A website is part welcome mat, part library and part commerce hub — and with an organization as large as the American Angus Association, you can bet Angus.org is all of that and more. 

The Association launched its newly retooled web presence July 31. The goals included making the site easier to navigate, presenting information in an updated format and becoming an even better resource for members and commercial producers using Angus genetics. 

“We have a very robust website, and we know that breeders know where to go to find what they need, but anybody who hasn’t navigated around it for years has a tougher time getting where they need to go,” says Holly Martin, director of communications for the American Angus Association.

She says the organization’s site was also overdue for a modernization of the design and better mobile optimization.

“Let’s start with what’s not changing: your ability to do business with the American Angus Association and some of the most highly trafficked parts of the website — including Login, EPD look up and sale books — will be exactly the same or look very similar,” Martin says. “However, many of your favorite tools or ways to access news are in completely new places as we tried to make it all more intuitive for visitors.”

Clicking through the website, buttons for “find an animal,” “find a breeder” and Login, among others, are anchored in the upper righthand corner.

The main homepage gives visitors three main action points at the start: learn about Angus advantages, go to the commercial cattlemen’s corner or head to the member center. Each section has links, news and resources specifically curated for different types of Angus producers.

“We would like this to be everybody’s landing page. If you wake up with a cup of coffee or sit down to peruse the news in the evening, you’re going to Angus.org ,” says Darrell Stevenson, a board director from White Sulphur Springs, Mont.

The main pages should refresh often with the latest articles and podcasts from the Angus Journal^® and Angus Beef Bulletin^®, along with other timely updates from the breed. 

Both from the main navigation or other links on the homepage, users can quickly get to landing pages for each of the entities — Angus Foundation, Angus Genetics Inc. (AGI), Angus Media and Certified Angus Beef (CAB) — along with major programs of interest, such as Angus Herd Improvement Records^® (AHIR) and Angus University.

“Each of these pages has its own personality and provides a spot to drill down as deep as you want to go,” Martin says. “In addition to the in-depth sub-navigation, we’ve updated our search function to search more effectively.”

The magnitude of the undertaking took time for careful planning, Stevenson says. The Association’s first website launched in 1996 and has evolved many times since, but this is the biggest redesign to date. 

“A couple of decades ago, we were as ambitious on entering the world wide web as any association, and we did what was absolutely necessary for the time, but we ended up with so many independent pages that it kind of got away from us,” Stevenson says. “This channels many of them into a one-stop shop.”

The beef business is changing at a faster-than-ever rate, so the website is built with the ability to be flexible. 

“We had nice outreach to the breeder members, but our industry has evolved and our family has gotten bigger,” Stevenson says, especially noting the focus on the commercial producer and programs such as AngusLink^SM that helps them market their calves and see value differentiation for investing in Angus. 

That’s just one of the ways the project aligns with the Association’s strategic plan, says CEO Mark McCully. 

“We believe this will do everything from ‘enhance membership experience’ to help us better ‘serve as a trusted industry resource,” he says. “It really does touch almost every part of our long-range plan and helps us be more effective in our communication and doing business.” 

Staff welcomes feedback, which you can submit by calling the office or through the feedback form, and they have plans to keep tweaking and improving. 

“I am not sure I can emphasize enough the magnitude of this project — not only from time and dollars invested— but the passion behind it from staff,” Stevenson says. “It did not happen overnight. It’s been a multi-year project to improve membership services and outreach and I’m so proud of where we have landed.”