TOPIC:

Hi everyone.
Yes, we will be taking photos of our club and featuring real club members, but other than that, what suggestions do you have for

www.downtownlunchbunch.com ?

Arlyn,

I started looking at your site, then I saw something shiny and forgot to go back to it. I will make time this evening.

I love this site. It is nicely worded, concise and the contact page is a great feature.

Well done Lunch Bunch! It looks fabulous. Best of luck on your journey!

Hey Arlynn!!

i'm sorry it's been months since your request, and I hope you're still peeking in for replies. I happen to love responding to these requests, but have been a bit preoccupied as of late.

Anyway, you've produced a compelling invitation to visit, and in a very well-thought-out manner. There's a lot to be learned from it (and a few possible suggestions for improvement.)

I've pointed out before how I feel that many, many people have considered joining Toastmasters, but just need a little nudge to get them out of their ruts and move them to make a visit. Your front page nudges them beautifully.

I see an invitation that's happy, welcoming, and that disarms my (expected visitor's) fear of going out to meet a bunch of strangers, because you come across as a wonderfully social bunch. In fact, you come across as so social, that you have a huge promise to keep (I have no doubt that you can deliver.) In a glance, it gives the essentials of the message to a rapid-fire web surfer.

When the fast-surfers switch from "fast mode" to "slow mode" and actually start to read, they have the option to find more by looking at the Main Menu, under "Our Education program," and "Why Join." These make really good use of tables to lay out the complexity of the program in easily digestible bites.

My concern would be that some fast-surfers might not look at the Main Menu, to learn more. You can fix this with no danger of spoiling the effect you've created by making the words, "a proven program" into a link to your "Our Education Program" page. Make the color of the text for "a proven program" blue, so the rapid surfer will immediately recognize a link and have the opportunity to click.

I'm not sure if it would be worthwhile to do the same with a link to your "Why Join" page, first because i can't see a good place to put it in, and second,because too many links in such a small space might spoil the effect. Still, the rapid surfer may miss this one. It's worth further consideration.

Speaking of spoiling the effect, I have a pet peeve that's purely my own, but understand that if it affects me, it may affect others, too. The picture on your home page is certainly welcoming and inviting, but it's one of the "canned" stock photos from TI, isn't it? i know that some people like them a lot, but to me they look fake, plastic, and set-up. We see so many advertisements that do them well, and then we see the TI photos that seem to feel just slightly off-key, and they mar the effect.

I can see from your (also very well done) Facebook page that you've got some fine lookin' people, and they'd make a world of difference in expressing sincerity and authenticity. To get a good photo may take many, many tries, and as a lunch meeting, you've probably got a lot of folks who have to run as soon as the meeting closes, but you might try a quick group pose or two, after each meeting. You can certainly try to duplicate some of the poses that TI uses, so it's not a "same old" group shot of everyone clustered, with their arms at their sides. Keep trying and you'll get a real winner that shows the real you.

Lastly, I note that you have links to your division and district websites, which is good, but placing them in your Members Only menu hides them from Google. This doesn't harm anyone, and Google certainly knows those sites exist, but the more visible links that point to a site, the better their ranking on Google will be. If you can make them somehow visible, you'll be helping your division and district out.

If you want to keep your main menu uncluttered so your "essential" links are more prominent, you might put links to these sites at the very bottom of your homepage. This will help out the others without spoiling the clean effect you've achieved, but that's just a thought.

Very nice job, overall. I may borrow from some of your basic ideas.

OMG what a wonderful and comprehensive evaluation. THANK YOU. Yes, we were going to take photos of the group for the home page but never got it done - thanks for the nudge. I plan to incorporate a few of your suggestions. I appreciate your time on this. It's difficult to get club members involved in the website so at least we can work together as webmasters and mistresses(?!?)