20 Minute Rubric to Score Economic Development Websites for Rural EDOs

The best economic development websites make investment decisions easy: they surface investor-ready data, show available sites with maps, name real contacts, and convert interest into RFI-ready leads. The weakest ones bury this information behind stock photos and vague mission statements. If your site cannot answer "what land is available, what does it cost, and who do I call" in under two clicks, start with a quick self-audit using the rubric below, or bring in a team to fix it for you.

TL;DR:

• The most effective economic development websites feature current, easily accessible property maps and incentive data within one click of the homepage.
• Clear, named contacts with direct phone numbers and emails on every investor-facing page significantly boost lead conversion rates.
• Including specific testimonials and case studies that detail actual deal advantages helps build credibility and attract new investment.
• Regularly updating workforce data and automating lead follow-up through a CRM improve engagement and streamline the investor inquiry process.
• Prioritizing contactability and data accessibility is more crucial than visual design polish when aiming to generate meaningful RFIs.

Table of Contents

• Annotated examples of top EDO websites and what to steal
• A scoring rubric to grade your own EDO website
• The essential page and integration checklist for EDO sites
• A staged roadmap for fixing your website by budget
• Southwind Marketing's view from working with rural communities
• Where most EDO website advice gets it wrong
• How Southwind Marketing supports EDOs building better websites
• Where to go for authoritative data and tools
• Sources
• FAQ

Annotated examples of top EDO websites and what to steal

Site selectors and CFOs move fast, and they skip organizations whose websites make them dig. The strongest EDO websites share a handful of traits, and looking at how different organizations solve the same problems gives you a shortcut to building your own.

A common standout module is the "Why locate here" block placed high on the homepage, not buried three clicks deep. It answers the investor's first question before they have to ask it: labor pool, tax structure, logistics access, in three or four scannable lines. Sites that do this well treat it as a pitch, not a mission statement.

Property maps are the second recurring winner. The organizations that convert well embed an interactive map on the homepage or one click away, letting a user filter by acreage, zoning, or utility access without leaving the page. Sites that hide their inventory behind a PDF download or a "contact us for availability" line lose site selectors who are comparing five communities in one afternoon.

Workforce dashboards show up on the sites doing the best job of backing up their pitch with numbers: labor shed maps, wage data by occupation, and commuting patterns pulled from public datasets. The gap on most sites is not the absence of workforce data. It is that the data lives in a downloadable PDF from 2021 instead of a page that updates automatically.

Named staff contacts are the simplest fix and the most commonly missed one. The sites that perform best put a real name, title, direct phone number, and headshot on every investor-facing page, not just a general "contact us" form buried in the footer. A generic inbox reads as a dead end to someone deciding where to file a Request for Information.

Testimonials and case studies work when they are specific: a manufacturer naming the permitting timeline that beat their expectations, a retailer describing the incentive package that closed the deal. Vague praise ("great place to do business") reads as filler and gets skipped.

Transferable modules worth copying, regardless of your budget:

• Property map with filters: acreage, zoning, utility capacity, and price, browsable without a login.
• "Why locate here" summary block: three to four lines of labor, logistics, and cost advantages above the fold.
• Workforce snapshot: current labor shed data tied to a visual, not a static PDF.
• Named contact cards: photo, title, direct line, and email on every investor page.
• Permitting and regulatory contact: a named point of contact for zoning and permitting questions, since SelectUSA identifies regulatory navigation as one of the largest barriers investors face when evaluating a community.

The conversion gap shows up even on well-designed sites: strong visuals and data, but no downloadable RFI packet and no clear next step after "browse properties." Traffic without a capture mechanism is a wasted visit.

A scoring rubric to grade your own EDO website

You can score your own site in about twenty minutes using six criteria, each rated 1 to 5, for a total out of 30.

1. Value proposition clarity: can a visitor state your community's pitch in one sentence after ten seconds on the homepage?
2. Investor data and tools: does the site have a property map, workforce data, and incentive information that is current and easy to find?
3. Contactability: is a named person, with direct contact details, visible on every page an investor would land on?
4. Storytelling and visuals: does photography, video, or testimonial content feel specific to your community rather than generic stock imagery?
5. Conversion and lead capture: are there downloadable RFI-ready materials and a clear call to action beyond "learn more"?
6. Technical fundamentals: does the site load quickly, work on mobile, and meet basic accessibility standards?

Score each from 1 (missing or broken) to 5 (best-in-class). A total above 24 puts you in strong shape. Below 15 means investors are likely bouncing before they find what they need. In our review of examples, criteria 2 and 5, investor data and conversion, are what separate the good sites from the best ones. Plenty of sites look polished but fail to give a site selector anything to act on.

The essential page and integration checklist for EDO sites

Every EDO website needs a core set of pages and data integrations, regardless of size or budget. Missing any of these creates friction for the investor doing the comparing.

Content pages every site needs:

• "Why locate here" page with labor, logistics, tax, and quality-of-life summary.
• Target industries page naming the sectors your community actively recruits.
• Available properties page with a map, not just an address list.
• Incentives page summarizing programs in plain language, with a contact for details.
• Workforce data page pulling current labor shed and wage information.
• Permitting and regulatory contacts page naming who handles zoning, utilities, and inspections.

Data integrations worth prioritizing: a property database like LOIS (also called LocationOne) is the standard tool for publishing and syndicating site listings, and some state commerce departments now offer umbrella LOIS subscriptions that make it feasible for smaller EDOs to maintain a current listing without building their own database. The Kansas Certified Sites Program requires an up-to-date LOIS listing with aerial photos and utility capacity details for any site seeking certification, which is a useful model even outside Kansas.

Conversion basics: named contacts on every investor page, a downloadable RFI-ready fact sheet, and a visible call to action that does not require a phone call to get started.

Pro Tip: Put your property map and incentives summary within one click of the homepage. Site selectors comparing multiple communities rarely dig past two clicks.

A staged roadmap for fixing your website by budget

Fixing an EDO website does not require a full rebuild on day one. Work through it in stages.

1. Quick wins (days, minimal budget): rewrite the homepage elevator pitch to name your top three advantages, add named contacts with direct phone numbers to every investor page, and create one or two downloadable RFI-ready fact sheets.
2. Mid-tier investments (weeks, modest budget): embed an interactive property map, add plain-language incentive summaries with a named contact, publish a workforce snapshot, and set up basic analytics so you know which pages actually get visited.
3. Long-term investments (months, larger budget): build custom dashboards tied to live data sources, automate lead follow-up through a CRM so no RFI submission sits unanswered, and commit to an ongoing content program that keeps property and workforce data current.

Track a small set of KPIs as you go: number of inquiries, RFI submissions, conversion rate on your property pages, and time-on-page for your top investor-facing content. If those numbers do not move after a quick-win pass, the mid-tier fixes are next.

Southwind Marketing's view from working with rural communities

Damien Denmark writes on economic development marketing and web strategy for Southwind Marketing, which builds websites and marketing systems for economic development organizations, chambers, and local governments, many in small and rural markets where budgets and staff time are limited.

A website that cannot name a human contact on the page where an investor is deciding whether to call is not a website. It is a brochure with a URL.

Southwind Marketing builds sites through its website design service and supports lead follow-up through Southwind Connect℠, paired with ongoing content and SEO work through Southwind Signal℠ and hosting support through Southwind Guardian℠.

Where most EDO website advice gets it wrong

Most advice on this topic obsesses over design polish: better photography, a cleaner homepage, a modern color palette. Those things matter, but they are not what separates a site that generates RFIs from one that generates page views. The data from this review points somewhere else: contactability and conversion mechanics are the recurring gap, even on sites that look great.

The conventional wisdom also tends to treat the property map and incentives page as a nice-to-have add-on for later. That is backward. SelectUSA's own guidance points to accessible incentive and workforce data as a baseline expectation, not a stretch goal, and regulatory navigation as one of the biggest barriers investors report.

If you take one thing from this article, prioritize contactability and data access before you touch the visual design. A plain site with a real name, a current property map, and a downloadable fact sheet will out-convert a beautiful one that makes the investor guess who to call.

— Damien Denmark

How Southwind Marketing supports EDOs building better websites

Southwind Marketing works with economic development organizations, chambers, and local governments across Rural America, and website work rarely stops at design. Our website design service builds the property maps, contact cards, and content structure covered above, matched to what your team can realistically maintain.

For organizations that need the lead-capture side handled too, Southwind Connect℠ plans start at $97 per month for the Starter plan plus a setup fee, and cover the CRM and follow-up automation that turns an RFI submission into a tracked conversation instead of a lost email. We built our approach around the budgets and staffing realities of small and rural organizations, not the assumption that you have a full marketing department. If your site scored low on the rubric above, request an audit and we will tell you exactly where the gaps are.

Where to go for authoritative data and tools

A few sources are worth bookmarking as you do this work: SelectUSA for federal guidance on what investors need from a community, the Value Proposition Toolkit for a survey-backed list of website best practices, and the Kansas Certified Sites guide as a model for property listing standards. For visual storytelling techniques that make your "why locate here" content land, this guide on visual storytelling is a useful starting point.

Sources

• Trade
• Kansas Certified Sites Program Application and Instructional Guide (2025)
• LOIS property marketing platform (North Dakota Department of Commerce)

FAQ

What are the best websites for economic information?

The strongest sources combine federal guidance with state and local tools: SelectUSA for national investment guidance, state commerce department sites for regional data, and individual EDO websites for community-level property and incentive details. No single site covers everything, so practitioners typically cross-reference two or three.

What is the best website for economic data?

For federal-level investment and regulatory guidance, SelectUSA is a primary reference point. For property-specific data, platforms built on LOIS or LocationOne are the standard for site listings maintained by state and local economic development organizations.

What business is booming right now?

This varies by region and changes with market conditions, so there is no single sector answer that holds nationally. Your local target industries page should reflect the sectors your community's workforce, infrastructure, and incentives are actually built to support, which your economic development organization can identify through labor shed and industry cluster data.

What are the top 10 best business websites?

There is no single, universally recognized top list for economic development or business websites, since rankings depend on the criteria used. A more useful approach is applying a consistent rubric, like the six criteria covered earlier, value proposition, investor data, contactability, storytelling, conversion, and technical fundamentals, to score sites against your own goals.

How much does it cost to fix or rebuild an EDO website?

Costs vary widely based on scope, from quick fixes like adding contact information to a full rebuild with custom dashboards. Southwind Marketing's website design pricing is available on request, while ongoing CRM and lead-follow-up support through Southwind Connect℠ starts at $97 per month for the Starter plan plus a setup fee.