Top tips for a visitor-friendly website

You don’t need to be an expert or start afresh to make your website more visitor friendly. This page suggests simple adjustments to help people find the information they need before visiting your museum.  

Every museum website should have the following visitor information. We recommend having a ‘Visit Us’ page so that this visitor information can be easily found, as well as having opening hours and admission charge clearly stated on the website homepage. 

• Opening hours. Make it clear if there are seasonal closures and when the museum will reopen 
• Admission charge or be clear it is free. Include any concessions/memberships/discounts information 
• Location address, including postcode 
• An access guide for the venue. Check how you are currently scoring with the VocalEyes benchmark tool, which lists how each museum and heritage venue scored for their online access information.
• What’s on information/ events. Keep this up to date 
• Facilities. Include accessible facilities such as a Changing Place toilet. 
• Travel information. If possible, list public transport and active travel options first, including any bike parking, then driving and car parking information. This helps prioritise sustainable travel to your venue. 
• Contact information, include a phone number as well as email address 

As well as having easy to find and up to date visitor information your website should be accessible and appealing to a range of visitors. Some things to consider are: 

• Website accessibility. The Heritage Access Report by VocalEyes and partners includes lots of information about how to increase online accessibility, as well as the access information your website should have. 
• Images are key to a website. Make visitors feel welcome to your museum by using images of people in the museum. Try and have images of a range of ages, ethnicities, and genders undertaking different activities in your museum. This helps visitors feel represented and welcome in your museum. Remember to use alt-text with images so that they’re accessible to everyone. 
• Content. Keep content clear and concise and don’t overload people with information. Remember that many website users are likely to be looking at your website on their phone or tablet, so content needs to be suitable for these devices. Find out what visitors want in this blog from Pat Hadley. 
• Make simple technical improvements with 10 top tips from AIM.