Guthrie Center, Iowa

Guthrie County officials are pleased to announce the launch of a new, smarter website that users will find easier to navigate than the previous county website. The old site was outdated and couldn’t automatically format content to match an end-user’s device. This diminished the overall user experience and impacted the county’s Google search engine placement.

According to Curt Thornberry, Technology Development Director with Guthrie Center Communications, as the new website was developed county officials had several goals in mind, including a site that was mobile responsive, managed better user accessibility and allow for county departments to maintain their own webpage content.

“We wanted it to be responsive to mobile device access,” Thornberry noted. “Although a majority of users still access the site from a PC, each month website traffic from mobile devices has increased. The original site was built nearly 14 years ago,” he added.

The new website was launched on July 1st. The enhanced design allows users a variety of ways to access relevant information. Users can drill down to department information or use the “How Do I …” menu to jump to the content that is most relevant to them. Users can also search for content on the site.

The county will be providing training to department staff on July 10. Staff will be able to attend one of two training sessions that day where they will learn the “ins and outs” of navigating the site. They will also learn how they can access the backend of the site and update their information.