Select Strathcona Investment Attraction Website
Abstract:
Finding information on the Strathcona County demographic makeup, types of businesses that thrive in our region, or find more information on future growth plans – it was through the corporate municipal website which primarily caters to residents. While strathcona.ca is a well curated and designed website, the sheer volume of information housed there made finding investment related content difficult to find. To better meet the needs of Strathcona County’s niche target audiences — the Strathcona County Economic Development and Tourism department was tasked with developing a new, streamlined, standalone investment attraction website.
The goal? To build a cohesive and data-driven site that combines exceptional storytelling, with facts and infographics, ensuring the Strathcona County economic success stories are part the regional and national narrative.
With a clear call-to-action in the domain name, the aim is to build awareness about our jurisdiction’s value proposition, enticing investment to Strathcona County, Alberta, Canada, and providing valuable information about our community’s investment potential to our target audiences.
This website exemplifies best practices in user experience, data organization and prioritization, visual appeal and navigability to strengthening the Strathcona County value proposition.
Effectiveness:
The investment attraction website has brought economic development and investment attraction to the forefront.
There has been a 339% increase in homepage views, 150% increase in total page views, and over 41,000 events for the website over a 5-month window (November 22, 2023, to May 8, 2024).
With an electronic strategy using keywords in SEO aligning to specific conferences/attendee job titles, and a paid keyword campaign with Google AdWords (retail attraction at the 2024 ICSC event in Whistler, agri-food advantages at the World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit/FutureFoods in San Francisco, innovations at the World Petrochemical Conference Houston, Canadian Hydrogen Convention in Edmonton, as well as the World Hydrogen Summit in Amsterdam, and more).
Challenges:
As a first-of-its-kind project for the organization, a substantial amount of planning and internal lobbying had to be conducted to build a business case for this project’s need. From that point on the project was mainly free of obstacles/barriers.
Target Audiences:
Investors in agriculture and food, supply chain and logistics, advanced manufacturing, hydrogen and petrochemicals sectors, as well as realtors, developers, and site selectors.
Other Specifics:
Fully accessible, responsive, SEO-optimized, analytics-integrated, and easy to navigate, Strathcona County’s investment attraction website — developed on WordPress — is a comprehensive hub for investors and shows why Strathcona County is an excellent choice. Displaying Strathcona County’s growing industries along with an interactive ArcGIS map featuring investment-ready sites, with a library of the latest relevant data and resources – with content kept up to date by monitoring the latest municipal, provincial, federal data, and media releases.
Offering a flexible and beautiful solution for Strathcona County – supporting local associations and stakeholders, as well as promoting local business success stories; it gives investors the confidence to choose Strathcona County.
Sustainability:
Strathcona County recognizes the importance of sustainability in business. Our commitment to environmental, social and governance (ESG) elevates economic performance and solidifies the County’s reputation as a forward-thinking, sustainable, and thriving region.
The investment attraction website features local businesses who lead ESG for the region and the world. https://selectstrathcona.com/esg-in-action/
