New Website, New Beginning for Palisades Chamber
Lightyear Marketing Group is proud to announce the launch of PalisadesChamber.com, the official website of the Pacific Palisades Chamber of Commerce. The previous site, built over 10 years ago was no longer able to meet the online needs of the Chamber membership. The new website was built from scratch with a completely custom WordPress design.
The entire development process was a collaborative effort between the Palisades Chamber leadership team and Lightyear Marketing Group.
The Chamber is now able to use PalisadesChamber.com as its primary communication tool. “I think the website is absolutely awesome” says Adam Glazer, President of the Palisades Chamber. “I would be willing to put our website up against any other chamber in the region. It does exactly what a chamber website should do in helping promote our local business and allows members and residents in the community to easily find information on our local businesses.” This new website marks a turning point in the Chamber’s ability to keep their members and the general public informed about Chamber happenings, public policy issues, and community affairs.
Information, Not Just Imagery
Currently, many new chamber websites have put an emphasis on pure aesthetics and use mostly large images on the home page with very little information. The Palisades Chamber leadership team decided to take a different path and asked for a site that looked new and fresh but still provided important information to the site visitor very quickly.
The new PalisadesChamber.com still greets the visitor with attractive imagery. However, the site provides a significant increase in functionality while maintaining a clean appearance and simple navigation. The site features an image slide show on the home page that is both aesthetic as well as informational. The Chamber uses the slider show to announce major upcoming events and occasionally news stories.
Feature Rich, Yet Simple to Navigate
The new homepage also features regularly-updated news articles, social media feeds, and prominent buttons to the most heavily-trafficked areas of the site. Visitors can see the site’s most important information right on the homepage or with a single click. There is no need to click through multiple sub-menus or scroll down infinite pages to get to what a visitor is looking for. “I had one member walk into the chamber office yesterday and she said the (new) website was absolutely awesome and that she loved how easy it was to use” said Glazer. “She loved that the information was easy to find and that she could access it on her computer or iPhone with complete ease.”
The new PalisadesChamber.com needed to have many features that are not typical of business websites, such as:
- A searchable member directory
- An event calendar that could accommodate Chamber events and community events
- An advertising module to allow Chamber member businesses to advertise on the site
- An image gallery with pictures of Chamber events
- A “Member Spotlight” area on the homepage that features a different Chamber member with every site visit.
The Future of PalisadesChamber.com Holds More
Adam and the Chamber leadership team are not content with leaving the site as an unchanging entity. One of the reasons they had the new site built with WordPress was so that the Chamber staff and leadership could easily keep the site updated. WordPress, the most common new website Content Management System (CMS) allows the Chamber staff to easily upload new articles, web pages, images, events etc. completely in-house without needed a website expert to make the changes.
Also, the site in its current form represents the completion of Phase One. Adam and the leadership team are also looking to add an online payment functionality. This would allow Chamber members to sign up for and pay events on the site itself, as well as pay for their memberships. Glazer adds “The sky is the limit with our new website and I absolutely love it.”
