Nearly 80,000 new and returning unique visitors each month access ndow.org, the Nevada Department of Wildlife's (NDOW) official website, seeking information on hunting, boating and fishing as well as educational materials about Nevada's wildlife. To make that experience easier and more effective, NDOW has launched a new content management based website to better serve the needs of users.

"The Nevada Department of Wildlife was an early adopter of web technology," said Teresa Moiola, Conservation Education Chief. "As such, our website had grown excessively large, become old and was difficult to navigate, all of which has been resolved in the redevelopment."

The new website has significantly increased functionality for the user. Visitors can buy a hunting or fishing license, register a boat and purchase the new required aquatic invasive species boat decal, apply for big game tags, sign up for hunter or angler education courses, inquire about volunteer opportunities and much more.

"One of our main goals was to provide our customers with better access to the department through technology," said Moiola. "This is another great example of government being accessible and responsive while minimizing staff time and costs."

The Reno-based firm, KPS3 was responsible for the redesign and redevelopment of the website, which was approximately 3,000-pages prior to KPS3's work, in order to strategically reorganize the site to improve the user experience and make it easier for the public to find the information they are searching for. "We''re excited to share the new NDOW website with the public," said Mike McDowell, director of web and digital at KPS3 Marketing. "Not only does the website look great, but we believe the ease of finding information will encourage more exploration of the State of Nevada and its wildlife."

KPS3 also developed a relational database to tie relevant site content together, encouraging website visitors to explore additional information that is relevant to whatever content they're looking at. For example, bodies of water within Nevada are tied to information regarding the types of fish that inhabit the water and can be fished; upon selecting a type of fish, the visitor will be provided with detail about that fish and a listing of where else within Nevada that type of fish can be found.

"KPS3 did excellent work setting up the infrastructure and relational database for the new website," said Moiola. "We look forward to using that platform to continue to update and add content to make the Nevada Department of Wildlife website a one-stop source for all things wildlife related."