Thursday, November 13, 2014

Durham Has a New Website, and It's Awesome

With over 2.4 million page views last year from more than 1.2 million visitors, www.Durham-NC.com is Durham’s most powerful online visitor marketing tool…and it’s about to get better when it re-launches later today. With an entirely new look, as well several enhancements that make it a future-focused channel, the site is packed with many new features. 

“We’re really pleased with the design and functionality of the new site and know it will greatly help visitors and residents better find the information they need about Durham,” said Shelly Green, the President and CEO of the Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau (DCVB), Durham’s marketing agency.

With this new site, Durham further presents itself as a destination offering new possibilities every day, and this website is great tool to tell Durham’s story. The enhancements derived from the site overhaul are too numerous to mention, but some of the highlights include:
  • Image-forward design: the power of photography in digital communication is undeniable, and this new site design leverages a lot more images.  Durham businesses now have the ability to add images to their listings on the site through a partner portal, MyDurhamInfo.com.
  • Vastly improved Durham Event Calendar: The benchmark by which all other event calendars in Durham are measured, the 5,000+ events per year listed are now searchable in a variety of ways, and entering an event on to the calendar is easier than ever by visiting DurhamEventCalendar.com.
  • Location sensitivity: Using the GPS capability of a mobile device, or the IP address of an internet connection, the website tells visitors what is nearby to them at any given moment – there is no more guessing about what options are close by, or how to get to them.
  • Device awareness: More than 40% of users access DCVB’s website on the go, and the new website accommodates them by re-sizing and reformatting information based on the display size the user is viewing. Phones, tablets, and desktop computers will display the site with maximum value for the user.
  • Topic-specific information integration: Throughout the site are widgets that aggregate related information to the topic users are reading about, including event information and related features of interest.

Visitors are important to Durham given that more than 9 million of them spent $766 million here last year. They come from near and far, with 7.7 million visitors coming as day trippers and 1.3 million spending the night, as they dine, shop, seek entertainment and more. “With the new responsive design format that gives mobile viewers a better experience, we expect visitation to the site, which is already very high, to grow significantly,” says Shelly Green, the President and CEO of the Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau. “And that equates to a lot of satisfied visitors enjoying what Durham has to offer.”  

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