Invest Oakville Website Refresh

Following the refresh of various Oakville websites (such as Oakville Transit), a new Invest Oakville website was launched in August 2023. This new website serves many purposes: first, it presents information in an accessible and engaging way; second, it conveys a unique and overarching identity that ties into other Oakville websites; thirdly, it showcases Oakville’s value proposition as a premium location with optimal work-life balance and innovative ecosystem; and lastly, it guides and helps companies make informed decisions on all business matters, from site selection to funding sources and immigration programs. In this way, site visitors will find that Oakville is a welcoming and united community with many opportunities for growth.

The previous website, though sophisticated, was hard to navigate as it had a disorganized structure with information scattered throughout multiple pages (see attached). In contrast, the new website presents a unified corporate identity across departments, in addition to being more accessible: the design is clean, the font is larger and easier to read, and the colour contrast is stronger. With an optimized interface, users can easily access information from any device (e.g., mobile, tablet, desktop), in any format (e.g., full-screen or minimized), on any browser. Additionally, the search feature now allows the user to find not only webpages, but also documents and links, when typing in any given keyword.

That being said, it was challenging to adapt the information included in our previous site into a new, easy-to-read format that tied into the Oakville identity. Keeping in mind our target audience (businesses that are currently in Oakville/Halton Region and businesses that are looking to relocate to Oakville), we modeled our pages after the ones already included in other Oakville websites. Our team paid special attention to the Data & Resources pages, trying to incorporate multiple creative ways of showing data while consistently updating key metrics. The outcome of these efforts has been very positive: some of our most popular pages are our Top Employers and Demographics pages and, in fact, we have heard from many businesses that the information on our website was easy to find and very helpful. A feedback form is also included at the end of every page so we can continue to improve the user experience.

In order to attract engagement with our website and maintain consistency, our team often updates the information contained there and improves upon certain layout aspects. Around 80% of all images included on the website are of Oakville businesses, people, and settings, and the ones that are not will be replaced by the end of 2024. With a small team of five, the Invest Oakville team communicates at least once a week to be aware of program statuses, initiatives coming up, deadlines to meet, and other current issues that help keep the website up to date. Through different media outlets such as Trivia Tuesday on social media and our monthly e-newsletters, we often direct audiences to our website to get a full, comprehensive view of the town as one of the best locations to invest in Canada.

Since its launch, the new site has significantly increased not only the number of website visitors, but also the users’ average engagement time, thus achieving our goal of making users engage with the content and educating them on the top 10 reasons why companies do business in Oakville.