TOPIC:

Our website is: www.talkofthetownti.com/

Thanks in advance to everyone who evaluates our site.

By the way, I am getting ready to hit the road for a week, but I promise to evaluate other websites once I get back.

Thanks, again.

Tony Livernois, Webmaster
Talk of the Town Toastmasters, Batavia, IL

Tony,

I am only looking at this as a what a visitor can access.

Your club number on the home page is a link, but doesn't go anywhere.

I like that you have a lot of links in your home page, but it seems redundant to have the same links in the menu, so some may be appropriate in both spots, but not all. As you already have a meeting info/directions page, I feel that the map image is just taking up space, when the link above is just as effective.

As a strong advocate of meeting themes, I like that you have them planned so far in advance and most are timely. Not sure about the Marine Corps in May as it was founded on November 10, 1775. Maybe because it is too close to Veterans Day on November 11.

You have links to every social media in the menu, but you also have all of them in the social media area. If they were not in the menu, would the links be visible? Maybe.

I like the testimonials page, and that you have a lot of members on the Meet Our Members page.

In the menu, your link to District 54 does not open.
Although not your page, the Link to District 54 on the Speakers Bureau page goes to a weight loss page. Yes Toastmasters rounds a person out, but hopefully not that much.

Remember, most guests will not know what TI means, so you may not even need it as a preface, unless you are using it to group the links, which you can also do when you create them by numbering them when you make them.

Is the Toastmasters Speech timer in the public menu for the convenience of the members so they don't have to log in to use it?

Hi Tony!

The first thing that struck me was you actually had a picture of someone DELIVERING a speech. Great job. Even better, you have a VIDEO of a really good speech. I'm always partial to action videos/photos of club members.

Ditto on the redundancy observations Roger made. The map on the home page makes the page to long any way. Remove it and you'll be fine. NICE MAP, though!

One of your first hyperlinks opens in a new tab, but your TMI hyperlink LEAVES YOUR SITE. You don't want that.

You may want to consider adding some color to your site. The white on white looks to sparse, or "sterile". Light and medium colors are inviting. You also want to distinguish yourself from other TM sites.

In terms of social media; You have some posts on facebook, but no pictures or graphics in any recent posts. Your LinkedIn goes to a private group. You may want to make it public, OR just post it as a link in the members menu. Good Meetup account!

On your calendar, you don't have any area contest, conferences, or TLI. Though, that might be you secretary's duty. If it falls to you, you may want to fill it in a bit. Also, you could have the meeting's themes included since you know what they are. Good job on all those themes, by the way.

I've had problems with your member application loading properly (twice).... though, of course, that may be an "International" glitch.

All in all, a really nice site!

Blaine Little, ACB
VPPR, TM 1757

Enjoyed your website. Check out Apples website and you will notice the lack of info and a few clickable links. Apparently this is because research shows that web users will go to a page and will click something before reading info. You and I may find words interesting but I think it is important to realise that very few people will read them on a web page. I don't know how to effectively use this knowledge but I am sure it can help in creating better web pages.

Here are my thoughts...

Likes:

1. "Talk of the Town: A President's Distinguished Club" - great! Grabbed my attention.

2. Lots of good information and content!

3. Good variety in text styling/fonts.

4. Excellent photos on home page, including those with banner and ribbons. They people in the photos... very good.

5. The Demon video. Great intro text, great video. This is an *outstanding* element of your home page.

6. Great use of Toastmasters mission, values, vision.

7. Great use of Pretenders lyric

8. Great use of strategically located links in home page.

9. Meeting info page - building complex map, google map

10. Phone #s on contact us form.

11. Meet Our Members page - All officers have photos and bio's great!

12. Meetings on club calendar - good!

13. Club Past News page - Its not on the home page, but if someone wants to view historical content, they can do that.

14. Club Toastimonials page. Great name, great page!

15. "For Guests" pages.

16. What Guests can expect page. Like this a lot. Great heading for meeting agenda!

17. Toastmasters Speech Timer. nice!

Areas for possible improvement: (just my opinion--others may have different opinion)

18. Use of Color - A little bit more color, used strategically could help. Except for the photos and banner, everything looks very white, kind of bland. A little color goes a long way, so I do not think you need a lot.

19. Like another club website I looked at, you have a *lot* of great content, so the challenge for you is to be more selective about what you show and where, so that you do not leave website visitors with an impression of information overload. On you home page, I do not think you need the map of your building complex there. You have links to your Meeting info page on your home page, and you have that map on your Meeting Info page. Just make sure you links to your Meeting info page are obvious and easy to find, and that should be enough. Just taking off this one map would make your home page seem shorter, which will be good.

20. I would suggest putting "Upcoming Club Meetings and Themes" on a supporting page and just include a good link to that on your home page.

21. Because you are using links effectively, you should take the next step, and set the Advisory Titles for every one of them. The Advisory Titles are what set the pop-up text for each link, so that the user knows what to expect when they click the link. (e.g. "Click HERE to get directions to our meeting.") This is good, because you should not make the user randomly click links to get what they want.

22. Meeting Info page. Here is a more advanced suggestion, because I think you are probably a more skilled admin. Make the Google map show at the top, then the building complex map, as this reflects the order in which a website visitor will actually want to see those maps. (more general to more specific; right now it is reversed). You can do this if you just locate the map <iframe code directly in Source view, and then leave the Google map box empty. (You get the map where you want it then.) Also, I suggest including a photo of your meeting venue from ground level as a visitor would actually see it so they know what the building actually looks like when they are in front of it.

23. On What Guests can expect page, I would recommend hiding member names to protect their privacy. RogerM has an approach for this--you may want to check his approach.

Overall, a really great website! You have a lot of great content to choose from--choose wisely and reap the rewards of your efforts!

Tony,

In order to continue to have this forum section be useful into the future, we need to request that everyone contribute to it.

Therefore, we are implementing "Get an evaluation, give an evaluation." . Basically, we are requesting those who have received a website evaluation give a Toastmasters style website evaluation for at least one other club that has requested an evaluation in this forum section. (You get to choose which club website to do the website evaluation for.) Just post your impressions: things you like about the website, and areas for improvement. Everyone has something to offer... just trust your instincts.