When a resident needs to report a pothole, pay a water bill, or find election information, they shouldn’t need a scavenger hunt. Yet too often, that’s what municipal websites deliver: confusing menus, outdated templates, and walls of bureaucratic jargon.
This isn’t just a bad user experience — it’s a breach of public trust. Today, 95% of U.S. adults use the internet, and 80% subscribe to high-speed broadband. When your government’s digital entry points fail, a vast majority of constituents are blocked from seamless civic engagement.
Residents expect the same intuitive online service from their local government that they receive from retail, banking, or health apps. But they aren’t getting it.
According to a Deloitte survey, satisfaction with online government services lags the private sector by roughly 20 percentage points (56% vs. 77%). When your website fails, constituents don’t just abandon it — they lose confidence in the systems designed to help them.
For years, many municipalities have defaulted to CivicPlus, a familiar option for anyone working in the municipal space. But government websites by CivicPlus often rely on rigid templates and department-focused navigation, creating barriers instead of removing them. What should be a community’s digital front door ends up feeling like a bureaucratic hallway.
At AOR, we build custom, resident-first municipal websites designed around accessibility, trust, and local identity — helping governments serve people, not just policy.
Today, connectivity is almost a given, and the demand for seamless online government experiences is only growing. Websites for municipalities that can’t keep up aren’t meeting public expectations, thereby eroding trust.
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If you work for a municipality and have touched the website, you’ve likely heard of CivicPlus. CivicPlus is a dominant force in the municipal website space, comprising over 26% of all U.S. government websites. That scale has benefits — but also structural constraints:
So if you’re looking for municipal or local government websites that check the “compliance” box but don’t serve residents, this is the path for you.
The Municipality Website “Sea of Sameness”
Templates and department charts won’t cut it. A resident-first site demands strategy, plain-language content, community identity, and a CMS that makes updates effortless. And that’s exactly how AOR builds municipal websites.
Strategy First
Every site begins with discovery and planning — understanding resident needs, mapping user journeys, and aligning the website with broader community goals before design ever starts.
Navigation That Works for People
Government websites are often developed to mirror the structure of the organization rather than in the most intuitive way for residents. Our menus and pathways are built from real user research, not departmental charts. That means fewer clicks, clearer categories, and faster access to the information residents actually want.
Content People Can Actually Use
We write and structure content in plain language, optimized for readability and accessibility. No jargon, no buried PDFs, no confusion. Just answers. Because government should work as hard for residents online as it does on the ground.
Distinctive, Community-Focused Design
Each community deserves a site that reflects its character — not a recycled template. We design with personality, authenticity, and pride in place, creating the best municipal websites that feel as unique as the communities they serve.
Content Management System (CMS) That Empowers Staff
Staff should feel confident updating and maintaining the site. Our WordPress platform is easy to use with flexible tools that eliminate the need for constant IT intervention. The user-friendly modules empower people in all departments to make their own content updates, keeping information for residents up-to-date without delay or frustration.
Partnership and Ongoing Support
We don’t disappear after launch. We work alongside teams, train staff, and provide ongoing collaboration so the site evolves with your community’s needs. We’re also ready to add more functionality and integrations to the site as needs arise.
Here’s a look at two recent municipal website development and design projects we’ve taken on that have greatly helped both the team behind the site and its users.
When we started working with Adams County, their website indexed over 2000 pages. Far too many for the website to be navigable or helpful. It also lacked accessibility compliance and consistency while relying on an outdated design. We redeveloped and redesigned the county website, adding search functionality, department-specific pages for easier navigation, translation into 10 different languages, as well as several other structural changes to help make information easier to find. Learn about the full website project here.
Metrics from the new Adams County Website:
Colorado Counties Inc. (CCI) is the unified voice for all 64 Colorado counties. They came to us with a legacy website that often put users in a ‘find a needle in the haystack’ situation when attempting to perform basic tasks. The new site is a strong example of everything that makes up the best kind of county website — everything is easily findable, downloadable, and shareable, making it a fantastic resource for county leaders, corporate partners, and CCI employees alike. See the full case study here.
Metrics from the new CCI Website:
Use this as your internal litmus test:
If you can’t confidently answer “yes” to most of these, your site is working for the vendor — not your community. But don’t worry! We can help!
Big changes come with big questions. We’ve heard them all — about cost, complexity, timing, and everything in between. Here’s how we help municipalities move forward with confidence.
“Is a custom municipal website more expensive than CivicPlus?”
Not always and especially not over time. Our approach emphasizes modular design with reusable components. More importantly, the ROI comes via fewer calls, better self-service, and lower staff burden over time.
“Will my municipal team have the resources to maintain a custom website?”
We build for ease of maintenance: intuitive CMS, training, and documentation so your team can be self-sufficient. Once we get to know you, we tailor the entire project to fit your needs, capabilities, and comfort level.
“How can you ensure our municipal website is future-proof?”
We design for flexibility — translation, emergency alerts, CRM integrations, payments — all modular and pluggable. Combining the flexible design with the trainings and user-friendly back-end allows for continuous updates and optimizations.
CivicPlus isn’t necessarily a bad product. But its structure is optimized for scale, not for deep resident service or brand distinction. Municipalities deserve more than a “one-size-fits-many” template.
Your website is civic infrastructure. It should be trusted, inclusive, and purpose-built. It must reduce friction, not create it.
Start with a website audit from AOR — no obligation, just insight.