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What do winning municipal websites do differently? Part 6 outlines how cities turn their websites into growth infrastructure, not obligations.
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Why Municipal Websites Underperform: Part 3
By this point in the series, one thing should be clear. Municipal websites don’t struggle because people don’t care. They struggle because the systems behind them were never built for growth. Which brings us to the quietest problem of all: the platform.
Specifically, the website builders “designed for non-profits” that so many Chambers, Economic Development orgs, and municipalities rely on. On paper, they make a lot of sense. In practice, they quietly cap what these sites can ever become.
To be fair, non-profit-focused website builders promise exactly what public-sector organizations are told they should value:
For organizations juggling limited resources, staff turnover, and political oversight, that sounds responsible. And for a while, it works. The site launches. Content goes up. Everyone checks the box. That’s where the problem starts.
These platforms are designed to help organizations exist online, not compete for attention, talent, or investment. They prioritize:
The result is a site that looks “fine” but feels interchangeable.
Different city name. Same experience. And when every city looks the same online, the market has no reason to care.
Here’s what these platforms never ask you:
Templates don’t challenge priorities. They flatten them. Everything gets equal weight because the CMS isn’t designed to support trade-offs. And without trade-offs, you don’t get strategy. You get clutter.
“Easy to edit” is the biggest selling point of these platforms. And it’s also the biggest limitation. They make it simple to:
They make it very difficult to:
So the site stays current, but never gets sharper. Updated doesn’t mean effective.
This is the part most organizations miss. Technology doesn’t just support behavior. It shapes it.
When your website platform is rigid, your thinking becomes rigid. Content decisions start with “what the CMS allows” instead of “what the audience needs.”
Over time, the organization stops asking:
And starts asking:
That’s not a people problem. It’s a systems problem.
Choosing a non-profit website builder often feels fiscally responsible. The hidden cost shows up later.
None of those costs show up neatly in a budget line item. They show up as lost opportunity. Quietly. Over time. And because the site technically works, there’s no urgency to change it.
Let’s say a city upgrades its CMS. Moves to something more flexible. More modern. More capable. Many still hit the same wall.
Why?
Because even a great website doesn’t matter if no one knows what happens after someone raises their hand. Which brings us to the next blind spot.
In Part 4, we’ll talk about where interest actually goes when someone fills out a form on a municipal website, and why the absence of a CRM turns promotion into a dead end.
Before moving on, ask yourself this:
Has your website platform ever limited a message you wanted to lead with, an audience you wanted to target, or a change you wanted to make quickly?
If the answer is yes, that’s not a workflow issue. It’s a strategic one.
Part 4 digs into what happens after your website generates interest, and why so many cities never see the full value of that attention.
Municipal websites generate interest, but without a CRM it disappears. Part 4 explains how inboxes quietly kill growth and momentum.
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