By Nina Anthony, Thursday, August 7, 2014
After nearly 20 years of promoting tourism in Taos and northern New Mexico, www.TaosWebb.com, published by Webb Design Inc. of Taos, has been rebranded as www.BeyondTaos.com.
Over the years, TaosWebb.com has undergone numerous redesigns and transformations since its launch in 1995 as a simple one-page website. “We decided it was time to rebrand the site to make it more descriptive of its mission to promote not just Taos as a tourism destination, but the many northern New Mexico communities in the region,” says Janet Webb, President of Webb Design, who has been working on the redesign strategy with a talented team of programmers, designers and writers for nearly two years. I’m proud to have been a part of that team.
New Look, Same Mission
While the name and look of the original TaosWebb tourism website may have changed, Janet’s love for the Taos community that she’s called home for the past 40 years has remained constant. She understands the importance of supporting local small businesses and of collaborating with various public, private and non-profit entities within the area for the good of the region as a whole. From Taos, Red River, Angel Fire and beyond, those of us marketing northern New Mexico, as well as the people who serve visitors in our hotels, restaurants, retail stores, galleries, outfitting companies, and museums — we’re are all stakeholders who share a common mission: to foster a strong economic engine for our communities through tourism by creating positive experiences for visitors once they’re here.
And so, in developing a strategy for BeyondTaos.com, we asked ourselves:
- How do we create/communicate/share the unique offerings of Taos and northern New Mexico with the world and, hopefully, inspire more people to travel here?
- How do we distill the many attractions and amenities of the area into a persuasive motivational message to the largest potential universe of visitors?
- What sets Taos and northern New Mexico apart from the myriad choices available to travelers?
- How do we differentiate ourselves from the many other Taos tourism websites and supplement, rather than compete with, the primary tourism websites of our regional communities?
We think BeyondTaos answers those questions.
Explore BeyondTaos
Northern New Mexico is known for its diverse communities. We have resort towns, art colonies, Hispanic villages, Pueblo communities, western mining towns, old railroad stops, and ranching towns. We believe that the new BeyondTaos website better showcases the arts, culture, history, entertainment, recreation, food, shopping and lodging options unique to each community.
The new site includes a homepage slideshow that features beautiful images of Taos and northern New Mexico from some of the top photographers in the Enchanted Circle region: Geraint Smith, Gak Stonn, Ron Weathers and Paula Valentine. Each of the BeyondTaos northern New Mexico communities, which include Taos, Angel Fire, Red River, the High Road to Taos art villages, Ojo Caliente, Sipapu, Ghost Ranch/Abiquiu, Chama, Cimarron and Farmington, to name a few, are visually represented in the slider. (Click on the red pull-down menu above the slideshow for a directory of all of our commmunities.)
There are more maps to help our visitors find their away around — from walking maps and hiking maps to dashcam driving maps; more complete event listings — from both community and art events calendars; more regional news; plus a brand-new travel blog with stories that connect our visitors to news that interests them — from rodeos and retreats to art and architecture — in Taos and beyond.
The site is currently a work in progress. We’ll be adding more northern New Mexico communities, redesigning the blog, adding a photo and video gallery, and tweaking the site based on user testing in the coming months. We’ll also be building our social media presence to cross-promote our BeyondTaos communities and allow for more engagement and interaction with visitors.
Get to Know Northern New Mexico with BeyondTaos.com
If you’ve been thinking about vacationing in Taos and northern New Mexico, we hope your visit to BeyondTaos will inspire you to come visit our unique region in person. Our goal is to create the kind of northern New Mexico experiences and memories that will last a lifetime.
So, search, click, and spin your way around BeyondTaos to some of the best food, art, lodging, sights, scenery, activities and events that Taos and Northern New Mexico have to offer.
