A new website for the oldest town in Texas

About the Client

Nacogdoches, Texas is known for its historic downtown, lush pine forests, and reputation as the oldest town in the state. Long a draw for retirees, history lovers, and cultural tourists from Dallas, Houston, and Austin, Nacogdoches has been actively expanding its appeal to young families, college students, and digital nomads. 

The Problem

The Visit Nacogdoches team knew their website wasn’t serving their visitors and the bounce rate proved it. A navigation structure that was difficult to update left visitors hitting dead ends, with no clear path to discover more of what the destination had to offer. The site also no longer reflected the energy of the place: the events, the experiences, and the evolving character of the town

The Insight

The Visit Nacogdoches team knew their audience extremely well, and knew which attractions and events were getting the most traffic. But, once on the page, visitors were arriving and leaving without exploring. We needed to restructure the site around their most popular content and use it as a launching pad to help people discover more, and stay longer.

The Process

We started with a full audit of the existing site, mapping gaps in structure, search visibility, and performance. Working closely with the Visit Nac team, we reorganized their content into intuitive categories and elevated their signature Experiences and Events to the top of the navigation, putting the best of the destination right at visitors' fingertips. New thematic landing pages surfaced only relevant content, with operator listings and events pre-filtered through the Whereabouts CRM to create a genuinely curated planning experience. The “Tex-ified” design also brought in visual cues and textures that better reflected the historic-but-modern vibe of the town. 

Results

The new site launched in March 2025 and the Texas tourism industry took notice immediately. Visit Nacogdoches won two awards at Destinations Texas: First Place in Website Design and Effectiveness in the $500K–$1M category, and the Judge's Choice award overall. Performance metrics backed it up: bounce rate dropped, session duration increased, and site speed improved. Operators reported stronger traffic to their listings, and visitor feedback was especially enthusiastic about the events pages and mobile experience. Two additional regional DMOs have since migrated to the Whereabouts platform, a signal that the work resonated well beyond Nacogdoches itself.