Join the Growing Crowd on West Des Moines Patch: Upload Photos, Events, News and More

• Take photos. Patch has launched a new community gallery, where you can post your own photography. Have a cool photo of something you spotted around town? Share it with us.

• Shoot videos. The community gallery is not just for photos — send clips of anything around town you think is newsworthy. If you also give us a heads up via email that you're uploading a video, we can feature it prominently on the homepage. Add those to the community gallery, too.

• Add to the events calendar. Have an event you want to make the community aware of? Don't be shy. Post it in our events calendar for all to see. It's free!

• Post a classified ad. Is your company looking to hire a new employee? Do you have something you're hoping to sell? Post an ad in West Des Moines Patch's classifieds and increase your chances of getting a response. Just like our events calendar, classified listings are free!

What’s Up With All Those Links?

You’ll notice that businesses and places are routinely linked in Patch articles. We’re sending you to our Directory.

To find a listing in the directory just type the name into the search field. If you don’t find it, send me an email. Listings are free and we try to have one for every business in town.

You should "claim" your listing. (There's a button on the right side of the page that lets you do that.) It's free.

Once you claim your listing, there are all sorts of cool things you can do, including add photos, respond directly to reader reviews — good or bad (studies show that people disregard a bad review much more often if the business owner has responded to it), and invite your customers and fans to "follow" your listing, which means they'll get an email any time you post an event or announcement on West Des Moines Patch.

It's a really great way to reach more people in town.

One More Thing – Three, Actually

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