on April 10, 2018
The WynnumCentral site has not been substantially changed since it launched back in 2013, so a revamp was a little overdue.
Please check out the new site and take it for a test drive – any feedback – positive or negative is much appreciated! The following is a summary of the new features (and benefits) of the new site design.
Mobile First
The main focus has been ‘mobile first’ – most people are accessing the site on mobile and it has just not been geared up for this (this is one of the reasons we launched the WynnumCentral app). The new site addresses this and now has some bells and whistles to make the site faster and easier to access.
Secure Site
We’ve also taken the opportunity to move the site to ‘https:’ – this means all communications with the site are now encrypted, plus it keeps Google happy (it won’t show as ‘site not secure’).
New Features
We have also added some new sections to the site…
Meet Your Local Businesses
This brings together all the profiles of Wynnum Business members.
What’s On
This is an ‘at-a-glance’ calendar of events in/around Wynnum. At the moment we’ve listed all events we’re aware of, and will add more as we go.
Business Directory
The business directory has been on the site from the beginning and has always been very popular – always in the top three pages visited. We’ve had technical problems with it over the past few months so it was switched off. It’s now back and fully updated – all Wynnum Business members have a full listing based on the directory on the Wynnum Business site. Non-members have a basic listing.
Buy Stuff
This currently links to our online store selling items featuring the Wynnum colourband.
Win Stuff
Nothing here as yet – update coming soon…
PhoneBook
This is a brand new page primarily for mobile users. How often have you seen a phone number on a website on your phone, but you’ve had to remember it and then key it in manually? Tap to call is the way around this and the PhoneBook has this feature built in. Currently all Wynnum Business members are listed here. Non Wynnum Business members can be listed here (plus a full listing in the Directory) for $99 per annum.
Sponsor Listings
The sponsor listing that appears on all pages now lists according to membership level and then alphabetically. Gold sponsors continue to have the top banner space and gold/silver sponsors the side banner space. Instead of rotating, these now show one banner, which then changes when the visitor moves to another page, or the page is refreshed.
Advertising
For the first time WynnumCentral is offering advertising space to non-members, and there are more advertising options than are showing at the moment, including a full site ‘wrap’ option (‘Full Page Takeover Branding’), which you may have seen on other websites. Although we have not published a pricelist as such, these new options are listed on the ‘For Advertisers‘ page.
Article Archive
There are over 700 articles on WynnumCentral going back to 2013. With the previous version of the site we had to switch off access to older stories (to stop them from randomly appearing on the front page). This is not so much of an issue now, so older stories back to 2013 can now be accessed from a sidebar (desktop) or via the search facility.
Your Business Profile
As a part of Wynnum Business membership we offer one business profile article on WynnumCentral per annum. This does not preclude other editorial items during the year – the one profile is a minimum. This is a paid option for non Wynnum Business members.
All this was summarised recently in the In Business column in the Wynnum Herald…
Overhaul for handy business website
Over the past few weeks Wynnum Business’s sister website – wynnumcentral.com.au – has been getting a long overdue overhaul. If a website is going to be at all useful it must be accessible and useable on a mobile device – around 60% of all visits to websites are from mobile phones – and this has been the main focus of the revamp. At the same time we’ve taken the opportunity to make the site secure (https) and speed it up a little bit.
The new site also has an updated Wynnum Business Directory (with a ‘PhoneBook’ feature which allows you to tap to call listed businesses), a What’s On section, a ‘Meet Your Local Businesses’ feature, plus a ton of other features we don’t have enough space to list here.
The perfect opportunity for the first story on the new site came on Sunday, when we wrote about a light rail proposal to connect the foreshore to the main shopping precinct. We’d love to say it was true, but we only get one opportunity a year for fake news, and Sunday 1st April was it – April Fool!
PS next Wynnum Business network meeting is over breakfast next Tuesday 10th April. Maybe see you there.