Memphis Tomorrow required an improved Web presence to support their Memphis Fast Forward Program a five-year community and economic development plan. Our research showed that many in the key target audiences do not understand the Fast Forward plan; if they do, they may be skeptical until they learn more about it and understand it is producing real results that are making a difference collectively.

To educate target audiences about the plan, we determined that the website needed to do five things well:

• Help users quickly grasp the purpose of the program with pages that are easy to read and easy to scan. Important information should be highly visible and not require users to navigate many levels to find it.
• Follow best practices for presenting PDFs to those who are interested in learning more about the initiative.
• Utilize crosslinks to provide relevant content in a quick and easy way.
• Allow non-technical users at Memphis Tomorrow to easily update content themselves, so they can report on progress toward goals.
• Draw in users with search engine optimization techniques that target key keywords for natural (unpaid) listings on leading search engines.

The Memphis Fast Forward website is engaging compared to the benchmarks in its category: Average pages viewed per visit are 60% better and time on site is 228% better.