Websites by David Sharpe

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1 The 5 Best Practices for Websites by David Sharpe Successful Church & School Developing a website can be a daunting task. The huge amount of information available online can quickly become overwhelming, and it's easy to get bogged down in technical details that have little to do with a successful site. Fortunately, creating a site that attracts visitors and brings them to your church or school does not depend on learning HTML, PHP, web server maintenance, or any of the other intimidating technical details. (Services like AdventistChurchConnect.org exist to do all of that for you.) The success of your site depends on just five best practices. Four of them can be implemented by nearly anyone who is willing to put some time and thought into the effort, and Good News Advocates can help you with the fifth. 1. Focus On Your Visitors One of the most common problems I see with business websites is the tendency to focus on the company rather than the customer. XYZ, Inc. has been in business for 127 years, and is the thought leader in left-handed widgets... and so on. Unfortunately, it's also a common problem for church and school websites. - As you develop your site, be sure that all of your keywords and content are geared toward the way your visitors are thinking when they search online: - What are they looking for? What words did they use in the search engine to find you? - What needs are you supplying? What solutions are you offering? - How can you help them in the most efficient way? - Is it easy for them to learn more, find your facility, contact a real person, etc? 2. Be Consistent Your site needs to be consistent within itself. Look at your site from a big picture perspective: - Look for a smooth, logical flow that connects pages and messages to each other and to the rest of the site. - Is the voice the same across all pages? - Is the look and feel the same on all pages? - Is the information consistent on each page? If the homepage says that church starts at 11:00 am, does another page say 11:15? 3. Be Clear Each page should have user-friendly flow that is clear and easy to follow. Answer these questions from the visitor's perspective: - Where am I (on the website)? - Who are you? - What do you offer? - How does it help me? - How do I navigate the site? - Where do I go next? - How do I learn more? - Is the information accurate/current? 4. Remember That Conversion Has More Than One Meaning Online marketers use conversion rates to measure how many visitors are persuaded to sign up for a newsletter, make contact by or phone, make a purchase, etc. Your website has a slightly different purpose, but you still want people to do something when they visit your site. Here's how to get them to take that action be sure that every page has: - A clear promise or message - A presentation of benefits, not just features

2 - Proof and credibility that supports the message on that page - A clear call to action which can be unique to each page, but must be consistent (see #5) - Links for easy access to other pages on the site. 5. Think Competitively Show how your church or school offers the best solution available. Demonstrate that you are unique, and provide value that other churches or schools do not offer. In addition to showing how you are unique, your site should play by search engines' rules. This includes using keywords that help seekers find your site first in the search engines. Looking at your site from a search engine's perspective is a specialized process, and you may want to get some help to ensure that it's being done properly. A Website That Works It may seem a bit simplistic, but let someone else deal with the technical issues; if you focus on these five concepts, your site will look better and be more effective than others in your local area. 6 Questions to Ask When Editing Website Content Perfecting website content is often one of the hardest parts of overhauling or totally remaking a site. It feels good when you ve developed a website structure you re excited about and have written plenty of words for each page. But are they the right words that will appeal to your website visitors and convey what you d like? That can be a tough question to answer. Fret not, woeful writer of web content (yeah, that s you). Here are a few question you can ask yourself to help polish up that website content. 1) Can I Cut This? Instead of approaching everything from the standpoint of do I need this? try reframing your thinking to favor cutting out anything that s not essential. If you think in terms of do I need this? the answer will often be a resounding affirmative. But if you instead focus on removal of any unessential information, you ll be left with only the best. Every additional piece of information you include demands some amount of attention. Make sure you re not risking something extraneous distracting from what s essential. 2) Can I Break This Section Up? Whenever possible, break pages into sections. Break sections into paragraphs. Break paragraphs into sentences separated by explanatory headings and subheadings. Strive to use headings wherever you can reasonably do so. You and the most cooperative of your colleagues may read your content in full. Most readers will skim at most. Keep sections short and make sure everything in each section matches the corresponding heading. 3) Can I Create a List? Skimmers love lists. They re easy to read and make content readily digestible. If your list has a specific order or quantity to it, use a numbered list. If it doesn t, go with a bulleted list. Doing so will help make your content easier to scan and force you to use a certain amount of brevity. 4) Will Everyone Know This Word? If you use any words that require you to ponder whether someone outside of your industry will know it, change the word right away. Chances are high you re using jargon without even being aware of it. We do this everyday, especially when explaining what it

3 is we do for a living. People are not going to look up words they don t know. They re either going to guess what it means or leave. It can be helpful to have an outsider read your content at this point. Pick someone honest enough to tell you words they don t know or sections that are confusing. And remind them you re looking for their honesty. It doesn t do you any good if they tell you your content is perfect (outside of that short term ego boost from being crowned the unofficial poet laureate of the web world). A little critical feedback can be the difference between entirely mediocre and very strong website content. 5) Will Search Engines Know What This Page Is About? Search engines aren t great at reading between the lines. They crawl throughout your pages, looking for information to tip them off as to what the page is about. Make it easy on them by using keywords repeatedly throughout your page content. Think of what someone would type into Google to find your page and use that phrase a few times. As a general rule, try to use your keyword phrases at least three times on the page. Not only is it better for search, it s also better for your readers. Some of them may not read between the lines all that well either. 6) Does This Sound Like I m Talking? We write in bizarre ways. We often use long sentences with complex structure and shiny words to showcase our smarts. Such tactics are great in a term paper. They re far less effective when it comes to web copy. Read all of your content, slowly and aloud. If you re worried about the judgment of others (as I often am at this point in the process), go somewhere private. This is an incredibly valuable step in the editing process and is worth doing right. See if your content sounds natural. It should sound just like you re talking to someone. Keep it conversational. Use simple sentences that are easy to understand without the help of inflection or further explanation. You know what you mean. But you need to make sure your visitors will as well. And don t worry you can still be professional while making your content accessible. There s a time and a place for formality. Web content is generally not such an occasion. If you re trying to establish a connection with your visitors, being overly formal likely isn t the best route to take. Ultimately Do What Feels Right Ultimately, the goal of your website content is to genuinely convey your organization and help you connect with visitors in some way. Write honest copy and do what feels right to you. Do you find you prefer a certain type of web copy? Or care to share your experience with writing your own web copy? Think we left out any other essential questions? We d love to hear from you in the comments below.

4 Website Navigation Best Practices: Navigation Design Guidelines Poor navigation makes us think. Better navigation makes us think less. Great navigation is so obvious we don't have to think at all. This is such an important concept that Web usability author, Steve Krug, titled his book, Don't Make Me Think. That is the bottom line answer to every question about website navigation. Don't leave your website visitors wondering what to do next. Don't make it hard. Don't give a lot of choices. Just how much don't we want to think? If someone who's been living in a cave since the Web took off, gets online and figures out what a site is all about, that is just about the right amount of thinking. If Grandma, who thinks a mouse is something cats chase, can go online and figure out what a site is all about, without help, that's about right. Those may be silly examples, but worrying about PageRank and not worrying about usability, is a waste of time, effort and finances. Yes, get visitors to the site, but don't let them sit staring at the page, trying to figure out what to do next, or where to go, or how to find what they're looking for. If the back button to the search results is the only thing that's easy to find and use on the page, guess what. That's the button that will be used. Today, in about ten minutes on the Web, I came across two common examples of poor navigation: a link on the site of a major software company that goes like this: Main navigation link: goes to PRODUCTS -> Sub link: goes to CopyDesk -> Sub link: goes to "undefined" And what do you know, "undefined" doesn't link to anything. on the site of a national printing company: three links to "business cards" in three different navigation bars all on the same page. Only after waiting for all three to load do we learn that they all go to the same place: an order form. None of the three offers more information. The solution. Solutions to navigation problems are not always easy. Large, complex sites may have no choice but to offer multiple navigation. Sites with lots of pages and lots of links may need additional work to address these challenges. And then there's all the juggling to include search engine optimization. Some compromises may have to be made. Yet, keeping the user in mind, limiting and clarifying choices and eliminating confusion whenever possible, not only makes for happier site visitors, it offers the bonus of also helping search engines. Navigation that makes us think: Multiple navigation with duplicate or conflicting links. Vague links or links that don't go anywhere. No navigation on page, forcing use of back button to get out. Not linking directly to the item named. Active links to the current page. Current page is not indicated. Navigation that reflects the company's structure rather than division or classification meaningful to content and user goals.

5 Navigation that doesn't make us think: All pages have at least basic site navigation. The navigation indicates the current page. Meaning of link text is clear and each is unique. All links go somewhere specific and unique. Categories related to product or service offered, not company organization. Repetitive links, if absolutely necessary, are clearly indicated as repetitive. Content Management Systems Pro s and Con s Advantages of a CMS Content editing is kept separate from design and functionality of the site; A typical CMS allows non-technically trained users to add, format, and edit content on a website, without disrupting its design and coding. Each user can be assigned selective access permissions based on their roles (for example, you may choose to allow some users to only add and edit their own content, while giving others universal access). Content can be updated rapidly; turnaround time for your site updates is generally much faster using a CMS. Basic site components such as menus, headers, footers, and sidebars are easy to quickly update through the administrative interface. A CMS is SEO-friendly they have evolved to include custom page titles and metadata, and adjustable URLs; and helper plugins are available as well (like automated xml site map submits). Depending on the level of customization required to a theme, you could have a CMS-based site up and running in no time. The basic CMS framework is free (of course, quantity and quality of content and customizations may add cost). Drawbacks of a CMS Unfortunately, there are some malevolent hackers out there who can figure out how to break into these platforms; so security will require extra precautions. Making your website look exactly how you want can be more of a challenge. This is true of some CMS frameworks more than others, but all present a bit more work to style. The CMS stores everything separately, then assembles it on the fly when the web client requests a page, which means they can be slow; however, this can be mitigated by using strong, effective caching and Content Network Distribution (CDN) systems. Functionality limitations: There are a few things you cannot do in a CMS, at least not without rewriting all the code. These are generally things the average website owner won t care about, but if you have special functionality needs please do a little extra research. Not everyone wants to see their data in a database. Outside the CMS administration, it can be a chore to edit database content; however, this is rarely a legitimate issue, as databases are scalable, generally faster, and space efficient.

6 References and Catholic technology blogs for reference Catholic Tech Talk o Catholic Web Solutions o Linkedin Group Association of Catholics exploring Social Media o _ug_hm