manage/access content based upon roles and specific permissions
• Live Edit - Add, edit, and move content directly on the front end of the site without the need to utilize or be trained in writing HTML or CSS code (“Graphical User Interface - GUI”)
• Maps - Easily embeddable maps from Apple, Google, ArcGIS, ESRI, and other GIS-based systems
• Multilingual Support - Ability to toggle to other languages using Google Translate or a similar widget without needing to have translated source content
• News & Announcements - Post news releases or updates dynamically to relevant pages based on category, with a throughput feed from social media accounts (e.g., blog, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter)
• Online Forms - Create unlimited customizable forms, track responses, and export results
• Online Job Postings and Application - Applicants can also create an online profile, fill out an application, and upload/attach additional documents
• Online Payments - Ability to accept secure online transactions
• Printable Pages - Print-friendly function to format pages in print-ready/PDF-able layout
• Responsive Web Design - Fully mobile-responsive design - site automatically adjusts to the screen size of all devices it is being viewed on, including forms, calendars, etc.
• Request Tracking - Public can submit requests or inquiries to correct individual/department with exportable statistics and reports
• RFP/Bid Posting - Allow for easy posting of publicly noticed bids to the site
• Rotating Photos/Banners - Slideshow capabilities for graphics displays
• RSS Feeds out - Registration by Department or Category (eg, push feeds based on content updates)
• Content Sharing Capability - Links to share content via email and social media on every page, per set-up
• Site Search - Internal site search engine and log of search terms, with auto-indexed content across pages, documents, and images, with predictive search ability
• Site Statistics - Analytics and site audit reports, exportable format
• Sitemap & Breadcrumbs - Automatically generated and updated sitemap and breadcrumbs
• Social Media Interface - Display social media feeds
• Video Center - Live streaming video capabilities
• Website Visitor Profile - Visitors can customize the information that automatically feeds to their profile upon site login.
- Platform and Technology Stack
• Platform: Specify preferred platform, including municipal-specific options (e.g., CivicPlus, TownWeb) or general ones (e.g., Wordpress, Drupal)
• Hosting: Requirements for development, staging, & production environments
- Performance & Scalability
• Load Time: Page load time targets (e.g., Core Web Vitals targets, under 3 seconds)
• Traffic Capacity: Ability to handle potential concurrent users and peak traffic load (e.g., 5,000 concurrent users without degradation)
• Caching: Implementation of multi-layered caching (CDN, server-side, browserside)
- Content Management System (CMS)
• Content Editing: Must include a user-friendly, WYSIWYG or block-based editing interface
• Workflow: Ability to set up multi-stage content approval workflows (Draft -> Review -> Publish)
• Asset Management: Centralized media library with tagging, search, & bulk upload capabilities
• Version History: Automatic tracking and ability to revert to previous versions of content
• Levels of Rights/Permissions: Ability to establish distinct user access based upon roles and specific permissions
• Content Scheduling: Set dates for content to automatically publish and expire
• Browser-Based Administration: Update, delete, and create content from any device with internet access through a web browser
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
• Central User Database: Single source for all user accounts in a traditional data structure
• Omni channel Communication Centralization: Manage customer interactions from various communication channels, from social media to email replies to chats
• Multichannel Communication Tools: Allow users to switch between communication methods in real time via phone systems and chat (both live and bots)
• Ticketing Integration: system for creating, tracking, and resolving support tickets for users of all types.
- Marketing & SEO Requirements:
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
o Meta Tag Management: Ability for content authors to easily customize SEO title tags, meta descriptions, & page slugs for all pages
o Structured Data: Support for implementing JSON structured data (e.g., Schema.org markup for articles, products, or organizations)
o Sitemaps & Robots: Automatic generation of XML Sitemaps & easy management of “robots.txt” file
o Redirects: Implementation of a user-friendly interface for managing 301 & 302 redirects
• Analytics & Tagging
o Analytics Integration: Seamless integration with Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
o Tag Management: Ability to deploy third-party tracking scripts (e.g., Facebook Pixel, LinkedIn Insight Tag) via a Tag Manager solution (e.g., Google Tag Manager)
• Forms
o Form Builder: Implementation of a flexible form builder to create custom forms
o Form Validation: Client-side & server-side validation for all form submissions
o Spam Protection: Implementation of Captcha or reCaptcha on all public forms
- Contract Period/Term: 3 years
- Questions/Inquires Deadline: February 12, 2026
