A hometown magazine and business directory neighbors actually use
A website, directory architecture, and weekly publishing system for Wake Forest Magazine, a community publication covering the businesses, people, and events of Wake Forest, North Carolina.
A Magazine to Read and a Directory to Search
Wake Forest Magazine covers the businesses, people, and weekends of Wake Forest and the towns around it. Residents were piecing local information together from scattered Facebook groups, stale listing sites, and word of mouth. Business owners had nowhere in particular to be found.
The site had to work as two things at once: something people read on a Saturday morning, and something they search when the water heater fails. That meant an information structure that scales to thousands of listings without ever feeling like a database.
What We Did
Information Architecture
Eleven categories, a page for every neighborhood, and a directory structure that scales past three thousand listings while staying two clicks from the front page.
Website Design
A newspaper masthead, the day’s weather and date, trending stories, and directory search that stays within reach — a front page that reads like a local paper and works like a search tool.
Content Strategy
A weekly rhythm rather than bursts: business spotlights, what-to-know guides, and an events calendar maintained on a schedule, so the site is never out of date on a Friday.
Neighborhood and Category Pages
Pages built around the “near me” phrasing residents actually type, with structured data on every listing so search engines and AI answers can read them.