LTC 009-2023 CITY OF MIAMI BEACH LAUNCHES REDESIGNED HOMEPAGE WITH COMPREHENSIVE EVENT CALENDAR009-2023
MIAMI BEACH
OFFICE OF THE CITY MANAGER
NO.LTC # LETTER TO COMMISSION
TO: Honorable Mayor Dan Gelberof' an Me bers of the City Commission
FROM: Alina T. Hudak, City Manage
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DATE: January 9, 2023
SUBJECT: CITY OF MIAMI BEACH LAUNCHES REDESIGNED HOMEPAGE WITH
COMPREHENSIVE EVENT CALENDAR
The purpose of this letter to commission is to announce that the Office of Marketing &
Communications and the Department of Information Technology have launched an updated City
of Miami Beach homepage, including an improved "Events Calendar'' function .
The city website is undergoing a major overhaul, including updates to imagery, information and
webpage layout and design. The "Resident" and "Visitors" pages were updated with the same
treatment to ensure consistency across the site and to offer residents and visitors a seamless
experience . The icons and their layout were designed based on back-end reporting, which
indicated the most searched terms, clicked icons and visited webpages within the site.
An event calendar function was created to streamline event offerings and provide a single space
where residents and visitors can find all upcoming events across the city. To view the updated
event calendar, visit www .miamibeachfl.gov and scroll towards the bottom of the page. Users
can navigate the calendar using the right-side panel, where filters can be applied to find the
most relevant events based on individual preferences . Users can also download event content
directly to their computer or mobile calendars by clicking "subscribe to calendar" at the bottom of
the page. The new events section features the following upgrades :
Technical Features:
• Responsive layout for desktop and mobile to provide a better user experience.
• Updated for Google analytics indexing purposes .
• Addition of SEO (search engine optimization) and accessibility tools for each event
calendar entry to ensure compliance with all ADA requirements .
• Multiple views and layouts: list, calendar, photo grid, map view, etc.
• Ability to subscribe to events using popular calendars like Google, iCalendar and
Outlook.
• Ability to import calendars from other calendar applications.
• Addition of search and filter capabilities.
• Ability to enter events with recurring dates and times .
• Ability to manage bookings and reservations with custom fields and automated
confirmation emails.
• Ticketing capabilities for any event that requires tickets or RSVPs.
To date, we have seen the following increases in metrics for the below webpages, over similar
previous time periods:
• The "Home" page has received 883,794 visits, up from 547 ,322 -an increase of 61.5%
• The "Visitors " page has received 42,400 visits, up from 2,007 -an increase of 2013%
• The "Getting Around" page has received 7,844 visits, up from 358 -an increase of
2091%
• The "Education" page has received 12,570 visits, up from 9,784-an increase of 28.5%
Additional pages that received smaller updates in 2022 saw the following increase in metrics :
• Parks and Recreation page -user engagement up by 200%.
• New Events Calendar -user engagement up by 97%.
• Current Beach Conditions page -a new page that received more than 45,000 page
views since it was published on June 30, 2022 and appears as the #1 Google search
result for "Miami Beach Ocean Conditions" and "Miami Beach Conditions."
Throughout the year, we will cont inue to work on redesigning additional webpages on our site
for optimizing the user experience for our residents, businesses and visitors.
For more information, please contact Melissa Berthier at melissaberthier@miamibeachfl.gov .
ATH / FQ /MB/ MK