Selected workWordPress · design · content
Columbus Park.A clearer path to the lake.
A century of summers on Black Lake, with a website built around the next visit: a campsite, a lake day or a gathering with your people.
The place. The job.
Columbus Park has welcomed visitors to Black Lake since 1926. The park serves tent and RV campers, people coming for the day, families planning gatherings and guests looking for monthly RV stays.
The website needed to help each of those visitors answer different questions. Where can I stay? What does a lake day cost? Which space works for a group? What do I need to know before arriving?
- WordPress
- Visitor navigation
- Responsive design
- Content & care
Make planning easier.
The navigation problem to solve was the route from general park information to the details of a specific visit. Rates, rules, maps and inquiry steps needed a clearer place in that journey.
I reorganized the content around camping, day use, gatherings and monthly stays, with a shared “Plan your visit” route. The homepage gives people a choice early, then points them to the details that matter.
What changed.
- Design that belongs to the park
- A lakeside hero, park photography, a quieter visual palette and the 1926–2026 centennial story give the site a sense of place. The layout adapts from desktop to phone, keeping visit choices and contact information accessible.
- WordPress and shared pages
- The redesign brings the visitor pages into a consistent WordPress presentation, with shared navigation, footer links and page patterns. Content work connects the park’s story with practical planning information.
- Clear ways to visit
- Camping, day use and gatherings have distinct routes, with monthly stays alongside them. Published starting rates are labeled clearly, with a reminder to confirm current rates and availability with the park.
- Maps, rules and questions
- Park-map access, readable rules pages and answers to common planning questions help visitors prepare. The website links policies from the visitor routes and the shared footer.
- A clearer inquiry
- Contact guidance asks visitors to share their dates and the kind of visit they are planning. The next step is an availability inquiry with the park, rather than an implied instant booking.
Under the hood.
- A custom block theme
- The site moved off a page-builder theme onto a custom WordPress block theme. Layout and styling live in the theme, so the park can edit content in the standard WordPress editor without a builder plugin.
- 27 plugins down to 6
- Page builders, sliders and overlapping form tools came out. Six plugins remain, with no known vulnerabilities and no pending updates at launch.
- One form, built for the job
- A small custom contact plugin replaced two form plugins. It handles six visit types, can be pre-selected from any page, and protects every submission with one-time security tokens.
- Tested before launch
- Automated accessibility testing found zero violations across all 20 pages. Lighthouse accessibility scored 100, there were no broken links, and SSL Labs and securityheaders.com both graded the site A+.
- Search rankings protected
- Older URLs redirect to their new pages, every page has its own description and structured data, and the site answers on one address over HTTPS through Cloudflare.
Where it stands.
The redesigned homepage and visitor pages are published. The delivered result is a clearer set of visit choices, connected planning information and a responsive presentation of the park.
Responsive checks have passed for the published Columbus Park work. Final client feedback is ongoing, and verification of the downloadable rules PDFs remains in progress.
This case study describes the delivered design and content. It does not report measured changes in bookings or visitor conversion.
Explore the work.
Visit the live Columbus Park website (opens in a new tab)
Have a website that needs a clearer path for its visitors?
Tell me about your project