Jake Launches New Website for CCAP.org
Jake is very proud to announce the launch of the Center for Clean Air Policy’s website, ccap.org.
The Center for Clean Air Policy (CCAP) partnered with The Jake Group to update the environmental organization’s brand and redesign its existing site. Over time, the old site had become somewhat disorganized and overly dense with text content. CCAP’s goals for the new site were to provide a better interface to highlight its program work, and make it easier for visitors to find reports and other information in its large library of resources. In addition, the old site included a largely unnavigable blog section which CCAP wanted to bring to the forefront of the site.
Jake’s approach was to create a design and navigation structure that highlights CCAP’s brand and new logo, and provides opportunities to focus attention on its latest program work and news items. On the homepage we incorporated a dynamic banner that allows the organization to feature its most timely programs, issues and events. Mega menus in the main navigation accomplish the same, with the added ability to present a deeper explanation of the organization before users even click through to other pages. The Resource Library now provides a robust advanced search tool to help sift through CCAP’s documents that is as much a function of the enhanced database structure as it is the interface. And the CCAP blog is now a central component of the site with dynamic topic navigation, program cross-referencing, and social media integration.
Equally important as the front-end is the content management system that provides the website framework and allows CCAP to manage the site and publish the blog. WordPress is our favorite CMS platform, and it has worked great for the CCAP site. We used a combination of custom post types and taxonomies, WordPress plugins (both public and Jake-made), and our own data handling tools to develop the structures that facilitate the advanced cross referencing throughout the site. Site-wide admins and a large group of blog authors alike are able to use the intuitive admin system to manage the site content.
Since the launch in late November, we’ve noted significant gains in user engagement metrics as compared to the old site, such as increases in average number of pages viewed and time per visit, and reduction in bounce rate, not to mention some good old-fashioned positive feedback from individuals. It’s great to see CCAP’s efforts to improve the effectiveness of their online communications being validated, and we plan to make sure things continue to move in that direction. There is still more to come for the CCAP website, so check back with them soon!