Recognizing the need to capture years of web reviews and having helped create hundreds of economic development websites, we figured we better write some of this stuff down to help those organizations with which we have not been able to come in direct contact.

So, we have written the Building an Economic Development Website primer!

The primer is written from the metephor of building a web site is alot like building a house...and we have cartoons smattered throughout to carry this theme forward.

Props to Maury Forman, Managing Director, International Trade and Economic Development, Washington's CTED, who served as coauthor on the latest version. It is better because of his work!

While this primer is not yet available to the general public, we distribute it through agreements with large regional, utility or state-based economic development organizations.  These groups buy the rights from ED Solutions, Inc. to distribute the publication within their region at will for up to a period of a year. They also get consulting time from ED Solutions, Inc. to 'localize' the primer for their audience.

If you're interested in making this publication available to your communities, please Contact Us!

Table of Contents

	Introduction	Search Engine Optimization
	Creating the Blueprints	Interactivity
	Navigation	Functionlaity
	--The navigation bar	Social Media
	--Location, location, location	Tips for Success
	--Text versus pictures	--Traffic reports
	Visual Design	--Contracting out -- hiring a Web design firm
	--Top 10 tips for successful visual design	The Grand Opening
	Content
	--The importance of data
	--Format
	Laying the Foundation
	--GIS
	--Maps
	--Desirability
	--Salesforce
	--Testimonials
	--Case studies
	--Links