WordPress website development for a municipality

CREATING.LV built the WordPress website id.riga.lv for the Riga City Council Property Department: this municipal website project included the design, news and property listing sections, documents, social media updates and content management for staff. The project was handed over in 2017.

The Riga City Council Property Department (now the Property Department of the Riga State City Municipality) is the municipal unit that manages the municipality’s property. The department needed an informative website for residents on which it regularly publishes up-to-date information about the management of municipal property.

On a municipal institution’s website, information changes often — news, announcements, listings, documents. That is why the brief focused not only on the structure of the sections but also on enabling the department’s staff to publish content themselves.

CREATING.LV built the department’s website on WordPress, including its visual design and usability, and set it up so that the department’s staff could add news and update information themselves without technical knowledge. The scope of work:

• design and section structure;
• a news and announcements section;
• a property listings section with categories for sales, auctions and leases;
• a documents and regulations section;
• display of Facebook and Twitter updates on the website;
• adaptation for use on desktop and mobile devices.

The Riga City Council Property Department website includes a news and announcements section in which the department publishes information about its work. For residents, it is the place to check up-to-date information about the management of municipal property without looking for it elsewhere. In our screenshot, the home page news and projects are shown with photos, so items in the list can be told apart not only by their headline but also by their image.

Property listings have their own section rather than being mixed with the news. In this section, listings are organised into three categories:

• sales — municipal properties being sold;
• auctions — properties offered at auction;
• leases — properties that can be leased.

These three situations are different for residents: buying, taking part in an auction and leasing each have their own procedure and their own documents. So a visitor looking, for example, for leasing opportunities can open only the category they need. The department’s staff publish a new listing in the relevant category, and the news feed stays clear.

In our screenshot, whose content dates from 2018 — a year after the project was handed over — the home page shows a “Latest listings” block in which each listing has its date and category. Auctions and leases usually have deadlines, so the date helps people see straight away whether a listing is current, and the category whether it relates to a sale, an auction or a lease.

The website’s structure follows the questions residents bring to the department:

• what’s new — the news and announcements section and social media updates;
• which property can be bought, won at auction or leased — listings by category;
• what a decision is based on — documents and regulations.

Each question has its own section, so visitors do not have to browse all the content to find one listing or document.

A separate section brings together documents and regulations on the municipality’s rules and decisions. Here the municipal website serves both sides: residents can find the document a decision is based on, and the department has one place to publish these documents. Residents preparing to take part in an auction or lease a property usually need to read the rules before applying, so the documents section complements the listings.

The website displays the department’s Facebook and Twitter updates; the same screenshot shows a Twitter feed on the home page. What is published on social media is visible on the site alongside the news, and visitors can read it without opening the social networks themselves. The department does not have to republish social media posts on the website separately.

The website was set up so that the department’s staff add and update content in WordPress themselves. They do not need technical knowledge, and publishing does not depend on the developer. In the WordPress admin, adding a news item, listing or document is similar to writing a text document: the staff member enters a title and text, adds an image or file if needed, and chooses a category. In their daily work, staff:

• publish news and announcements;
• add property listings in the sales, auctions or leases category;
• add to the documents and regulations section.

The visual design and usability are CREATING.LV’s work. In the design, each type of content — news, listings and documents — has its own section, so residents quickly understand where to look. A municipal institution’s site is used by many different people, so the section names and the menu have to be clear even to visitors who are not familiar with the department’s work.

The municipal website is adapted for use on desktop and mobile devices. News, listings and documents are also available on a phone.

Today the department’s site still runs on the same domain on WordPress. The department has a new name, and the menu has more sections than in our description. The accessibility improvements visible on the current site were not part of our delivery. This portfolio entry describes the Riga City Council Property Department website as we handed it over in 2017.

This kind of structure suits a municipal institution or another public organisation whose staff regularly publish news, listings and documents themselves. A municipal website built on this model means a separate section for each type of content: residents find what they need, and the institution maintains the content itself.

When planning a similar project, it is worth deciding at the start who in the institution is responsible for each type of content — news, listings and documents — because a municipal website is only as useful as the regularity with which this content is updated.

More about the platform — in the article WordPress website development; about planning and building a website’s structure — on the page website development for companies and organisations.

• Website development

id.riga.lv

This portfolio entry reflects the solution as delivered at handover. The current website may have changed.