Last Wednesday evening when Internet surfers logged onto The Advance’s Web site, they may have thought they had mistyped the address.

As many found out later after navigating the site or via the paper’s Facebook page, there was no mistake, The Advance’s Web site had undergone a complete makeover. It was a day that the staff had been anticipating for months and one that will enable us to better serve you, our readers, as we continue to expand our Internet presence.

The new site launched just before the close of business on May 5 and has been not only a surprise to online readers, but also a well-received change based on the feedback received. The new site was designed to allow the staff to quickly update stories and do so more often. Its design is also one that is easier for readers to navigate.

For weeks leading up to the new site, The Advance updated the Web more often and utilized its social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to quickly relay both local and statewide news to our readers as it came available. With the advances of the new site, it will allow our staff to continue to give you even more up-to-date news in a matter of minutes.

Some of the new bells and whistles added to the redesigned site include the ability for readers to search for news stories by town, sports stories by school or league, an interactive calendar that also generates a map to the event location, many new design features and many more to be added in the weeks to come as tweaking continues and reader feedback is received.

In addition to the new features, the site allows our staff to update it from anywhere. No matter if it’s at our office, at home or during a meeting, the site enables us to update with one click of the mouse from any computer. The changes are then available to our readers virtually instantaneous unlike the old site.

One of many changes we plan with the new site are updating obituaries as we receive them in order to help family get the word out and the opportunity for friends to offer their sympathy by posting messages of condolence. From time to time, obituaries run after services are held because The Advance’s printed edition only publishes twice a week. By offering this service, we hope that it will allow for easier planning during such a difficult time.

With that said, news will also be updated regularly including the site’s calendar to make residents well aware of what’s happening in Atmore and the surrounding communities. So we encourage everyone to add our Web site link to your browser toolbar if it is not already and visit us morning, noon and night to get the latest news.

So as you can see, the new site is exciting to us and we hope it is to you as well. After all, we are here to better serve our customers and believe the new site will allow us to do so.

We welcome feedback, and have already acted on some suggestions from our readers. So if you have not already, pick up your mouse and log onto www.atmoreadvance.com

Adam Prestridge is publisher of the Atmore Advance. He can be reached at 368-2123.