Allegany County, MD Request for website: Responsive website redesign and CMS rebuild. ADDENDUM ONE 10/27/2018

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1 Allegany County, MD Request for website: Responsive website redesign and CMS rebuild. ADDENDUM ONE 10/27/2018 These questions and answers are hereby incorporated into and are considered to be an integral part of Allegany County, Maryland s Tourism Request for Proposal for responsive website redesign and CMS rebuild. Question Answer 1 Are you accepting responses via ? Responses are to be mailed, per the RFP. Ashli Workman, Tourism Director Allegany County Government 701 Kelly Road Cumberland, MD How many copies would you like us to mail? Please send three copies. 3 Do you have any approved budget? Allegany County Tourism is not releasing budget information. 4 Is the new contract with the new provider to be a 1yr agreement and/or have option years for renewals? 5 Can the development be done offsite at our office? 6 Is there a planned end date for delivering the project? Recommendations are expected from selected vendor. Our expectation is that this project will be completed within 9-12 months of initiation. Recommendations are expected from selected vendor. 7 What is driving this timeline? Digital is very important and a major tool for marketing effectively. A new website will assist us in developing a strong foundation. 8 Can you provide an example of the Enhanced Listings feature? This is for future revenue opportunity. Businesses are listed on the website alphabetically. An enhanced listing feature will allow for a business to pay for a premier top page listing. 9 Regarding the Statistical System Reports, is the need to review the amount of traffic/activity in Ex. - See featured listings.

2 report form of the businesses in the business directory? 10 What is your average website traffic over 6 months? 11 How much traffic (sessions) does the website get on an annual basis? 12 What is the current traffic/bandwidth rate for your hosted site?; 13 Concerning the Visitor's Guide, will a specific platform be utilized or will visitors download a PDF copy? Is there a platform chosen to fulfill this requirement or are suggestions welcomed? 14 The RFP requires travel expenses to be included does your organization have an estimate for the number of in-person meetings you will need? We will not share those specifics. We will not share those specifics. We will not share those specifics. The producer of the guide will create a digital flipbook. The Destination Guide will be available through a link. Recommendations for travel needed is expected from the selected vendor. 15 Will we need to come over there for meetings? Recommendations for travel needed is expected from the selected vendor. 16 For the initial load of information will you be able to provide an excel import of your businesses? 17 We believe you would require the calendar to have subscribe to events, the ability to share with social media etc, but do you want the ability for the calendar to also have ecommerce for events? 18 Our company maintains our own Tier 3 data center which we would propose to host the new website. We believe this is acceptable as per the RFP requirements if you can confirm? 19 Would you like the Business Directory to also provide you the ability to have a vendor directory? 20 Do you require a mobile application for the site such as Pingstreet? 21 What is the overall goal of the site? Is it to grab additional traffic (via mobile) and help them get to a hotel site? Is it of interest for each stakeholder to have their own landing page? 22 What is the website not doing to achieve the organization s mission and communication goals? 23 Do you expect us to do SEO? No. Not at this time. If PCI compliant, then yes, acceptable. This is not necessary but we are open to ideas from the selected vendor. No need for a mobile app. The goal of the website is to promote destination awareness for Allegany County, Maryland. This is the official tourism office for the county. This website should promote and market our tourism stakeholders and drive visitation. The current website is very directory focused. It does a great job if you are already in Allegany County, Maryland, but does not sell the region or generate destination awareness.

3 24 Are you tracking any website referrals to your partners (lodging/restaurants/etc.)? 25 How large is your marketing team? What does the approval process for designs/etc. look like? 26 How many people from the community submit events? Are events a main driver on your site? 27 What is the content strategy of the site? How often is content updated? Currently, no. Our goal is that the new website will have the information to provide such insights to partners. Currently two in-house team members that have access to the website. Once contract is signed, there will be three. The awarded vendor will work one-onone with our team. We would like for the new website to have a submission for events that community members and businesses may submit. Our approval should happen before they go live. This is to take the burden off of our office for the many events that are listed throughout the year. We would like to be the official calendar of local events. Currently, there is none because the website is 14 years old and is set up as a directory. The goal is for a future site to be editorial and content driven. It is important that our team can create landing pages for content on a regular basis. 28 Should we include a standard maintenance budget for post-launch work? 29 Do you have budget for ongoing SEO or SEM? Should we include this in our proposal? 30 Is it a single or multiple award? Our goal is for this to be a single award. 31 Can you please provide more details regarding the landing page requirement mentioned above? 32 Can you please provide the list of subdomains so we can have a look at it before estimating? 33 Is there any dealer system involved where partners can have their own website (subdomain) and content? Can you please provide more information regarding this item? 34 Does that mean particular partner will have a login account with the website, using which he/she could list/manage event, package, coupon, or ad? OR is it like, admin add contents (event, package, coupon, or ad) for a particular partner? 35 Will you need a member or client management system integrated or created within the CMS? Currently no. Yes, please include. This is important to the digital strategy. Allegany County Tourism is looking for the capability of building out website content pages otherwise referred to landing pages, to specifically add content throughout the year. Ex. Capability to create a New Year s Eve Parties webpage. Looking for ability to create / URL and the content, pushing live without a providers involvement. Unfortunately, given the 14 year old website, this is not possible. We will be able to provide all the business listings in an Excel document. No. Our goal is that the new website will have the information to provide such insights to partners. Right now, the website needs business listings to be able to edit their listing and / or add special events to the calendar. Yes, ideally.

4 36 Will organizations need user access to the site to update content? 37 Do you have a user database? 38 What is the current workflow for content creation? 39 Will you be needing new content/copy written for the new site? Do you have content writer on site? Will you need continuous content written after the launch? 40 Ability to house our Visitor Guide which will be digitalized into a flipbook. Can you please provide more information? 41 In the website there is an option for adding itineraries. Is it just for showing basic info and map? 42 As per the RFP provider Must provide at least three examples in the Tourism and Hospitality industry. Is this a minimum/compulsory submission requirement? If we do not have specific examples in the Tourism and Hospitality industry but in other industries; are we eligible to submit response? Businesses will need to have access to update their listing and add special events Right now the website does not support editorial content, unless we work with our current partner to develop a standalone page. The website is 14 years old, so the system is limited. We would appreciate from an SEO standpoint, if the vendor would provide feedback. We will have content writing onsite. No. The Destination Guide will be digitalized by the publisher and a Link will be provided to us to hyperlink to. Our current website allows you to create an itinerary by selecting the destination in the business listing. It is essentially building a list of places you must-see in the county. Adding an itinerary component to our new website will be a recommendations from the selected vendor and we look to them for ideas on creative and how the system operates. The RFP specifies that a submission requirement must be three examples of working websites in the Tourism and Hospitality Industry. If you feel your work falls within that category that is your discretion. 43 Will there be any media hosting? i.e. Video? Yes, possibly to both, down the road. 44 Do you have a data schema to provide an No. overview of your current data store? 45 How many/ what type of documents are within Very little documents are loaded onto our site. the site? 46 Are there times when traffic peaks such as Our season runs Mid-April through Mid-November. seasonal traffic or special events? 47 Is there any backend system to create a coupon No. and package in current site? 48 Is there any login system in website? 49 Do you have any preferred CMS like Drupal or WordPress? We would like to have each agency present what they have/suggest. It is required that we own all content and that the website can run without the CMS if needed. 50 What is your current hosting environment like? Rackspace.

5 51 Is it hosted in CloudFare? 52 How do you intend to use the new site as a data collection device? 53 Please provide more information in regards to your expectations for statistical system reports. Would leveraging Google Analytics for this be acceptable? 54 Should turning the Visitor Guide into an interactive guide be included in our pricing? 55 In the Review Process, Aesthetics is listed as 20% of the evaluation criteria. What this is in regards to? 56 Connectivity to Google Analytics for reporting. Which all features are expected with this feature? 57 Whether companies from Outside USA can apply for this? Data collection needs would be in the form of submissions, Destination Guide requests, and contact us form. No. The publisher will be creating a digital format and link for hyperlinking. The look and feel of your previous / presented work. The provider just needs to set up our website so it can be connected to Google Analytics reporting. We will be giving preference to American-based companies. 58 Will we need to come over there for meetings? Recommendations for travel needed is expected from the selected vendor. 59 The costs for this website should be broken down into the following categories: redesign/development, hosting, security and maintenance/tracking. What is tracking? 60 "There are currently no memberships or paid listings to be listed on our website" Is the intention of the Allegany County Tourism to readdress that in the next 3mo's or in 2018? 61 "Because so much information is reliant on the businesses themselves (listing updates and events) a backend login for business is necessary to centralize the data input". Would you want this feature also to include some kind of an initial "registration and review process" for the businesses so that Allegany County Tourism can vet them prior to them uploading any of their information? 62 Do you currently have in-house Web developers or outsource that function? 63 Do you intend to utilize a Web services company to provide those services after new website is in production? Tracking would refer to any monthly monitor reports regarding the tracking of our website performance. Not in Yes, if that is suggested, we would be interested in learning more. Outsource.

6 64 Is Allegany Tourism under a contract with Web developer and when does it end? 65 Please clarify what you are requesting since this requirement includes WebSite redesign, CMS rebuild, and hosting? 66 Is this request the same as three Past Performance references? To include: Contact info, Project Name and Description, Deliverables, Period of Performance? 67 Three professional references Is this request the same as three Past Performance references? To include: Contact info, Project Name and Description, Deliverables, Period of Performance 68 Are you just looking for the Project Timeline and estimated amount of time for each area of need? 69 Resume Please clarify what you are requesting since this requirement includes WebSite redesign, CMS rebuild, and hosting? 70 Do you have any brand guidelines? Would you be willing to have the elected vendor create a set of brand guidelines? 71 For your newsletter and signup, do you need an marketing integration with a third party such as MailChimp or ConstantContact? 72 Is there a need for backwards compatibility for internet browsers such as Internet Explorer 9? Yes, we currently work with a web developer. We would like to see your company s resume. Case Studies, client list, etc are encouraged. We would like three professional references. This would most likely come in the form of client contacts who can speak on behalf of your work. We would like three professional references. This would most likely come in the form of client contacts who can speak on behalf of your work. We would like to see your company s resume. Case Studies, client list, etc are encouraged. No. We are going through a Brand Audit in Allegany County, Maryland. You may create digital guidelines. No. We have one with Mail Chimp.