The District of Vanderhoof launched its new website this month, and Mayor Gerry Thiessen says he’s very excited about the feedback they’ve been getting.
The revamped site, www.vanderhoof.ca, features images of beautiful natural scenes from the area, and showcases some of the many businesses and recreational opportunities in Vanderhoof.
It also provides information for visitors, residents and businesses, as well as having a tab that offers links to public municipal documents and general information.
“I think it really showed during the election that people really wanted to have better quality information, and very interactive and easy to get at. So we’ve been working on this for well over a year,” says Thiessen.
The site also has a ‘feedback’ section, for users to provide their input to help improve the offering.
“As we go on and new things become available, we’ll be able to tweak this format and add more quality and things to it,” explains the mayor.
The new website is just one part of a three-part rebranding project the district has spearheaded. The district has already focused on whether to create a new logo for Vanderhoof, with feedback received leading mayor and council to choose to keep Vanderhoof’s goose logo.
“A lot of attention was paid to the logo … I think we’ve realized that a lot of things of the goose is who we are and who we’re identified with,” says Thiessen, who said the logo will be modernized slightly, but overall the concept will remain.
The third aspect the district will be focusing on is how to market the community to newcomers – both tourists and those hoping to relocate to the north.
Thiessen says the new website will help with that initiative, with its ‘A Day In Vanderhoof’ section, which offers sample itineraries to showcase the best of the region for a variety of interests.
“We had some students into our home the other day for dinner who were here on a shadowing experience. They said, ‘I have tomorrow, what is there I could do that would show me what Vanderhoof is about?’ And so I can name those off. [These ideas] should be more readily available, and I hope this website does that,” says Thiessen.
Thiessen says the feedback received during this rebranding process has been valuable.
“We are trying to see who we really are and I think it’s a good idea every so often to really question yourself and say, ‘Who are we? Does this really say who we see ourselves being?’ And go from there. We had gone a long time without doing that, and so this has been a major job.”
Feedback can be provided on the new website at https://freshincmarketing.wufoo.com/forms/vanderhoof-website-feedback/.
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