A project to combine and upgrade the Go El Dorado and Grow El Dorado websites could be completed by the end of the year.
Don Miller, a member of the El Dorado Advertising and Promotion Commission, and Don Hale -- owner of the Diamond Agency, the A&P commission's ad agency of record -- are members of the committee that is overseeing the project, which has been underway for nearly a year.
Formed in early 2020, the committee is made up of community members who are key stakeholders in the areas of economic development, travel, tourism, municipal government, etc.
Committee members are associated with the El Dorado-Union County Chamber of Commerce, who manages the websites, the Murphy Arts District, Mystic Creek Golf Club, local business and industry and other groups.
"We sat down to talk about where our shortcomings were with our existing website and what we wanted to see in a new site," said Hale.
The Go El Dorado website was developed in the mid-aughts and has been revamped twice.
Visitors and those who are looking to relocate to El Dorado can find a wealth of information about the city on Go El Dorado, including municipal services, the history of and facts about El Dorado, economic development opportunities, entertainment, shopping, recreation, places of worship, local businesses, etc.
The Grow El Dorado website went online in January of 2015 as a companion to Go El Dorado.
While both websites list available commercial and industrial sites in El Dorado and Union County, Grow El Dorado provides much more detailed information that is of interest to business prospects, including maps, photos, infrastructure, transportation, demographics, workforce data, daily traffic estimates, local and state incentive packages, city codes, permits and ordinances and more.
Community leaders have said Go El Dorado focuses on the community and Grow El Dorado targets a more specific audience to help raise the area's economic marketability profile.
The oversight committee agreed that the Go El Dorado website had particularly outgrown its purpose of boosting El Dorado's online presence and that a rebuild was in order.
The goal of the rebuild is to combine the Go and Grow websites under the single domain name of goeldorado.com and to modernize and expand online content and capabilities.
Committee members came up with a two-phase plan and last December, Miller, chairman of the committee, presented a funding request to the A&P commission to cover phase one.
Phase one entails an upgrade that will give the website a more modern look and feel; streamlined navigation; mobile responsiveness; a job board; and the ability to communicate with users, via the event calendar, notices, updates, video and more.
The A&P commission voted to dig into its surplus coffers and fund the first phase of the project with a commitment of up to $40,000.
The oversight committee then sent out requests for proposals (RFPs) to eight advertising/marketing/branding firms.
After sifting through four submissions, the group narrowed their selection to two Arkansas firms, Stone Ward and The Richland Group, both of whom were invited to El Dorado make their pitches.
The committee chose Stone Ward, who developed the Go El Dorado site in 2005 - 2006.
Hale and Miller recently provided an update on the rebuild, saying that Stone Ward of Little Rock is in the throes of the design phase and on track to complete phase one by the end of 2021.
"Our committee has been working with Stone Ward and I think we are making sure we touch all the bases and by the time we have a website up, it's not only something that the chamber, but the city, the community can be proud of," Hale told A&P commissioners on Sept. 1.
Added Miller, "The process is very collaborative so we're going to be scheduling some additional meetings to bring in more thought partners."
He said the committee is working with Stone Ward to "look at the website, the site plan and how everything is flowing."
"There's not anything to look at from a digital perspective but we certainly want to make sure that we're very inclusive in our build-out of the strategy and ... how it's going to look and feel," Miller explained.
He said invitations to the upcoming meetings will be sent out over the next few weeks, adding that a hybrid of meetings, virtual and in-person, will be scheduled.
"We're in a good place. Like what we talked about early on, the website will be fit for purpose for us so it will be able to do the things that we want it to do," Miller said.
Miller and Hale said that the committee will then move on to phase two, which will include a city fine/bill payment portal, a resident portal with municipal service requests, capabilities for municipal bill payments and city permit purchases and additional features.