Matt Kelly for Fredericksburg City Council
Fredericksburg, Virginia
Client from 2002 – 2026
Category: Website Design, WordPress, Photography
Industry: Government & Political
Share
About Client
Matt is a longtime City of Fredericksburg resident and former City Council member who has been actively involved in the city for much of his adult life.
“Since coming to Fredericksburg over 40 years ago, I’ve worked, both as a resident and a member of the City Council, to protect the city’s unique historic small-town character, and provide amenities and services to help ensure a good quality of life for ALL who call Fredericksburg home” – Matt Kelly
Project Overview
Matt contacted us to create the fourth version of his campaign website, as he loved our work on the first three iterations we designed for previous City Council bids. Technically, this is the fifth version we have worked on, as we maintained the first version that Matt developed himself using Microsoft FrontPage in 2002. Here are screenshots of the previous versions’ homepages that Simply Web Services has designed for Matt.
Challenges
This project was a little more difficult than most others, as we designed the website while others were working on their yard signs, flyers, and postcards. Usually, working like this can make things a little more intensive, but we worked closely with all parties involved to ensure we were conveying the exact same message, look & feel, colors, fonts, and graphics.
Here are just some of the look & feel, colors, fonts, and graphics we were asked to mimic.
Solutions
This was a redesign of the previous three websites that Simply Web Services designed for the client in 2012, 2015 & 2019. We used photos from our massive collection of Fredericksburg-area photos that we have taken over the past 20-plus years. This redesign is built on WordPress, and the project includes:
Solutions and Services We Provided
- Responsive WordPress Web Design & Blog
- E-Commerce Web Design
- Contact Form Integration
- Graphic Design
- Favicon Design & Integration
- QR Code Design
- Photography Editing
- Photography
- SSL Certificate Issue, Management, and Renewal
- Managed Website Hosting
- Domain Name Registration, Management, and Renewal
- Website Maintenance
- Basic Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- YouTube Optimization
- Digital Marketing
Social Media Marketing
PayPal Donation Integration
Photography
We were contracted several times to take photos around town for use with Matt’s campaign website. Here are just some of the photos we took and used over the years.
Conclusion
We were able to achieve everything on Matt’s checklist for his new website (and his previous websites), including the ability to accept online donations. While Matt wasn’t re-elected this time, we’re proud of the site we built together.
Over the years, Matt has become a friend of the family, and we enjoy working with him.
Matt has hired SWS five separate times, which goes to show what kind of job we do for our clients.
Running for office means your website often becomes voters’ first impression of you — and it needs to build trust fast. Simply Web Services has designed campaign websites for Fredericksburg-area candidates for over two decades, including five different iterations of one client’s city council site alone. We know what a campaign site actually needs to function under pressure: a clean, mobile-friendly design that loads instantly on a voter’s phone, secure online donation processing through PayPal, and the flexibility to update your platform, endorsements, or event schedule the night before a debate. We also coordinate closely with your broader campaign materials — yard signs, flyers, mailers — so your website’s colors, fonts, and messaging stay consistent with everything voters see around town, not just what they see online.
A great-looking campaign site does no good if voters can’t find it. That’s where our digital marketing experience comes in: we build in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) from the start so your name surfaces when local residents search for candidates, issues, or “who’s running for [office] in [your city].” We also layer in Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), which helps your platform and bio get picked up accurately by voice assistants and AI-driven search tools — increasingly how undecided voters get quick answers before heading to the polls. Add in social media integration and campaign photography pulled from our two-decade archive of local imagery, and you get a website that doesn’t just look the part, but actually helps get your name and message in front of the voters who matter. Call Simply Web Services at 540-479-6350 to get your campaign online.