Think that substantive, credible content goes unnoticed? Just check out this article opener: “Should anyone question Stanford’s commitment to sustainability, point them to the ‘Sustainable Stanford’ website. Then watch their jaw drop.”

The article, the cover feature in the current issue of Sustainability: The Journal of Record, goes on to repeat Stanford’s sustainability messages—verbatim in some cases—and quotes liberally from key facts and figures on the site.

Strong website content serves two purposes: it gives the sustainability program a high degree of control over information, and it provides a deep resource for writers. And strong information architecture makes that content easy to find: the Stanford site presents information in ways external audiences expect rather than according to internal categories.

Needless to say, we’re extremely proud of our client for getting such great PR, and happier still that the website we developed for them last year is serving them so well. Kudos, too, to the creative team at 1185 Design, which partnered with us for design and development.

The site Thinkshift just launched for the California Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition is a great example of making the most of your resources to create a site that serves current needs, allows room to grow, and requires minimal maintenance.

The Coalition had a limited budget, but urgently needed an updated site with new everything—content, design, and architecture. The new site has a strong focus, delivers substantial information, and is easy to maintain. The keys to making this project work:

Focus on key needs. A tight budget means a tight (small, targeted, concise) site—you can’t address everything. The Coalition is a member-based advocacy organization, so we focused on supporting advocacy priorities, promoting membership, and serving members. Period.

Use what you have. We were able to adapt copy written for a previous legislator information packet to create the “Why NGVs?” section. Without this running start, the organization would not have been able to provide such robust information.

Keep the design simple. Most of us love a bit of flash (or Flash), but when you’re on a budget, you need to keep your design specifications clean and focus on the user experience (rather than impressing people with flourishes). Even on a budget, you can get a good-looking, audience-appropriate, user-centered site as long as you are disciplined about limiting your options. Focusing on what’s going to make the site easiest and most engaging for users spurs creative, economical solutions.

Build for the future. The site architecture is extremely simple, with only five top-level navigation categories that are broad enough to accommodate all anticipated additions over the next several years. The site can grow deeper with ease, without changing the basic structure. A front-page feature and secondary navigation let us bring deep information to the fore when appropriate, without disturbing the simplicity of the home page.

Account for maintenance upfront. We addressed maintenance in our site creative brief—there’s no point in building a site you don’t have the capacity to maintain, and even the simplest site needs a maintenance plan. Without one, updates are likely to be sporadic, and effectiveness will nosedive.