Icon viewers will notice several improvements to our home page today. But, please, pardon our mess – renovations are still underway.

Our continued enhancements to The Icon will make it easier for the nearly 1,000 viewers who check the Icon each weekday. (Some days its higher than 1,000). Ryan Lowry, our technical director, is putting these changes in place.

We’ve basically added an entire new page to the home page and the improvements aren’t entirely completed.

Here’s what’s new:
1 – One new advertising banner location joins the left side – due to the continual demand for ads.

2 – Our rotating display ad is enlarged and moved from the right to left side. Each of the display ads in the rotation is also found on the classified/display ad page. Later this week, each of the display ads will be printer friendly. Once on the classified/display ad page click on an ad. It will enlarge and you may print it if you wish – later this week.

3 – We’ve moved our banner ads originally on the bottom of the home page to the center. These will begin to rotate every seven seconds later this week.

4 – Our six banner ad spots on the right side of the home page will begin to rotate every seven seconds also later this week. We show six ads at a time on the right side of the home page. The right side includes over 20 advertisers. Viewers will find the entire grouping of right column ads on each of the inside pages (excluding the calendar and display/classified page.)

5 – Due to the popularity of our “History Lesson” we’ve enlarged the photo significantly. We’ve moves it to a more prominent location, below our center-of-page banner ads.

6 – Our calendar, story indexes, facebook connection and viewers’ comments are also grouped together. We believe this makes them easier to use in locating stories on inside pages.

7 – Our YouTube channel will return later this week. It will also be located near the story indexes.

8 – Not yet in place are something we call “buttons.” Viewers will soon see these on the left side near the bottom of the page. When clicked on, these buttons will take viewers to other features on The Icon.

9 – And, due to popular demand from advertisers, we will place a banner ad location on the top of the classified ad listings. With our classified page being the most popular page next to the home page, it is an attractive spot for an advertiser.

10 – Our “Ad Index,” which is an alphabetically listing of each of our advertisers, will soon include the advertiser’s phone number. The ad index also has each advertiser’s name linked to the advertiser’s website.

11 - Additional changes are in the works and viewers will notice these changes as we add them.