Visit Baltimore Website - Bellweather

Project Team

Louis Lee

Chief Creative Officer

Emily Lessard

Chief Strategy Officer

Jessie Wick

Chief Operating Officer

James Gillispie

Development Director

Dan Howard

Developer

Kyle Cevallos

Marketing Research Associate

Kyle McCloskey

Account Director

Grace Han

Senior Designer

Qadir El-Amin

Designer

Giancarlo Hernandez

Designer

Louis Lee

Chief Creative Officer

Emily Lessard

Chief Strategy Officer

Jessie Wick

Chief Operating Officer

James Gillispie

Development Director

Dan Howard

Developer

Kyle Cevallos

Marketing Research Associate

Kyle McCloskey

Account Director

Grace Han

Senior Designer

Qadir El-Amin

Designer

Giancarlo Hernandez

Designer

The new website features 7,000+ videos and images, and 1,000+ reimagined pieces of content inspired by the art, people, and authentic experiences found within Baltimore. Baltimore.org is built with SEO in mind and uses structured data for events along with a snippet-focused content strategy.

CONTENT BUILT FOR DISCOVERY, ENGAGEMENT, AND SEO

We worked closely with the Visit Baltimore team to analyze what content was engaging and what could be sunsetted. The resulting content audit took the website down from a sprawling, unmanageable 8,000+ pages to a streamlined and strategic 1,000.

Our audit uncovered interest but a lack of engagement. We rebuilt the templates to prioritize imagery and scannable typography, creating new content types to better inspire a visit to Baltimore. Our content audit reorganized the entire site to be both user and SEO-friendly.

INTRODUCING GUIDES

We created a new content type, Guides, as a digital tool to aid in narrative-shifting or narrative-deepening. Guides go more in-depth than an Article and are designed to help make a visit easy to plan and execute. Some examples include: A Guide to Eating Crabs, A Guide to Kid-Friendly Baltimore, and A Guide to the Kinetic Sculpture Race.

MOBILE-FIRST + MOBILE-FAST

Bellweather is committed to designing and conceptualizing websites that are mobile-first. Mobile-first means going beyond making things smaller – it means designing for finger-sized interactions and ensuring content loads quickly.

Our relaunch also included rebuilding the site on a new CMS (WordPress) using our agency partner WordPress Engine for hosting. Thanks to this move, the Avg. Server Response Time has improved by 45%. Why does this matter? With Core Web Vitals now a part of SEO, speed helps engagement and search.

THE WEEKEND AS SUB-BRAND

We also found during our organic search analysis that searches for “Baltimore this weekend” and similar variations were substantial: 10k average monthly searches. Weekend searches also help connect with nearby visitors—you only search for “this weekend” when you’re close by—, so it was a great way to grow drive-market visitation.

Our This Weekend page turns up the volume in the color palette and automatically shows any events occurring that weekend. The client is saved from having to hand-pick events and the users are rewarded by exciting, easy-to-navigate content.

REENVISIONED BRAND

The website redesign and new strategy is a part of the new brand and campaign we launched with Visit Baltimore. Each element works together to shift perception and drive visitation to this incredible American city.

Sector

Destinations & Tourism

Discipline

API and CRM integration
Content Development & Strategy
SEO & Analytics
Website Audit & Strategy
Website Design & Development

Client

Visit Baltimore

View The Site

baltimore.org

Oooooops!

Thank you!

Related Case Studies

You are Subscribed

Try Again

You are already Subscribed

Oooooops!

Thank you!