Happy Birthday, GlendaleAz.com!
Your new-and-improved city Web site celebrates its first anniversary this week
Ah, it seems like only yesterday that we were telling you about the mysterious new homepage that was now taking up residence at www.GlendaleAz.com. Hard to believe it’s been a year since your city’s official Web site launched a new-and-improved design and editorial plan aimed at better communicating with you, Glendale’s residents, visitors, business partners and more. While this past year has been a great success in many ways, we consider it to be a beautiful beginning…and we have plenty of more goodies rolled up our sleeves.
A Year in Review
Studies have shown that more and more people are turning to their computers as their number-one source for information, and that theory couldn’t prove to be truer here at GlendaleAz.com. Since the site’s relaunch in September 2005, the number of online visitors has hit record volume, with more than 265,400 visits in May 2006, marking the most visits in the Web site’s history.
Since its launch, the site has grown in visitation steadily from an average just below 170,000. This momentum carried through spring and summer, as each month recorded significant increases in online traffic over the previous year. The May 2005 total for online visits was 181,559, and May 2006 showed a 46 percent increase (265,432 visits), marking the site’s peak month thus far.
These increases can be largely attributed to the new design and content structure as well as the improved navigation of the site. Other factors include improved marketing efforts and prominence that has been given to the site since its relaunch, including mentions during a 2006 Fiesta Bowl commercial spot, frequent use of the site in press releases and local television spots, use of the site on Glendale 11 and placement on other marketing materials and collateral.
Top pages/sections visited in the past year include:
A Growing Family of Web Sites
The success of GlendaleAz.com has also aided the success of the city’s sister tourism Web site—www.visitglendale.com—which recorded similar records in visitation this past year. This year also saw the launch of a family of Glendale Web sites, including www.glendalesgotgame.com (a one-stop shop for major sports/entertainment district information as it relates to the city of Glendale and its residents, visitors and services) and www.downtowndiningdistrict.com (a culinary subset of the city’s tourism site).
Similar to the growth in traffic to the city’s official Web site, www.glendalesgotgame.com also has seen a significant increase in visitation. The number of visitors to the site tripled from July to August (reaching more than 15,000) as more and more residents and visitors turned to the site for their traffic, neighborhood and parking information needs during the Cardinals Stadium’s official opening and pre-season football action.
Launched this month, www.downtowndiningdistrict.com aims to introduce diners and restaurant owners alike to the exciting happenings in Glendale’s Dining District. The site features colorful and taste-tempting photography of many of the downtown's current restaurants, which run the gamut of the culinary world with flavors ranging from traditional German or Polish fare to contemporary Chinese and home-style Mexican flavors. Visitors to the site will also find printable maps to take along with them as they search for new restaurants to try as well as contact information for those restaurants.
The "What's Cooking" section will give browsers an inside look at the chefs behind the Dining District's great restaurants, with rotating Q&As as well as a few shared recipes. Visitors coming from out of town will want to use the "How to Get Here" section, and interested investors will find an application packet as well as detailed information about the Dining District and the benefits of locating here in the "Locate Here" section.
More Exciting Features to Come
Not one to rest on our laurels, you can be sure that the rest of 2006 into 2007 will see the addition of many more exciting online features for our Web visitors. GlendaleAZ.com is already in the process of adding an En Español section, featuring valuable contact information, details on city services and more for the Spanish-speaking members of our community. The site currently offers translated information on upcoming city elections. Look for the En Español portion of the site to launch with additional pieces in the coming weeks.
Podcasts are also on our horizon—very, very near horizon, that is! The city of Glendale strives to always be on the cutting edge in terms of communication technology, and to meet the needs of our on-the-go public, we’re working closely with Glendale 11, our city’s official cable station, to deliver news, entertainment and more in an easy-to-download format that you can take with you. Stay tuned for more!
We’re also always looking for ways to make life just a little easier for our citizens. On that front, we are working to add online bill pay to our list of Web amenities. We’ll be offering updates on this as we progress in this feature’s development.
You might notice the fresh face we’re sporting now, too. It’s not a big change, just a slightly new take on our design for even easier navigation and to accommodate printing needs.
In the end, we hope you’ll find that this site—your official city Web site—is meeting your needs. If there’s something you’d like to see more of, we’d love to know. Please e-mail us at Webmaster@GlendaleAZ.com. We’ll also be offering online surveys about our site and hosting focus groups in the near future, so please let us know if you would be interested in participating in this site’s future in that way, as well. In the meantime, have fun exploring your constantly improving online neighborhood, and be sure to add us to your favorites—we’re going to give you plenty of reasons to come back. |
