We are always asking for feedback about our site in order to make this whole positive web thing as good an experience for you as it is for us. Without question, the one response we get more than any other is "there's so much there, I had no idea so much good stuff is going on in our city." They're right-- there a ton of good people, places, and things in the community, so it's only natural for the site to be chock full of all Good.
There's so much stuff that, to consume a bit of everything-- articles, videos, photos, blogs, events, and everything else would mean you'd have to come back to the site every day.
So we offer you 5 of the 10 reasons to make ValpoLife part of your every day LIFE. (we were going to make this a Top 10 list, but again, we get back to that "too much of a good thing" dilemma)
Coupons
We've collected a boatload of coupons on our site available to you at any time - well over 100 and climbing most every day. They're easy to print out if you want just one or if you want a sheet of 10 to throw into your purse or the car. Going to Kelsey's Steakhouse? Why not save five bucks and print out a coupon?
Going shopping for the day? Why not print out a bunch so that you can stop and grab some coffee at Blackbird and go to the north side of town and swing by Blythe's or Cartronix, then stop at the cleaners, maybe get your car serviced at Brown Tire, then head to the south side of town, grab a pizza at Verona Pizza and get your teeth whitened at Smiles by Arnold, or swing by some downtown shops like Air One Custom Photography, Framing Concepts, or Silcotts?
They're all local merchants, so when you're using the coupons, you're supporting a local company. They're FREE to all the companies to offer and you can even find them around town at many places where they're offered. When you go shopping, use the coupons and tell those companies you support ValpoLife and they should too. It's crazy easy, a great way to save money, and you can support local business.
Photos
Tens of thousands of photos are available on our site for viewing and purchasing. It's not like we cover just sports games and meets, or just parades, or just concerts, or "just" anything. We try to cover everything good. They're available in galleries sorted by sports, community, entertainment, and health, and each of those categories are deep and filled with some great shots of people doing good things.
You can purchase each and every one as prints from wallets to posters to mousepads to t-shirts, all at very reasonable prices. You can go to our SmugMug Photo Page and search through our hundreds of galleries by keyword, look through by galleries, check out most popular photos.
Videos
Where else in Northwest Indiana can you find so many videos about things going on around town? No other place is remotely close.
In about a year and a half, we've produced or posted, oh, about 400 videos about good things going on in the community. 400? Yes, 400. There's no way you could watch all those videos in one sitting, right? Right.
Lucky for you, we've made it easy to find what you're looking for. You can sort by Video Section, do a ValpoLife search (more on that in a second), or just go to the Video page and start with the most recent ones.
Maybe you don't have anything specific you want to see but you know you just want to see something good? Check out a random video! Our tech wizard Kyle made up a little tool that puts you one click away from any random video. It could be an older one like our inaugural introductory video (look how young and well rested we looked!) or it could be a recent one like the 2010 Porter County Fair video. We've also made it easy- take a look at our YouTube channel next time you're surfing YouTube. Again, it's cool to see there's a lot of good stuff going on in town no matter what the TV, Radio, or Newspaper says.
400 videos. All about Valpo. You are likely in one of them.
Search
One of the most powerful but underutilized areas on the site would have to be ValpoLife search. We've done a lot to make it as easy and comprehensive as possible. If you know what you're looking for, we want you to be able to quickly and easily get there. Even if you don't know what you're looking for but know of something that interests you, give it a shot!
- VHS? 94 results
- Concert? 77 results
- Food? 109 results
- Fundraiser? 57 results
You can also use ValpoLife Search as home page by using Google search. Check it out - I bet you'll find way more than you think.
Event calendar
The Event Calendars on ValpoLife.com tend to be the one area where people say "Wow" the most often. We're constantly adding to a growing number of events, registrations, classes, etc. on the calendars. Most people know that we have the main Event Calendar on the main page, but you can also drill down to Business, Sports, Health, Entertainment, and Community and find specific events for whatever your particular interest is.
Do you have any events going on that aren't in the calendar? Send us an email and let us know or just sign in as a member and post them whenever you would like! We want you to give us input on events and things going on in the community. The more good stuff we have in our calendars, the more our readers can plan what to do with their friends and family. And for parents, well, it's a perfect way to show the kids that yes indeed, there is something fun to do in Valpo.
Those 5 Reasons should keep you busy for a while. Let us know what questions you have as we know we are always closer to this and it all makes more sense to us because we see it every day. If we can make something easier to find, add a story on something we are not covering, or you want to share something as a contributor to the site, just shout. We like people who help us through Shout Outs via email, on Facebook, Twitter, and in person at the soccer game. Thanks for giving us so many good things to share!