Nothing to it, right?

Sometimes there’s more to a short sentence—or list of bullet points—than meets the eye.

Developing content for the City of Sunnyvale’s new website required that I work closely with a variety of subject matter experts, including city engineers, planners and public safety officers. Since most visitors to a city website are looking to accomplish a task—pay a bill, take a class, find a regulation—it was my job to make sure that they didn’t have to know city jargon to complete their task on the city website.

Web content samples

City of Sunnyvale About page

City of Sunnyvale Age-friendly Cities

City of Sunnyvale marijuana ordinance

City of Sunnyvale Aquatics Program

News post samples

Sunnyvale’s website uses “news posts”—like blog posts—for ephemeral content. This allows the city’s web team to create a temporary place on the website to showcase events, provide project updates or share health and safety tips.

LED streetlights installation news post

Storm and flood preparedness news post

Before-and-after post example

A new website that got results

I was the content writer for the team that created the City Sunnyvale’s new website, which launched in 2017.

With the new site, our team:

• Slashed the bounce rate: 35 percent (new site), down from the old city website’s 65 percent.

• Drew more return visitors: Users returning to the website increased by 105 percent from the old site.

• Won awards: The new website has received honors from the National Association of Government Web Professionals (NAGW), California Association of Public Information Officers, Web Marketing Association (WMA) and the Public Relations Society of America.