Web design / Jackson, MS
A good deal of Jackson’s business happens within a few blocks of the Capitol, and plenty of the websites that serve it look as if nobody has opened them in years.
The work that circles the Capitol
When the Legislature is in session each winter and spring, downtown fills with the people who orbit state government: associations, lobbyists, law firms, engineering and consulting firms, and the vendors who bid on agency work. Many of them have websites that were built once, years ago, and left alone because “everybody already knows us.”
Everybody doesn’t. A legislative aide checking out a trade association, an agency buyer reviewing a vendor’s response, a new member of a board looking up the firm they’ve been told to call: all of them form an opinion from the site before they pick up the phone. An association site with a two-year-old events page and a staff list full of people who’ve since left tells that reader something you didn’t mean to say.
The fix is rarely a big redesign. It’s usually a smaller, more current site that your own staff can keep honest: who you are, who’s on staff today, what you work on and who to call about what. Our guide for nonprofits covers member organizations and associations, and the law firms guide covers the firms. Where an older site is beyond saving, a website redesign starts with deciding what to throw away.
Medicine and the campuses
UMMC, the state’s academic medical center, sits on the north side near Fondren, and a ring of clinics, specialist practices and medical offices has grown around it. Jackson State, Millsaps and Belhaven are in the city, with Mississippi College just west in Clinton. Between them they bring a lot of students, residents and visiting families who are searching from somewhere else and need the basics fast: where you are, whether you take their insurance, when you’re open and where to park.
Fondren sits right beside it. A restaurant or shop there serves people coming off hospital shifts as well as the neighborhood, and it needs a menu that loads fast on mobile, with hours that are actually right.
Across the Reservoir
Much of the metro’s growth has gone to Madison and Rankin counties, which sit on either side of the Ross Barnett Reservoir. Madison and Ridgeland are on one side, with Canton further north, where the Nissan plant and its suppliers support their own web of contractors and services. Flowood, Brandon and Pearl are on the Rankin side. Customers there rarely think of themselves as Jackson residents, and a Ridgeland family doesn’t necessarily consider Brandon nearby, Reservoir or no Reservoir.
So a business serving both should name both, specifically. A plumber in Brandon who also works Madison is better off saying so in a real sentence on a real page than putting “Jackson metro” in the header. Hinds County towns like Clinton and Byram deserve the same, and so do the smaller county seats out in Copiah, Simpson and Yazoo for any business that drives that far. Our SEO page explains how we pick which places get their own page.
Scheduling around the session
We have no Jackson office and do the work remotely, keeping Central Time. For anyone tied to the Capitol we’ll plan reviews around the legislative session rather than through the middle of it. Each design comes as a link to check from wherever you are, and the handover covers how your staff keep the site current.
Questions from the capital
We bid on state contracts. Does our website really matter?
It matters more than most firms think. Evaluators and agency staff look you up, and an outdated site makes a careful proposal look less careful. Keep the facts on it current and consistent with what you submit.
Should the Jackson address lead the site if most customers are in Madison?
Lead with where your customers are. Your address should be accurate everywhere, but the headline and the service-area pages should speak to the towns that pay the bills.