Building Success from the Ground Up
5th Year is a program of Junior Achievement, a nonprofit organization that focuses on experiential programs, life skills and entrepreneurship.
5th Year was created in 2024 to help high school graduates decide what they want to pursue next, whether that was a job, a college education or a military career. The program provides independent living experiences, job shadowing opportunities and internships.
5th Year by Junior Achievement
Headless CMS Web Build, Website Maintenance and Hosting, Web Animation, ADA Compliance and Content Development
Web Excellence Award and IAC Award for Best Education Website
the challenge
Our client wanted to create a brand strategy to address their three target audiences: participants, parents and business partners. They needed a robust website to inform recent graduates about their program and alert business partners to the benefits of serving as mentors.
the solution
We built 5th Year a flexible website that serves the needs of graduates, parents and business partners, maintaining brand consistency. To get people there, we included keywords that those individuals were already searching for, then let 5th Year’s unique voice take it from there.
Formulating a Unique Digital Identity
Our web development team coded a headless CMS website to serve as the client’s information hub. The responsive design made for a great experience whether users accessed it on desktops, tablets or smartphones. We separated the content based on the target audiences and used different colors throughout the site to differentiate those categories and make it easy for people to find the information they wanted.
Crafting Content that Informs and Engages
It was essential to tell the client’s story from the ground up, especially because this was a brand-new program in the area. We made 5th Year’s website based on the client’s input, press releases and video testimonials collected at community events. Our content developer created separate copy to cater to the interests and needs of the parents, graduates and potential partners, while maintaining a cohesive tone throughout the website.
Bringing Attention to Something New
We implemented SEO strategies to drive search traffic to content that was centered on uncommon keywords. We found ways to incorporate more frequently used terms such as “gap year” and “college prep” while differentiating 5th Year from those phrases and other career readiness programs. That allowed us to engage specific audiences and separate them from any presumptions they may have had about the client’s program.
