Feedback On PNC3 (Plate Number Coils Collectors Club) Website

On November 1st, I became the new webmaster for the PNC3 website. In addition to keeping the existing site up and running, I have self-imposed a new charter for myself - to bring the site into the 21st century with a redesign and update.

I know there are some (many?) members of the club that are active here on SCF. I'd like to solicit opinions and thoughts from members and non-members on features to be included as part of the site redesign. What do you like about the current site? What do you hate about it? What would you like to see added to the site? There are no wrong or bad answers, so please tell me what you think.

You can view the current site at: https://pnc3.org/

You can post here or send an email to either to the PNC3 webmaster address *** Private information removed by Staff. Please do not post your address/email/phone number etc. *** or here on SCF.

Thank you in advance!

Hi Scott,
Get rid of the 'mobile site' and make a single site that is a responsive design.
Get rid of the bright color link buttons
Get rid of all the email addresses and use a PHP 'contact us' form
Get rid of the iframe on the main page
Get rid of the endlessly scrolling frame with 'news' on opening page. At most there should be one news item on the opening page that changes daily, no one cares about news from 2014.
Get rid of the lame 'visitor counter' on the main page.
Develop a simple, responsive navigation menu (this means no submenus and finger friendly)
Develop SEO tags, content and strategies
Use "target=" for all external links and stop sending traffic off the site
Develop an opening page that attracts new people to PNCs. Move 'news' and other stuff to other pages. The opening page is the 'cover to the book', it should capture people's interest in PNCs

In short, throw the existing site away and start fresh. Do not reuse anything (design-wise) from the original site.

Everything you need to know about the website traffic patterns already exists in the website log files. Where people are coming from, where people are leaving to, pages that are popular, pages that are not and should be killed off, most common search terms, page time durations, etc.

The objective should be to develop significant amounts of traffic; expose general collectors to PNC collecting. This means giving them things like a basic catalog PNC and album pages for free, do not try to force people to spend money with memberships just if they want to explore this part of the hobby. Give away the basic info, use memberships for advanced PNC features and resources.

To get folks to visit frequently, fresh content should be added every few days. So the biggest job is not a site redesign but rather the development of new content every week.
Don

Walkman82

I do not know if Allan told you but I had been providing the information for all the new issues that were posted on PNC3. I also have provided some images for tagging but do not think Allan ever posted them. He was not getting help from anyone else.

Please contact me separately as I have lots of comments too.

Thank you Don for taking an interest in helping out a club in which you are not a member as far as I know.
Having said that, there are a couple of items I do not understand:

1. If we have a new webmaster why is the old one still listed on the website, ten days after the change ?
2. Why is the above question not posted on the PNC3 website and in Coil Line ?

I am a ( working and volunteering ) member of PNC3.

Peter

If there is anything I can do to help (i.e. help Scott with learning new tricks, code snippets, etc.) just let me know.
Don

Don,

Thank you for your feedback! As usual, your comments were thorough and hit the mark. There is much work to do and I may contact you via email for further discussion on the technical side. I've been a software engineer and PNC collector for more than 30 years, so I'm excited at the prospect of merging the two together.


Peter,

Thank you for your questions!

1. I will be changing the webmaster name on the website shortly. I have not backed up the existing site yet or had the time to familiarize myself fully with the structure and content.
2. The question was posted here as I respect the opinions of the PNC3 members here like you and others like Don. I'm sure that an announcement will be forthcoming in the December edition of the CoilLine.


Al,

Thanks for your comments! Email sent.

It would be great if you can make the pnc3.org website easier to locate information - but please don't go overboard with the redesign like Don did with stamp smarter site. I find his current site unusable.

I am unsure what you find unusable, please elaborate. What do you mean by 'overboard'?

I do not think that usability has been an issue given the growth that the site; traffic has grown to 10,000 visitors and 100,000 page views per month.

APS said that "Stamp Smarter is inviting, easy to navigate, and filled with educational content from corner to corner."
Don

Just goes to show that you can not please everyone (even on a free info site)....WOW!

Don....GREAT WORK!!

I think a balanced critique can be informative and helpful,
but sentences like that, I feel, are just a cheap shot, and hurtful.
Defies my understanding.