Objectives

The primary objectives of this tender are to:

• Establish a professional, user-friendly, and aesthetically pleasing online presence for Cederberg Municipality.
• Provide up-to-date information and resources to the target audience.
• Improve user engagement and overall website experience.
• Enhance website functionality, security, performance, and scalability.
• Facilitate easy content management for the Client’s team.

Scope

The scope of work includes:

Discovery and Planning

• Initial consultation to understand detailed requirements, branding, and content strategy.
• Development of project plan, timelines, milestones, and deliverables.
• Creation of sitemap and user flow diagrams.

Design

• Development of a modern, clean, and intuitive UI/UX design.
• Creation of at least 2 homepage mockups for review and approval.
• Responsive design implementation for desktops, tablets, and mobile devices.
• Integration of branding elements (logo, colors, typography).
• Accessibility considerations targeting WCAG 2.1 AA compliance.

WordPress Development

• Core WordPress installation with the latest stable version.
• Custom theme development or significant customization of a premium theme, ensuring lightweight, secure, and performant code.
• Gutenberg-ready theme with support for custom post types and taxonomies.
• Implementation of theme functionalities supporting pages such as service request forms, weather widget, maps, social media integration, galleries, booking systems, and admin activity logging.
• Plugin selection and configuration for security, SEO, caching, contact forms, analytics, etc., minimizing plugin use for performance and security.
• Content migration from existing Drupal 7 site, assisted by the Client.
• SEO best practices, including meta tags, clean URLs, schema markup, and sitemap submission.
• Security measures including SSL, firewalls, backups, and secure login.
• Performance optimization through caching, image optimization, minification, and lazy loading.

Server Environment & Hosting

• Hosting on an Ubuntu Linux server with Apache, MySQL/MariaDB, and PHP 8.1+.
• Secure server configuration, server-level caching, monitoring, logging, backups, and DNS setup.

Testing & Deployment

• Cross-browser and device testing, functional testing of forms and links, performance and security scans, and User Acceptance Testing (UAT).
• Final deployment, DNS propagation, and go-live support.

Training & Documentation

• Provision of user manual and training session (up to 2 hours).
• Documentation of server setup and credentials.

Post-Launch Support

• Ongoing maintenance, security updates, and technical support for 12 months (5 hours/month).
• Monthly reports on website downtime and performance metrics.

Technical Requirements

• Platform: WordPress (latest stable version)
• Server OS: Ubuntu Server (latest LTS)
• Web Server: Apache
• Database: MySQL 5.7+ or MariaDB 10.x+
• PHP: PHP 8.1+ (latest supported version)
• Security: SSL/TLS enabled, firewalls, backups, secure login
• Design: Fully responsive, WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility compliant
• Code Quality: Clean, well-commented, maintainable, adhering to WordPress standards

Deliverables

• Fully functional live WordPress website
• Content migrated from Drupal 7
• Custom theme files and plugin configurations
• Database backup
• User manual and training materials
• Server configuration documentation and credentials
• Signed maintenance and support agreement (12 months)