Scottsdale.
- Dining
- Living
- Wellness
- Culture
- Events
- Travel
"Luxury that lives next door."Scottsdale.com Brand Promise
A design and technology proposal for transforming Scottsdale.com into the luxury editorial platform the brand deserves.
May 20, 2026
Scottsdale.com has incredible content, loyal contributors, and a brand voice that's genuinely dialed in. But the site doesn't reflect any of that. The design is dated, the navigation buries content, and the experience doesn't match the city it represents.
The good news: the content engine works. 1,155 articles, daily publishing cadence, strong contributor network. We're not starting from scratch. We're unleashing what's already there.
861 posts tagged "Featured" — no real pillar structure. The 7 content verticals from the brand strategy don't exist in navigation.
Generic WordPress theme. No dark luxury palette, no premium typography. The site looks like a local news blog, not a luxury editorial brand.
Homepage is a reverse-chronological blog feed. No curation, no featured stories, no editorial voice on the front page.
The biggest SEO and engagement opportunity — Best Restaurants, Best Spas, Best Golf Courses — doesn't exist as a structured feature.
The $75K category ownership model from the revenue strategy has no premium placement on the actual site.
Real estate neighborhood pages — bulk-updated once, comments closed, many empty. They dilute the editorial brand without adding value.
WordPress powers TechCrunch, Rolling Stone, Vogue, and Variety. The platform isn't the problem. The hosting and the frontend are. WordPress 7.0 drops this week with major improvements, and we want to trial it as the content engine while upgrading hosting off 97host and building a completely custom luxury frontend.
Writers and contributors keep working in WordPress exactly as they do now. Readers get a completely different experience.
Move off 97host to modern infrastructure. Full API management, root access, 13x storage capacity. Already cleaned from 9.7 GB to 5.9 GB.
Map all 1,155 articles to the 7 brand pillars. Build "Best Of" franchise structure. Archive 610 listing pages behind /neighborhoods/.
Custom luxury design pulling content from WordPress via API. Sub-second page loads, mobile-first, full design freedom.
Category ownership placements, premium sponsor integration, newsletter capture, events calendar woven into editorial.
"Luxury that lives next door."Scottsdale.com Brand Promise
From vineyard visits in Napa to intimate tastings in Old Town, one of Arizona's most sought-after sommeliers shares her world.
The Valley's most celebrated kitchens team up for an extraordinary season of collaborative dining.
From resort daybeds to rooftop DJ sets, your guide to the hottest poolside scenes this summer.
Elevated poolside experiences, curated spa treatments, and evenings under the desert sky.
The luxury maison opens at Scottsdale Fashion Square with an ode to craftsmanship.
The beloved Chandler original brings its Pan-Asian seafood concept to Old Town.
Skip the brunch reservation. These experiences actually surprise.
The Valley's most celebrated kitchens are teaming up for an extraordinary season of collaborative dining that blurs the line between restaurant and experience.
Regardless of which design direction you choose, the headless architecture makes something else possible: the ability to theme the entire site around Scottsdale's biggest events. One switch, and the site transforms.
Scottsdale hosts some of the most searched events in the country. The WM Phoenix Open alone drew over 700,000 attendees and generated millions of search queries last year. That traffic is looking for dining guides, party schedules, where to stay, what to wear. Right now, it's going to ESPN and travel blogs.
With a headless CMS, scottsdale.com can shift its entire visual identity for event windows — accent colors, hero content, editorial focus, navigation — then snap back to the standard design when it's over. Here's what Tournament Week could look like:
Note: this mockup uses event-suggestive colors and editorial coverage. No official event branding or logos are used. Scottsdale.com covers these events as an independent editorial outlet, not as an official partner.
Maximum luxury impact. Photography does all the work. Feels like Architectural Digest for Scottsdale.
Editorial depth with luxury execution. Shows breadth. Feels like Departures meets Net-a-Porter.
Uniquely Scottsdale. Inspired by the desert's own architecture. Could only exist here.
Works with any of the three designs above. The headless architecture lets the entire site transform for major events — Tournament Week, Barrett-Jackson, Spring Training, Scottsdale Arts Festival — then snap back. Event theming means event traffic. Event traffic means sponsor revenue.
The Residence, The Collection, Desert Modern, or elements across all three. This guides every design decision that follows.
All concepts demand elevated photography. We need to discuss sourcing, standards, and direction for future content.
Which events get the full theme treatment? Tournament Week is the obvious first candidate, but Barrett-Jackson and Spring Training are close behind. This also unlocks premium sponsor packages.
Which pillar launches first? Dining and events have the most content. Wellness and luxury living have the highest sponsor value.
610 real estate listing pages. Keep behind /neighborhoods/, archive entirely, or evolve into luxury real estate editorial?