New Year, New Website

I have a lot of conversations with businesses every day: brick and mortar, start-ups, retail, F&B, manufacturing, high-tech, human services, non-profit – the list goes on. And what is amazing is that I can identify an area of the Longmont Chamber that works for all of them. One of the most obvious, and yet commonly taken for granted, is the business member listing on our chamber’s website. I don’t want to dig too deeply into the SEO details, but the basic algorithm is that the more saturation your brand and business have online, the more online validity you gain. And when third party sites (such as the Longont Area Chamber of Commerce page, social media, newspaper articles, reviews, etc) link back to you, the SEO just compounds in your favor.

This online influence is also why I can say with confidence that your chamber membership, regardless of your business, is working for you 24/7, 365 days a year. The Longmont Chamber website was visited over 3000 times last December alone. We believe that with our new look and feel, we will be making a more positive impression for those visitors and our members using the website. You can also track through your membership page the number of times you appeared in a visitors search. We want you to be able to track the benefit of your investment in the Longmont Chamber.

Many of our members may recall the focus groups we conducted this time last year. We want feedback, constructive criticism, and suggestions from businesses. We are still working on the many items and areas for improvement we gleaned from our member businesses during our focus groups. This update to the website and improvement to the other modes of our communication is all in an effort to improve our message, member engagement, and visibility in the community.

You’ll notice that we are simplifying how we describe what we do as an organization. “We Speak Longmont”, actually came out of our working October 2018 Board Retreat and represents our work day in and day out. We represent our businesses at the regional and state level in public policy, we know who businesses should connect with when they need certain resources, and we can make referrals to businesses for requested services. We speak Longmont. And with 130+ years under our belt, a strong set of core values, and a fresh new identity, we are making Longmont look, and sound, good.