Building an Innovation-Driven Website for a Leading Economic Development Organization

A Homepage That Tells the Story

From the outset, the central challenge of this project was translating an abstract concept, innovation, into something a user can actually feel. Wake County is home to Research Triangle Park, multiple universities, a rapidly growing population, and an increasing concentration of technology and life sciences companies, so the site needed to project that same energy. We wanted visitors to land on the page and immediately sense that this is a forward-thinking region where things are happening.

That vision guided every design and development decision. The homepage opens with an ambient video hero and as users scroll, content builds dynamically. Elements slide into view, statistics count up to their final values, and the WCED logo itself animates in both the header and footer, reinforcing the brand's identity through motion. These interactive flourishes are layered throughout the entire site, ensuring that the experience feels engaging and alive without ever becoming distracting.

Bringing Data to Life

Economic development websites are inherently data-heavy. Workforce statistics, population demographics, industry employment numbers, cost-of-living comparisons. The challenge isn't having enough data; it's presenting all of it in a way that actually holds a visitor's attention and makes an impression.

Our approach was to make the data itself feel interactive and dynamic. On the site's data and demographics pages, key numbers are displayed as large, prominent callouts that animate into view, counting up from zero to their final value as the user scrolls to that section of the page. Charts and graphs build progressively rather than appearing static, giving the content a sense of energy and helping important figures stand out. Rather than a wall of tables and bullet points, the experience feels like a story being told in real time.

Critically, all of this data is fully controlled through WordPress. The WCED team can update statistics, swap in new charts, and adjust figures as new data becomes available without needing to touch any code. This gives the organization the ability to keep their site current in a region where the numbers are constantly improving, while maintaining the polished interactive presentation on the front end.

Industry Hubs and Vertical Content Strategy

Wake County's economy is driven by several high-growth industry sectors, and each has its own dedicated landing page on the site. These pages function as content hubs, combining narrative overviews with prominently displayed statistics, downloadable reports, investor logos, and direct contact information for the relevant WCED team member.

This vertical content approach serves two key purposes. First, it gives WCED a targeted asset for each industry that they can drive traffic to, whether through email campaigns, QR codes at a trade conference, or paid advertising. A site selector evaluating the region for an expansion can be sent directly to the relevant page and find everything they need in one place.

Second, the hub structure creates strong SEO signals. By organizing deep, relevant content around specific industry topics with supporting internal links, the site builds topical authority that helps these pages rank for competitive economic development search terms.

Mega Navigation for Effortless Wayfinding

The site's content architecture spans dozens of pages across business resources, industry sectors, quality-of-life topics, news, and organizational information. To make all of that accessible without overwhelming visitors, we designed a mega dropdown navigation that expands across the full page when activated.

The mega dropdown organizes the site's primary sections with their full subpage hierarchies visible at a glance, eliminating the need for users to dig through nested menus or guess where a particular page lives. For a site that serves audiences ranging from corporate executives to families considering relocation, this kind of instant, low-friction access is essential.

The navigation is complemented by breadcrumb trails on every interior page, clear section headers, and contextual links throughout the content that guide users to related pages and resources. Combined with the mega dropdown, these navigational elemen

Built to Grow on WordPress

With a site of this scope and a client that regularly publishes new rankings, reports, blog posts, and data updates, the CMS setup was a critical component of the project. Built on WordPress with a block-focused architecture, the site gives the WCED team full control over their content while maintaining design consistency across every page.

The block-based system allows admins to assemble and rearrange pre-designed content elements, from statistics callouts and image-and-text sections to downloadable report modules and investor logo bars, without breaking the established visual style. New accolades can be added to the homepage carousel. Industry pages can be updated with fresh data. Blog posts and news items flow into the appropriate feeds automatically. And when a new resource or municipal profile is published, it slots into the site's existing structure seamlessly.

This flexibility is especially important for an organization like WCED that operates on an ongoing content cadence. The site isn't a static brochure. It's a living platform that the team updates regularly to keep pace with Wake County's growth.

Related Economic Development Website Designs

NMC has developed deep expertise in economic development website design over the years. You can see related work in our case studies for the Chapel Hill Economic Development website and the Downtown Cary Park and economic development project website, or explore our full economic development web design portfolio.