We’ve been working on the next evolution of aga.org for a while now. We actually soft launched the site at the end of August so we could finish testing, give AGA staff a chance to review their areas, and give a sneak peek to a few of our friends (think AGA committee volunteers.) We’ll update the domain record to point to our new servers Friday afternoon and the updated information will work its way through the Internet. By Friday evening you should all be able to see the new site. Here’s some of what you have to look forward to.
Speed.
You should notice pretty quickly that aga.org is faster. Google has actually added the speed of a website into it’s search rank algorithms. Faster sites receive a preferential ranking. Sites that perform slower than their expectation receive a ding the opposite way. Beyond that, we just wanted to make the site as fast as possible so you can move quickly through the site.
New interactive elements
We didn’t just change the look of aga.org, we moved the site to an entire new content management system. The new system give us much more flexibility so look for more video on aga.org. It’s also going to allow us to integrate our other web communities as they grow (think Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn.) We’re even going to be able to feature a realtime twitter feed from naturalgasflk.
A clean visual look.
As with most new site launches, we took a lot of care to give aga.org a clean, contemporary look. You’ll notice strong colors, bold imagery and clean crisp text. We’ve redesigned the site being sure to make the best use of white space so it’s easier to read the text on a page. We’re hoping you’ll spend more time browsing our site – there’s a wealth of information there and now it’s easier than ever to access.
We made some other changes to navigation on the site based upon our web analytics, and internal and external discussions, so we invite you to take some time and browse the new structure. The search engine is still a great way to find very specific information within the site. The search engine is featured prominently at the top of every page and does support advanced search features.
Logging in
One of the new features of aga.org is that there are certain functionalities and information that will be visible to members and registered users only. If you are an AGA member and visit the site and are not logged in, you will not see member only information. The member login area is featured prominently on the homepage and in the top right corner of every page. If you’re a member but have never registered on the site before, you’ll find a link you can use to create an account on the login page. And, if you are not a member – there’s still a ton of valuable information at your fingertips.
Getting help, providing feedback
We’re confident that launch will go smoothly. However, if there is some small hiccup, just use the help link in the top right of the site to send us information on the issue you’re having. We’ll have an internal team along with a team of developers that will address any issue as quickly as possible. By Monday, the new aga.org will be in full swing. You can also use that help link to give us your feedback on the changes to the site. We like positive feedback too 
