Online overhaul for FPA
Advertising, an online-shop, and a members’ forum are among numerous enhancements proposed by the Financial Planning Association (FPA) in a major ongoing upgrade of its “fairly elderly” website.
The FPA will go live with a new website design on Monday (March 13), representing the completion of the first stage of a three-stage redevelopment.
As part of the later stages of the revamp, the FPA has also considered allowing external parties to advertise on the website, but a spokesperson said this was not a definite yet.
According to corporate communications manager Susan Grice, the first phase focused on a “completely new” site design, as well as updated and refreshed content in the context of a new site map.
“Unfortunately, the existing site is fairly elderly and showing its age, and is not very intuitive when users set about trying to navigate it,” she said.
An online-shop, a members’ forum, as well as both an online member subscriptions and events registration facility, are proposed for the next few development phases.
Grice said the online shop would be a facility for “buying professional resources, whether that be a CPD course, business tools or conference registrations, or such things as bulk copies of brochures and survey reports”.
“The member forum will operate as a tool for better communication and an exchange of ideas between members, potentially providing for a lively site.”
Other facilities mooted for the longer term include a better survey and online research facility and a job search facility.
Grice said the first development phase will not require additional staff resourcing, despite the FPA aiming to keep the site updated more frequently than at present.
However, a “consideration of the resource requirements will be implicit in our decisions about priorities for the next development stages”, she added.
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