When American Campus Communities decided it was time to refurbish their 118 individual property websites, they knew FG SQUARED could help.

This project came to us in two related but distinct sections: redesigning the actual site experience and appearance, and creating a Content Management System (CMS) that would allow the individual property managers and staff to easily make updates. As it was, the old system did not include much Search Engine Optimization (SEO) information, and the individual property managers had little control over the content on their sites. So along with rebranding and redesigning the appearance of the sites, part of the challenge was designing a CMS that would enable authorized users to easily access and alter individual sites.

We researched the target market — students, perspective students, and their parents — for six weeks, holding focus groups and asking people to fill out surveys to find out what they needed and expected out of a property website experience. We also conducted surveys with the internal ACC stakeholders to find out what they really wanted from the redesign and CMS overhaul. We gathered and carefully analyzed all the feedback from the ACC team, included the lessons we learned from the surveys and focus groups, and created working wireframes and exciting design comps ready to go into production.

The new sites are now up and running. After a few training sessions designed to bring the ACC content teams up to speed on how to update the sites, things are going great. Not only do the new sites have a fresh and appealing look and great usability, but we replaced the old CMS with a system that is easier for the individual property managers to, well, manage their websites! Now changing site content is as easy as signing into the CMS and saving any changes, making these sites far more adaptable than the old ones. Additionally, we incorporated SEO best practices and metadata into each property site, making them more likely to appear on browser searches.

We continue to make changes and upgrades to the sites as needed, improving the CMS and the property sites themselves in order to reach as much of the target market as possible and help ACC maintain their reputation as “the nation's premier manager of luxurious, academically oriented student communities.”