Evans City debuts redesigned municipal website
EVANS CITY — Recent visitors to the borough’s website were in for a surprise. The site has received a radical redesign which launched in early April.
Molly DiFiore, whose company spearheaded the redesign, was on hand at Monday night’s borough council meeting to report on the first month of service for the redesigned website.
“It’s amazing to see the transformation and how much more user-friendly and visually appealing the new site is,” DiFiore said. “Whether it's a brand-new startup, or a small business that's been around for years, I feel honored to be a part of their journey and help them succeed.”
The site is pulling in an increase in hits since its launch. Already, 482 unique users have been tracked as spending at least one minute on the site, with users registering 1,863 views on the city’s homepage, she said.
By contrast, DiFiore estimates that the previous site pulled “maybe three people a month.”
Statistics seem to indicate that most users are finding their own way to the site without being coerced by an advertisement of some kind, even though Evans City did post a link to it on its Facebook page on April 6. Of the 482 unique users, 90 came directly to the site (as in, through no other links or referrals) while 161 came from Google search.
“We’re not putting any paid advertisements on Facebook saying ‘come check out Evans City’s website,’” DiFiore said. “They’re coming to it directly, or they’re coming to it from a referral.”
DiFiore said the website attracted visitors from as far away as Ireland, Austria, China, Russia, Belarus, Brazil, and India. She has placed blocks which will prevent visits by users from China, Russia, Belarus, and Brazil.
Some visitors to the site see a pop-up survey asking them what they think of it. Of 288 who have seen it so far, 20 have responded, making for a response rate of 6.9%.
DiFiore said most of those who responded to the survey reacted positively to the site.
DiFiore is part of the committee that helps organize Evans City’s annual Pumpkinfest, the first of which took place last September.
