The Village of South Jacksonville is looking to make their website more user friendly and updated.
The village’s website was last updated during the brief tenure of Tyson Manker’s administration. During that time, Manker switched the village over from a .com to a .gov and added features to directly contact the email to the board of trustees. The idea was to streamline communication from residents to the village’s administration. The previous .com website also had many pieces that were hard to find and in some cases unable to be found at all.
Since the switch over, the upkeep on the website has not been maintained. According to one village resident last month, they could not find the proper channels of communication on certain issues nor could they locate agendas and minutes from the most recent village meetings.
Village trustees brought up concerns Thursday night about security of the site, saying they were unsure who may still have access to the site’s functions.
On Thursday night, the board took a phone call from Reggie Jordan. Jordan is a Search Engine Optimization Strategist for Trader Interactive based out of Orlando, Florida. Jordan grew up in South Jacksonville and is the son of current trustee Tom Jordan.
Reggie Jordan told the board that he’s willing to provide a consultation and optimize the website for better use and better visibility for people searching for the Village of South Jacksonville on the Internet.
Village President Dick Samples says Thursday night was simply a listening session to hear what Jordan could offer: “We have not hired him. We have not done anything yet. He’s going to, as far as I know, or I’m going to ask him to put together something to show us what our weaknesses are on our current website and what we need to do to correct it, and if he can or can’t fix it, and what he would charge to correct things. Then, we have somewhere to go because right now, we are just floundering. The website is not user friendly and we are trying to make it that way and keep it simple.”
Jordan said he’d be willing to provide his services in a way that wouldn’t break the village’s budget. He says he visits South Jacksonville often and would be willing to sit down with trustees and other village officials to help with the website as much as possible. Samples said he hopes to have a request sent out to Jordan within the next few weeks to see the costs and how the village should move forward.