Front Page of the Empire Township Museum Website
Case Study for Empire Township Historical Museum
The Empire Township Historical Museum, in LeRoy, IL, was looking to redesign their website which had only their basic info. With the new site they were looking for something with a more eye catching design that they could easily update and add info to the site themselves. They also needed something that would help with getting more audience participation with the site and the group as a whole.
I used WordPress, with it being one of the easiest for non-techs to be able to go in and work on the site, they are able to easily add and update the pages and posts themselves. I created the design from scratch, not using a theme, so they would have something different and unique from their previous version and differently from anything on the market.
To help encourage people to comment on the stories on the site the guests can log in using their Facebook (which is heavily used in the area) or their Google accounts, saving them from having to create a new account on the site and remembering yet another password.
The museum loves when people contribute photos and stories to them. To help the guests to share their stories and be a part of the site I put in two contributor areas where people can upload photos with a small write up. The other they can create their own post with photos to the site, that will show up on the site. With both of these methods one of the moderators for the site have to approve them before they are displayed on the site.
To help save time and get more exposure for the site all the posts get automatically sent to facebook. This will show the feature photo along with a text excerpt where the audience clicks the link that takes them to the website so they can read the rest, helping also with their SEO.
As somebody reads through a post and gets to the bottom they are shown 3 other stories to help keep the reader to the site, improving the page views and lower the bounce rate for the site.
The Empire Township Historical Museum has several great items for sale at their museum, created a gift shop e-commerce area that shows off the products and allows those in the continental United States to purchase items from the site.
Site: empiretownshipmuseum.com
Maintained by the client.
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The Archives/News page. Includes the 3 newest items from the front page, in case people land on this page first.
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The contribute section of the site to help promote sharing of personal history of Empire Township.
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Gift Shop for the Empire Township Museum.
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A post page of the Empire Township Museum Website, with a gallery at the bottom.
