Heal Your Church WebSite

Month: January 2004

  • Dedicated Server Security Tips for Newbies

    This post is dedicated to all of you running your church’s website in the choir robe closet, or who have been graced with a generous and geeky member who has taken advantage of one of those cheap, unmanaged dedicated server deals advertised at places like WebHostingTalk:

    Richy’s Random Ramblings: Techy: Handy Security Tips.

    As the author plainly states, “This list is not comprehensive, nor does [he] take any responsibility for any harm that may come to your server if you use any of these commands.” That said, I found this a very good “quick reference” for those of you thinking about running or leasing your own Linux/Apache server.

    Along with the tips found on Richy’s site, here are some other things to worry about, each with a link to some other helpful “Security for Newbies” type page:

    Now if this hasn’t scared you out of running your own server in the basement of your church or charity (and I’m hoping it does), then may suggest, no … I COMMAND YOU to go buy and then read “Hacking Linux Exposed” before you take the dive.

    How ’bout some of you other pros out there. I’m sure I’ve missed something. Leave a comment, add to the list.

  • What is the airspeed of an unladen swallow?

    Okay, I’ll admit it, I’ve always loved Monty Python. I recall back in the early 70’s my brothers and I sitting in the basement snickering as the local PBS station would air the hilarious ‘Flying Circus.’ What was equally amusing was the time my father came down stairs to see what all the laughter was about, watched a show with us for about five minutes, then left shaking his head and wondering what all the cackling was about.

    Then came the movie, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Oh my stinking goodness. There are of course several scenes I can quote from memory. One being that hilarious scene at the troll bridge where King Arthur turns the tables on the evil bridge keeper when the King of the Brits responds to the question “What … is the airspeed of an unladen swallow?” with “African or European?” The demise of the old troll is made all the more hilarious as just prior to this, Galahad is tossed into the abyss under the expanse when he’s unable to correctly answer the keeper’s question “What is your favorite color?”

    We all think this is funny because it’s so absurdly silly. I mean, this could never happen in real life, or could it? Imagine a situation where instead of having cheerful greeters meet you on Sunday morning, the doors of the church are guarded by deacons who will not let you pass until you answer four obvious questions. Pretty absurd and silly isn’t it?

    Yet that is exactly what we have happening at the website for Joyce Meyer Ministries. Here the user is confronted splash page that contains 31kb of images, 24kb of HTML and 21kb of JavaScript that requires you enter your settings/preferences before moving on to the rest of the site.

    Aside from abusing the bandwidth of dial-up users, this page will not index well with search engines because the indescript text is rendered as graphic … and a background graphic at that. Yes, it has meta-tags, but just as faith without works is dead, so too are meta-tags without related text in the body of the page.

    So how would I heal this para-church website? First, I’d consider whether or not using Flash buys me anything. For example, if I’ve got a clip of an interview, an interactive tutorial, or something else that can’t be simply rendered as easy to read and search text, then I would use Flash’s Auto Detection features to determine whether or not the user’s browser is equipped with the Macromedia plug-in.

    And while there are tools to determine the country of origin of the user, it may not necessary in this case. Instead, because the Spanish and English versions are different, why not buy a couple of international domains, such as joycemeyer.es and perhaps joycemayer.mx? This way, those visiting .org go to the English page, those using .es and .mx go to the page en Español. Both pages offer a way of getting to the other.

    With these technical issues aside, I would then kill-off the splash page. Offering user settings is not a bad thing, but its not compelling homepage content. Instead, just go to the page default ministries page that includes lots of text about offers, upcoming events and such so first time visitors know what the site offers, and search engines can better index the content.

    That and I’d fix some of the broken image problems by using mod_rewrite to automagically redirect references from litw.org to joycemeyer.org. Well, that and the entire ‘kitschy‘ TBN look-n-feel issue, but then again, I’m an Os Guinness type-o-guy.

  • The Perfect 404

    Fatigue, typing too fast, dyslexia, crumbs in the keyboard and bad handwriting are just some of the causes that come to mind that might put your users on the wrong end of a 404 page. I’ve even known a case or two where a typo or programming error on my part has caused a user to bump up against the often ubiquitous “This page cannot be found” error.

    In other words, mistakes happen, so anticipate them and give your users a graceful way of recovering from them.

    At least that’s what I’m preaching … and will practice once I get back in town on my beefy DSL line at home. Until then, I’d like to direct your attention to a thorough article on the topic by the good people at A List Apart entitled “The Perfect 404” (hat tip to Gadetopia)

    There they explain how and why it is important to not make your users feel like idiots. They also go onto explain some things you can do to help keep your users from wandering in the wilderness. Some of these points include:

    • A link to the site map (if you have one) and the home page.
    • A search box
    • A distinctly minimalist look

    Along with these excellent suggestions, I’d suggest showing the users what page they actually typed in. If it’s a typo, they’ll see it and correct it. If it isn’t, then provide them a means of forwarding that information to your church or charity’s webmaster.

    Why bother? Because users can get frustrated and leave when they don’t find what they want when they want it. Offering them some grace, along with a graceful recovery will go a long way to inviting and encouraging them to stay.

  • Seven deadly sins of web writing

    Not that we don’t have enough on our plate with planning, developing, implementing and maintaining our church websites, but we also need to take care that our content doesn’t make us sound like a bunch of know-nothing hicks. Think about it, if an individual is using the Internet to check out your church before they visit, then there’s a good bet they’re probably looking for something a bit more substantive than rambling pages of all bold, all red, all centered, flashing text screaming at you that the end is near.

    Which is why I’d like to bring to your attention a useful little article entitled the ‘Seven deadly sins of web writing‘ by Gerry McGovern; who writes:

    What’s the single most important thing that could improve the Web? It’s not broadband. It’s better writing. The general quality of writing on the Web is poor. The way you write has a major impact on what people think of you. Avoid these common mistakes and you will achieve more with your website.

    Can I hear an amen?

    As I’ve done with other such lists, here are some of the bullet points from the article, followed with my own explanation of how to avoid this on your church or charity website:

    1. I think I’m God. All too often I see church websites where the content is either all about the pastor or worse, is polluted with useless ‘geekery‘ that is between the lines, showing-off. The solution to this is to make sure you stay servant hearted. That is, all content is to convey the purpose and personality of your organization in a way that builds-up, provides solutions and/or solves problems for visitors.
    2. I go on and on and on … ‘Say it don’t spray it.‘ Keep your home pages brief. Put your best content above the fold. If your page requires more than one or two taps on the Page-Down key, then you need to divide and conquer your content. If your tome covers several topics, then you need to create sub-categories with each topic getting it’s own page. If you have a long article or sermon, then it should also get it’s own page. If you want to include some content from a recent sermon on another page, offer an abstract with a [read more] link to the whole shebang.
    3. I can’t spell and I’ve awful grammar. We’ve all sin links to web pages that display embrarassing ‘signs and blunders‘ found in various church newsletters and bulletins. I’ve found the best trick here is to find someone in the chruch who does have good spelling and grammar, then set up a system with them by which they can proof read pending posts and/or report ugly errors.
    4. I’m locked in a print view of the world. Remember, people don’t read web pages, they scan them. Likewise, not everyone uses the same browser and/or screen resolution. Neither do they have all the same fonts nor may they perceive color as you do. The best solution I’ve found is making sure the page layout is liquid, and the color/font scheme basic.
    5. I’m not very good at writing headings. If you want people to visit your site via a search engine, then make sure that what you have between the <title> tags, along with the first twenty words of your text is compelling, gripping, riveting. If you can’t make that happen, find someone who can.
    6. Actually, I don’t think content is very important. Father Flanders is continually preaching that ‘Content is King.’ Jakob Nielsen offers boatloads of data crying out the case for content. And from what I gather from the over 20,000 unique page reads over at the sermon’s sub-site at RBC, and the outcries from visitors when the sermons aren’t updated, content is everything.
    7. Don’t have seven points if there are only six … Hah, hah, very funny.

    How about you? Do you find the writing at most church websites compelling or crappy? Leave a comment and let me know.