About the New Look

You may have noticed that pasbdc.org looks a little different these days. You’re not imagining things: In order to better serve you, we’ve completely revamped, reorganized, and recoded the Pennsylvania SBDC website to make it a more useful resource for small businesses and our partners.

We’re hoping the new structure will offer a quicker, more user-friendly way for you to find the information you need. Content-wise, you’ll now find the following:

• The top bar navigation contains general, most-requested information about the Pennsylvania SBDC:
  • An overview of our consulting services;
  • A rich selection of resources for small business clients and potential clients including online tutorials, workshops, and helpful links;
  • News, press coverage and success stories from the regional SBDCs and the statewide network;
  • The results of our work: number of new businesses, jobs created, and sales figures, for instance.
• In the sidebar on the homepage, information is now segmented in “portals” that offer topic-specific services and resources – one-stop shops for information. These allow you to skip over information that isn’t relevant to you and go straight to what is. For example, if you’re looking for more information about exporting, you probably don’t need to wade through information about the ins and outs of starting a business first.
• We’ve added Quicklinks boxes to nearly every page, so that you can jump directly to the resources you need, whether that be a tutorial or workshop with more technical information, links to guides or statistics, or a downloadable brochure.
• The bottom navigation contains organizational information about the Pennsylvania SBDC:
  • Our history and frequently asked questions about our program;
  • Our partners and how we’re funded;
  • How to navigate the website.
• The homepage also regularly features snapshot information about the network:
  • Upcoming SBDC workshops;
  • Environmental alerts;
  • Our latest newsletter;
  • Featured client success story;
  • New small business studies.

We’ve also added features on the technical side. On every page, there’s a handy zipcode-lookup feature (lower left corner) to help you locate your local SBDC and a Google search box (upper right corner) to help you find information fast.

Then there are the parts you can’t see. The new site is optimized to make it easier for people coming from search engines like Google to find us. We’ve also taken great care to ensure that we’re adhering to accessibility guidelines set forth by the W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative and US Section 508.

As newer browsers are more standards-compliant, we recommend that you visit our site with a current browser, such as:

• Firefox (multiple platforms),
• Safari (Mac),
• or Internet Explorer 8 (Windows).

One last thing: This is all being done in-house to keep dollars directed to client services, so it's possible we've missed something. Should you come across a bug or have a suggestion for us, please email webmaster@pasbdc.org to advise. Have more suggestions for improving the site? Let us know – we need your help in making pasbdc.org as informative and helpful as possible.

Thank you and enjoy!