Know-How Exchange : Website Critique

A lot of the writing seems to be about teachers...rather than for teachers. It seems directed at a general audience, not the teachers that (I'm assuming) will be reading it. You might engage teachers more in a "conversation" type of approach.

What is the goal? What does success look like for you? How will you know if the website is "improved?"

A few quick impressions:
- It appears that this organization is for teachers in England. If that's the case, make that explicit.
- It's not clear why someone would want/need to join your organization.
- How is your organization better/different from other teacher organizations?

I agree with above. You list some features (even this is limited), but the folks who would join will want to know the benefit to them. Just saying that they are part of a group and have access to some unknown materials isn't really good enough for many. They want to know that spending 45 pounds a year (presumably out of their pocket - that their school would not pay for them) will give them value - so tell them what that value is. Preferably quickly, right at the top of the home page (don't make them dig to find the value to them).

Might be good to get some current members to provide testimonials of the value they found from being a member. Something that your site did/provided that allowed them to be better teachers. This is one way to show value.

Some may want to review info available. To provide for these folks, you may want to offer a free 90 day trial or to see a prior copy of the magazine you publish or similar. In exchange, you capture information about them, including their contact info so you can contact them in the future to promote your organization to them should they not become a member directly off of the trial.

Now, it looks like you guys are so new you don't have a lot of content yet, nor likely a lot of members who have found value. Until you build in the content, it will be an awfully hard sale. The way around this is to build the content as fast as possible. And perhaps to offer first year, introductory memberships at a large discount.

A random minor nit - Does seem to be single country focused - might be good to make it clear what country that is.

You have a lot of wasted space above the fold.

Coming to your site blind I have no idea what the site is about. "Connecting the teaching profession(.)
A new professional body for teachers(.)" tells me nothing. Connecting the teaching profession to what?

The video with the woman in blue as a screen shot tells me nothing. Who is Alison Peacock? I have no clue. Its title: "Join the Chartered College of Teaching and shape the future of the teaching profession" needs more punch. How will my membership of this group achieve this goal?

It's not enough to expect people to know who is who and what's what: you just tell them.

Halfway down the page (please, don't bury this kind of information), you've got this: "An independent chartered organisation for the teaching profession."

OK. now we're getting somewhere. Independent from what? Chartered by whom?

Then we have this:

Creating a knowledge-based community to share excellent practice.
A collective voice for the teaching profession.
Enabling teachers to connect with rigorous research and evidence.

Again, now we're making headway ... BUT:

Statement 1 needs to read something along the lines of:

Offering members a knowledge-based community in which to share examples of best-practice.
(with this kind of wording, you're offering a benefit and reasons to join).

Statement 3 needs to read something along the lines of:

Connecting teachers with the latest educational research from around the world.

When you talk about "Enabling teachers to ..." you're using vague, wooly, filler.

And lest my esteemed colleagues in the UK dismiss this opinion as being "too American", I'm a Brit on a mission to cut through vague filler.

Please, please, PLEASE move your newsletter sign-up to the TOP of your page. With it buried at the bottom of the page it loses all visibility and effect.