Website Redesign
The JMT Wilderness Conservancy
When tackling the redesign of the JMT Wilderness Conservancy’s website, my goals were to improve consistency and user experience. Over the span of a few years with numerous employees trying to manage the website, it had become disorganized and inconsistent. I rewrote the majority of the copy for clarity and accuracy and standardized design elements and messaging.
Significant tasks included:
Overhauling the navigation structure, adding and removing pages as necessary for a more intuitive flow of information.
Instating a blog feed and designing multiple templates so that text and photos for future posts could easily be inserted and published.
Creating a “Hiking the JMT” resource page which included writing all of the copy and implementing an engaging, user-friendly structure.
Newsfeed:
The Conservancy uses an email marketing platform to send newsletters and updates to thousands of subscribers and donors. However, there was no archive, so after an email had been sent out, that information was not accessible anywhere. I solved this by creating a blog on the website, translating all of their old marketing emails into blog posts, and creating templates so they can continue to update their “Newsfeed” and keep valuable information easy to access.
Featured here are the Newsfeed home page and an example blog post.
In conjunction with the creation of the blog, I also streamlined all of their social media postings with a coordinated outreach via email, Instagram, Facebook, and their website each month. All platforms are now visually cohesive.
Hiking the JMT:
At the onset of the website project, my biggest observation was that the Conservancy was missing a prime opportunity to be an actual resource for people hiking the JMT. While the nonprofit had traction among some large donors and funding foundations, it was struggling to reach its “grassroots” donor group - the average hiker and wilderness lover! I also saw that the site traffic was almost exclusively first-time visitors with nearly no return visits, and the average length of a visit was under one minute.
To improve all of these stats, I proposed a comprehensive “Hiking the JMT” resource. Having hiked the full trail myself and as a true lover of the High Sierra, I also felt strongly that this resource needed to exist just for its own sake. The more knowledge people have about how to move through these wilderness spaces, the more they will value and take care of them.
After this page of the website went up, site traffic quadrupled during the first month and people were visiting the site more than once and staying longer each time.
As you scroll past the header, a sub-menu appears. Under every header is a list of expandable topics, each containing a summary and external links to more resources. This improves SEO and naturally directs site users to other important authorities such as the National Park Service, National Forests, and Pacific Crest Trail Association.
Click the video below for an overview of the functionality of the page.