We report on pulsed laser annealing as an efficient method for improving the structural and optical properties of ZnO nanorods grown at low temperature. We find that the excitonic luminescence at 390 nm can be improved by as much as a factor of 8. We also show that laser annealing can be carried out in typical device structures, in particular by illumination through glass/indium-tin-oxide substrates and through polymer/indium-tin-oxide substrates.