UBCM Community Excellence Awards – Best Practices, Website
The Village of Midway: Come to Play, Plan to Stay
Project Summary
The Village of Midway is a small municipality of 620 residents. The Village website was redesigned in 2007. Since that time it has been under the complete control of office staff using Adobe Dreamweaver. Staff is able to upload new pictures, update content, and ensure all pages and links are working properly. The website is primarily used to update residents on Council meetings and decisions through the upload of council minutes and newsletters. Visitors can access information on Midway and the area including accommodation contacts and places of interest. Staff recently added a ticker to the website to track site visits and have been pleasantly surprised by the amount of traffic to the site in a short amount of time.
Content, Control and Consistency
The website and domain name are owned by the Village of Midway. Dreamweaver, a website design program by Adobe, allows staff to easily update the website on an as-needed basis. Newsletters and Council meeting minutes are uploaded after each Council meeting making them readily available to the public.
The website targets local residents by providing them with event dates, contact information for local businesses, bylaws, area attractions, local history and the aforementioned newsletters and council minutes. Visitors and prospective residents are directed to the website by staff to find out more information about visiting or moving to Midway.
Contact information for staff and Council is readily available.
Promotion of local government and Midway history
A welcome message from the Mayor of Midway, Randy Kappes, greets visitors to the website. After this initial greeting, which ends with Midway’s slogan “Come to Play, Plan to Stay”, visitors can easily navigate their way around the website to learn more about the Municipality. Bylaws are available in PDF format making it easy for visitors, staff and council to quickly locate bylaws from any computer at any time.
A history of Midway is also prominent on the website. It is important to keep this history alive and the website is a great way to ensure it is publically accessible. History buffs, students and anyone else will find the information they are looking for on the website. In the world of online research, the Village of Midway website is a great resource.
Appearance & Navigation
Scenic photos of Midway appear throughout the website highlighting the beauty of the area. Also included are photos of local attractions and annual events. The website was designed to be user-friendly, which is evident in the clearly marked navigation. Staff also ensures that all links to outside website and PDF documents open in a new page. This ensures that the Village of Midway website remains open until the visitor chooses to close it – no more hitting the back button to return to the website.
Accessibility
The website was designed so it could be accessible to everyone. The simple design structure means users do not have to permit plug-ins or add-ons, which means the page loads quickly. A quick search for Midway, BC in Google results in our website at the top of the list.
Future
The future of the Village of Midway website will include updated photos and the possibility of incorporating a comment section where visitors can ask questions or make comments.
The Village of Midway continues to include the website address in all correspondence including letterhead and email. The website address is used in all internal and external advertising and we encourage our partners to participate in link exchanges.
Conclusion
The Village of Midway recognizes the importance of having an online presence and is committed to providing timely information on the Municipal website. Staff will continue to update the website on a regular basis so residents and visitors receive the most current information.