“Websites are not dead.” Visit McKinney’s purposeful and powerful digital transformation

Overview

Faced with the limitations of being a subpage on the city’s website, Visit McKinney sought to engage visitors and future-proof its online presence by adopting the CMS and digital services. The site evolved to be more diverse and dynamic — serving as an interactive hub for both visitors and the local community of residents and small businesses.

Situation | Subpage vs. standalone

Previously, Visit McKinney’s digital presence was relegated to a subpage on the city’s website — functional for municipal communication but lacking the visual appeal and flexibility needed for a destination marketing organization (DMO). The onset of COVID-19 created a unique opportunity: With fewer marketing dollars being spent on in-person visitation, the team redirected resources toward building a standalone site that could better serve residents, potential visitors, and stakeholders while accurately reflecting the destination’s unique look and feel.
 

Solution | Minimal budget, maximum impact

Visit McKinney began its digital transformation with a website package tailored to fit a small budget while still delivering a significant upgrade from its previous subpage. A key enhancement made during the redesign was the interactive homepage, expertly made to encourage visitors to increase time spent on the site by exploring the destination’s offerings.

The blog also underwent a major overhaul, evolving from a basic, cookie-cutter format into a robust content hub with subcategories, seasonal curation, and search engine optimization (SEO)-driven articles that answer frequently asked questions and support itinerary planning.

“I think the coolest thing about Simpleview is that when Visit McKinney took the initial step, we did one of the lower contract options as far as website packages and design because our budget was small — but you got us a really nice website that was far exceeded what we had before,” said Aaron Werner, executive director of Visit McKinney.
 

Results | Purposeful and powerful

The team at Visit McKinney worked diligently to undergo a purposeful and powerful digital transformation — and they were rewarded with the following goal-achieving results:

• The number of sessions increased 0.5%.
• Average engagement time increased nearly 7%.
• Organic partner referral listings increased 2.5%.
• Site visibility is more than 5.5 million impressions, which is a 13.3% increase.
• Average site ranking is up 2.2%.
• Direct traffic in the past quarter alone has increased 21.1%.
• The events page has increased views by 8.2% and has seen an increase of 5.5% in active users. The time on the page is about 1 minute and 10 seconds, which is a 40% increase from previous years.
   

Other notable results included:

• Stable organic traffic: SEO experts optimized content and maintained visibility. While many DMOs saw declines, Visit McKinney’s organic search traffic remained flat — an achievement in today’s artificial intelligence (AI)-driven search environment.
• Improved workflow: The “Events” page has become a standout feature, offering intuitive navigation and allowing external stakeholders to submit events — directly saving staff time and improving community engagement.
• Seamless partnerships: On the customer relationship management (CRM) side, integrations with partners like Visit Widget and Playeasy were seamless, further enhancing the site’s functionality without adding complexity.

Another meaningful improvement focused on community credibility; the site became the authoritative source for what’s happening in McKinney, strengthening relationships with residents and engaging stakeholders along the way. “It gives us more credibility with stakeholders like local businesses because then we are kind of proving our worth to them,” said Emily Myrick, digital communications coordinator at Visit McKinney.

The team also spoke highly about its ability to continue to evolve the site annually, adding new widgets and design elements to keep it fresh, engaging, and future-proof. “We literally change something on [the website] every year just to make it a little bit better, a little bit more engaging,” said Werner. “Simpleview is really flexible in how it’s built out — it can quickly evolve with the addition of one widget that completely changes the way your site looks.”

When asked to give advice to other DMOs considering a website redesign or digital service-driven transformation, Myrick kept it short, sweet, and stirring: “Websites are not dead.” Although it might seem like a big task to take on, the results clearly outweigh the burdens.