Local discovery + Member systems
Abilene What’s New
An around-town guide with a little more heart.
A good local directory should feel like someone knows the place. I rebuilt Abilene What’s New around everyday discovery, real business stories and the practical tools needed to keep a community guide useful.
The challenge
Build a better guide. Keep the local character.
The existing site had something worth keeping: businesses telling their own stories and a community that cared about what was happening nearby.
The rebuild needed to make a much larger directory easy to explore without turning it into a generic wall of listings. It also needed a manageable way for owners to submit information, maintain a richer profile and share updates.
This is a studio-owned project, which let me work across the entire product: the public experience, the publishing workflow and the membership system. Original business-submitted stories were carried forward and edited for clarity, rather than replaced with interchangeable marketing copy.
Design direction
More around-town guide. Less database.
Warm paper tones, deep green, brick-red accents and familiar downtown photography give the site a sense of place. The language is direct and neighborly: a lunch spot, someone who can fix it, a reason to get out this weekend.
Search is the main invitation, not an afterthought. Business stories, local field notes and upcoming events add reasons to explore beyond a single lookup. Clear links connect the website with its existing Facebook page and community group.
Discovery that makes sense
Search the way people actually ask.
People look for “lunch,” “desserts” or “website design”—not necessarily the category a business was filed under.
I added everyday-language matching alongside business names, service tags, categories and Abilene ZIP codes. Related terms help visitors find relevant options without needing to guess the directory’s exact vocabulary.
Matching Spotlight businesses appear first, alphabetically, followed by matching general listings in their own alphabetical group. That ordering is explained on the results page. It is an internal directory feature, not a promise of higher Google rankings.
Meal searches also remind visitors to confirm menus and hours directly. Finding a relevant business should not imply that it is open right now.
Launch snapshot · September 2026
A working platform, not just a new look.
Published businesses and community places, with routes to request corrections.
Free Abilene listings and richer Local Spotlight profiles.
Member changes, news and events enter an approval workflow.
Listing totals describe published content, not independently verified active businesses or a measured increase in customer traffic.
Behind the counter
Give owners useful tools. Keep editorial control.
Spotlight profiles have room for a story, imagery, service details and direct contact links. A private business desk lets approved owners propose profile changes, publishable updates and events for their own pages.
Submissions go through review before becoming public. Claim requests have a verification step, while correction forms make it possible to improve basic listings without giving the public editing access.
Stripe-hosted checkout and subscription management support the paid membership path. Existing founding profiles retain their complimentary status. Payment handling is kept separate from editorial approval, so paying does not bypass the publishing review.
The custom theme and directory plugin separate presentation from business data and member workflows. That makes the site easier to develop without tying every listing to a page-builder layout.
The details that matter
Useful, readable and built to evolve.
- Accessibility: labeled search controls, semantic headings, visible keyboard focus and layouts that work on a narrow screen.
- Performance: optimized WebP imagery and a lightweight custom interface, without a heavy visual builder driving every listing.
- Search foundations: descriptive pages, structured business information, location details and internal links that help people and search systems understand the guide.
- Trust: clear listing tiers, visible correction paths, ownership checks and approval before member content reaches the public.
The result is a live local-discovery platform with the operating tools behind it. The next measure of success is how well it serves residents and business owners over time—not a launch-day claim about leads, revenue or rankings.
A website with work to do
Let’s make the complicated part feel simple.
A directory, a member area, a better customer journey—or one focused improvement. The right scope starts with the job your website needs to do.