Sample Website RFP
Exactly what the builder gives you, from made-up answers for a fictional county tourism office: Key Takeaways, What to Do Next and the full RFP, with a Word download.
Sample County Tourism invites proposals from qualified firms to redesign and rebuild our website, visitsamplecounty.com. The site is the main way visitors find and plan trips to Sample County and its lake and river towns, and the main way we send them on to local businesses.
We are a small organization. The site will be updated after launch by two or three staff members who are not web developers, so we are looking for a partner who will build something our team can run on its own, not something that depends on the vendor for every change.
Sample County Tourism is a local government tourism office serving Sample County and its lake and river towns in New York.
Most visitors come from within a three-hour drive for weekend trips: lake days in summer, fall foliage and wineries in autumn. Our current site is eight years old, hard to update and does not work well on phones.
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Current website | visitsamplecounty.com |
| Current platform and tools | WordPress (current site), Mailchimp, Google Analytics 4 |
| Approximate size of current site | 25 to 75 pages |
| Who will update the site | Our staff |
| Staff who will update the site | Two or three people |
| Domain name | Held by our current web vendor. To be moved into our name |
| Project funding | Lodging or occupancy tax |
The new site should help us:
- Bring more visitors who stay overnight.
- Grow visits in the off-season and shoulder seasons.
- Send more visitors to local businesses.
- Make the site easy for a small team to keep current.
- Show up in search results and AI answers.
- Give us numbers we can report to our board and funders.
We will judge the project by how well the finished site serves these goals, so please explain in your proposal how your approach supports each one.
- Kickoff meeting and interviews with our staff and a small group of partners.
- Review of current site analytics and content, and a recommended site structure.
- A short written plan confirming scope, site map, features, timeline and who is responsible for what.
- Designs for the home page and key page templates, with at least two rounds of revisions.
- Mobile designs. Most of our visitors will use the site on a phone, so mobile is the priority, not an afterthought.
- Design that uses our existing brand (logo, colors and fonts) and our photography.
The site must include the features marked Required. Price the Optional features separately so we can decide which to include.
| Feature | What we need | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Business listings directory | A searchable directory of lodging, dining, attractions, shops and other businesses, with categories, filters, photos and a map. Staff can add, edit and remove listings without help from the vendor. | Required |
| Events calendar | An events calendar with categories, date filters and recurring events. Organizers can submit events for staff approval. | Required |
| Trip ideas and itineraries | Itinerary pages that link each stop to its listing and show the route on a map. | Required |
| Interactive map | A map of listings, trails and points of interest that works on phones and can be filtered by category. | Required |
| Visitor guide | A request form for the printed visitor guide and a digital version that reads well on a phone. | Required |
| Newsletter signup | Newsletter signup forms connected to our email marketing platform. | Required |
| Accessibility details for visitors | Fields on listings and pages for accessibility details such as step-free entry, accessible restrooms and sensory-friendly options. | Required |
| Seasonal alert banner for road closures and weather | Our own requirement. Describe how you would deliver it. | Required |
| Partners update their own listings | Businesses can submit changes to their own listing, which staff approve before they go live. | Optional. Price separately |
| Trail, byway or route pages | Pages for trails, byways or driving routes with maps, distances, access points and downloadable or printable maps. | Optional. Price separately |
| Photo and video galleries | Galleries that can show rights-cleared photos and video, including content from local creators and visitors. | Optional. Price separately |
| Partner and industry section | A section for businesses and partners with grant programs, marketing opportunities, reports and board materials, kept separate from visitor content. | Optional. Price separately |
Every page and feature must be editable by our staff through a content management system, without writing code.
The site must connect to: email marketing platform, Google Analytics 4 and Search Console, social media feeds and state tourism office listings or events feed.
- Migration: The vendor moves the content we select (we will provide a list during discovery) and checks it after the move.
- Writing: The vendor writes copy for the home page and main section pages; we provide the rest.
- Photography: We need some new photography. Include a price for a one-day shoot.
- Redirects: Every current page address must redirect to its new page so we keep existing search traffic and links.
The site must meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA. Before launch, the vendor tests with automated tools and by hand (keyboard-only use and a screen reader) and gives us a short report. Templates should make it easy for our staff to keep new content accessible, such as required alt text for images and proper headings.
- Search basics: clean page addresses, page titles and descriptions, an XML sitemap and fast load times on phones.
- Structured data (schema.org) for our organization, businesses, events and articles, so search engines and AI tools can read and cite our content accurately.
- Google Analytics 4 and Google Search Console set up in our own accounts, tracking key actions: visitor guide requests, newsletter signups, clicks to business websites and phone numbers.
- A simple monthly report or dashboard we can share with our board.
- Live training for our editors, recorded so new staff can watch it later, plus a short written guide.
- Testing on current versions of the major browsers and on iPhone and Android phones before launch.
- At least 30 days after launch in which the vendor fixes bugs at no extra cost.
Propose hosting options, with the trade-offs for a small team, and price each one.
- SSL certificate, daily backups kept for at least 30 days, and uptime monitoring.
- Security updates and software updates applied promptly, with a stated response time for urgent problems.
- A clear description of what is included in annual support and what is billed by the hour.
- Our domain is currently held by our web vendor. Help us move it into an account in our organization's name before launch.
Platform: We have no platform preference. Recommend one, and explain why it fits a team of two or three staff members, including what it will cost us each year.
- Present the final design at one county tourism board meeting.
These terms are requirements. Confirm in your proposal that you accept them, or list any exceptions.
- Our domain is registered in Sample County Tourism's name, and we control it.
- Sample County Tourism owns all content, designs, custom code and data created for the project, and receives editable source files at launch.
- We have full administrator access at all times to the site, hosting and any third-party accounts set up for it.
- We can export listings, events and other data in a standard format, such as CSV, at any time at no charge.
- Licenses for photos, fonts, themes and plugins are in our name or transferable to us. List any that are not.
- If we end the support agreement, the vendor helps move the site to a new host within 30 days, billed at no more than its standard hourly rate.
- No multi-year contract is required to keep the site running.
Our budget for design and development is $30,000 to $60,000. Annual costs for hosting, licenses and support are separate. Show them for three years in the pricing table in Appendix A so we can compare the full cost of each proposal.
| Milestone | Date |
|---|---|
| RFP issued | January 12, 2027 |
| Questions due | January 22, 2027 |
| Answers sent to all firms | January 26, 2027 |
| Proposals due | February 9, 2027, 5:00 p.m. local time |
| Finalist interviews (video call) | Week of February 23, 2027 |
| Vendor selected | March 5, 2027 |
| Project kickoff | March 15, 2027 |
| Target launch | August 2, 2027 |
If you cannot meet the launch date, tell us in your proposal and suggest a date you can meet.
Keep the proposal to 15 pages, not counting the pricing table, references, sample contract or examples of your work. Shorter is fine.
- Cover letter. One page, signed by someone who can commit the firm.
- About your firm. Size, location, years in business, and the people who will do the work, with their roles. Say whether any work will be subcontracted, and to whom.
- Relevant work. Three to five comparable sites, ideally for tourism offices, small towns or rural regions, with live links and the approximate budget for each.
- Approach. How you will run discovery, design, build, content, testing and launch, and how you will involve our staff.
- Platform. The platform you recommend and why it fits our team.
- Schedule. A timeline with milestones that meets our target launch.
- Pricing. The completed pricing table in Appendix A.
- Training and support. Your training plan and what your support agreement covers.
- Ownership. Confirmation that you accept the terms in section 5, or a list of exceptions.
- References. Three clients from the last three years, with a contact name, email and phone number.
- Sample contract. Your standard agreement or terms of service.
- Insurance. Proof of general liability and cyber liability insurance, or confirmation that you can provide it if selected.
A review team will score each proposal out of 100 points. We may invite up to three finalists to a video interview before deciding.
| Criteria | What we look for | Points |
|---|---|---|
| Relevant experience | Comparable sites for tourism offices, small towns or rural regions; the strength of the named team. | 25 |
| Understanding and approach | How well the proposal reflects our goals, our visitors and our staff capacity; the quality of the process. | 20 |
| Ease of use and training | How easily our staff can update the site after launch; the training and handoff plan. | 15 |
| Cost and value | One-time and three-year costs, and what is included for the price. | 20 |
| Timeline and capacity | A realistic schedule that meets our launch date, and the firm's capacity to deliver it. | 10 |
| References | What past clients say about working with the firm and the results. | 10 |
| Total | 100 |
We are not required to choose the lowest-priced proposal.
Email questions to tourism@samplecounty.gov by January 22, 2027. By January 26, 2027, we will send all questions and answers to every firm that has told us it plans to submit a proposal. Please do not contact board members or other staff about this RFP.
Email your proposal as a single PDF to tourism@samplecounty.gov by 5:00 p.m. local time on February 9, 2027, with the subject line "Website RFP: [Your firm name]". We will confirm receipt by email. Proposals received after the deadline will not be reviewed.
Contact: Jordan Lee, Tourism Director, Sample County Tourism, tourism@samplecounty.gov
- This RFP does not commit Sample County Tourism to award a contract or to pay any costs of preparing a proposal.
- We may reject any or all proposals, ask firms for more information, and negotiate scope, schedule and price with the selected firm.
- Proposals are valid for 90 days after the due date.
- This RFP follows the purchasing rules of [name of the county, city or funder]. Where those rules differ from this RFP, they take precedence.
- Proposals may become public records after a contract is awarded. Mark any information you consider a trade secret, and explain why.
Fill in every row. Write "included" or "not included" where a line has no separate cost. Price the Optional features from section 4.3 in the last table.
Standard hourly rate for work outside this scope: $________ per hour
| Item | Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery and planning | ||
| Design | ||
| Development and required features | ||
| Content migration | ||
| Copywriting | ||
| Photography or video | ||
| Accessibility testing | ||
| Training | ||
| Other (describe) | ||
| Total one-time cost |
| Item | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hosting | |||
| Platform or software licenses | |||
| Plugins and third-party services | |||
| Support and maintenance | |||
| Other (describe) | |||
| Total per year |
| Feature | One-time cost | Annual cost |
|---|---|---|
| Partners update their own listings | ||
| Trail, byway or route pages | ||
| Photo and video galleries | ||
| Partner and industry section |