Heal Your Church WebSite

Category: Fast Five

  • Inaccessible, that’s what you are

    I find too many church and charity websites putting their best information out of reach. Hence the idea driving today’s bad church web design poster is best sung to the tune of Nat King Cole’s classic, “Unforgettable,” followed by my usual ‘snarkastic‘ enumeration of this pesky issue:

    Inaccessible, that’s what you are
    Inaccessible so near, yet so far
    Like a hy-per-link that eludes me
    How the four-o-four page so annoys me
    Never before has one suffered more

    Heal Your Church Website bad Design Poster #5: Inaccessible

    Inaccessible in many ways
    And forever more, that’s how it stays
    That’s why, ad-min, it’s incredible
    That something so intolerable
    Thinks that I am intolerable too

    <instrumental interlude>
    No never before
    has one suffered more ooh

    Pretty corny? You becha! Pretty common, absolutely. In fact, when it comes to accessibility and church websites – I think the out-of-reach bag of chips pictured in the poster photograph sum up the frustration often felt by many seekers who visit church websites, only to loose their cents and their sanity selecting options that take them nowhere.

    In other words, though most talks of web accessibility are often limited to those topics covered in Mark Pilgrim’s seminal “Dive Into Accessibility” — I would like to expand the conversation today a number of examples where I find church webmasters needlessly impairing their users in the following ways:

    • Bed and breakfast markup
    • Employing browser-specific navigation
    • Charging a fee to read sermons and/or Bible studies
    • Not thinking through the information architecture of the website
    • Displaying Flash content with no browser detection and alternative content

    Bread and BReakfast!

    ‘B and BReakfast markup’ is a handy mnemonic mechanism to memorize how not to semantically collude your online sermons and studies with misused taggery such as < b > and < br >.

    There’s enough existing (x)HTML taggery out there to make your markup match the meaning of your message. Trust me, you’ll thank me for this when you eventually publish a book and/or study guide based on your blogged sermons.

    I write about this in some detail though recent improvements in better-written blogging and CMS applications are making this less and less an issue over time.

    Browser-Specific Navigation

    Here I’m describing those instances where someone employs something like those nifty cool slide-in, drop-down, tree-expanding menus that only work on Microsoft Internet Explorer.

    Or just as evil, uses a DuHtml menu whose sub-choices require the lightening fast reflexes of an over-caffeinated super-hero to click before they disappear.

    Charging for Sermons

    I had actually received an email on the topic – but lost the link (bad dean, bad!). None-the-less, my point is, sermons, Bible studies and other such “opium content” are critical elements that those shopping for churches online use to gauge whether or not they’re going to visit a particular church on Sunday.

    More on this in my post “Is your church website little more than brochureware?”

    Information Architecture

    Also known as your informational hierarchy, your navigational hierarchy, your navigation tree and/or your site map.

    This rose by whatever name needs to be well organized enough for the average Joe or Jane to figure out.

    Yes, it means putting down the mouse and thinking first then coding – but it is well worth it as categorizing information enhances church website conversion goals.

    Flashination

    About the only thing more annoying to me than the spinning .gifs of gold lamé crosses on ‘KJV only’ church websites, are Flash-based church websites – or heavy Flash use church websites – that provide no alternative content for those who have not installed the latest and greatest Flash reader plug-in; and/or just don’t view Flash due to restrictions of work, bandwidth and/or physical disability.

    I write on this over-used and/or poorly implemented media all too often here to cite a singular article … so does Vincent Flanders who defines the practice ‘flashination‘ in a slightly more adult parlance.

    Betcha can’t eat just one

    Bottom line is, having inaccessible content is about as frustrating as offering a person a single Lay’s potato chip – whereas making things easy to reach and read is like providing them a sumptuous feast of data that will keep them coming back for more.

    The choice is yours.

  • When web page creation tools and novice church website design collide

    One of the good things about the Web in 2008 is the number of free and easy web page creation tools to aid those novices involved in church website design. One of the bad things about the Web in 2008 is the number of free and easy web page creation tools novices employ to generate unusually unusable church websites.

    Case in point, Sabbath Day Church of God Hot Springs Arkansas, brought to you by Web Page Maker V2; a web page generation tool described on its own website as:

    … an easy-to-use web page editor that allows you to create and upload web pages in minutes without knowing HTML. Simply drag and drop objects onto the page and position them freely in the layout.

    It also appears that it is an easy-to-use web page editor that allows you to create web pages in minutes without knowing usable interface design, conversion goals, semantic HTML, and other important details. Basically, all the bad things one gets with FrontPage at only a 1/3rd the expense of FrontPage.

    That said, here are 5 things I would do to improve the web presence for the Sabbath Day Church of God:

    1. Since there is information provided on a weekly basis, consider using a blog as a content management tool. It’ll help both better organize and present otherwise compelling content.
    2. Move the prayer list page behind a password protected area – as the current format may expose the church to some unwanted privacy concerns.
    3. Lose the Java Applets – such counters are not needed in a day and age of far better usage measurement tools as Google Analytics. Such counters also slows down the page load ALOT.
    4. Optimize those bloated images.
    5. Lose the grainy-green background image – it makes the black text entirely unreadable.

    There are other things I might do as well, perhaps leverage Google Calendars and Google Maps instead of the current calendar and map solutions.

    I most definately would put the phone number, location, along with the dates and times of the services in a far more conspicuous place then hiding said lamp under a bowl as is currently the case.

    Other observations? You know the drill, leave a comment – in love – so we can all learn from it.

  • 5 Simple Security Tips for the WiFi-ing Road Warrior

    As I travel to the Hashemite Kingdom next week, there are at least 5 simple things I can do to make my WiFi experiences a bit more secure. So can you, here’s how:

    During my upcoming journey to Jordan, I’ll have ample opportunities to consume the culture on a variety of levels – including the ever growing WIFI connections that now abound in the Hashemite Kingdom. This in turn will give any nere-do-wells an opportunity to consume my personal and private information; if not zombie-fry my laptop altogether. And while I believe there is no such thing as total mobile security – there are ast least 5 simple things I can do to inconvenience the lesser-determined bad-guys to the point they move onto the guy computing next to me waiting for the airplane to board.

    1. Connect Securely

    How do you know you’re securely connected to the wireless router at your favorite coffee shop? Simple, you have inconvenience the barista or the hotel staff for a WEP, or even more secure, WPA key to access the Internet.

    Yes, yes, yes, I know, WEP stinks in comparison to WPA, none-the-less, better a little hassle than to sign away one’s identity and security by confirming to use a ‘wide-open’ network.

    2. Tunnel Safely

    The problem with seeking out a WPA-PSK encryption is that many times, it just isn’t available. Merchants provide WiFi hot-spots as a competitive draw. It loses its return on investment if they find themselves busier teaching wireless laptop connectivity than selling biscotti.

    For those who don’t mind taking security matters into their own hands – or at least putting them into the hands of 3rd parties who provide VPN services; some for free. Here is a short list in alphabetical order:

    And for those on the road a lot, you might want to check to see if your hot-spot access service such as Boingo, iPass or TMobile/HS provides secure software.

    3. Surf Encrypted

    Many of us who buy stuff online already know to look for that little encryption lock in the status bar of our browser. However, have you considered looking for it when you login to an online email service?

    How about when you use the same password you use for everything when you login to a blogging service or bulletin board?

    Again, in cases where you are at the mercy of a service provider not offering secure logins and transactions, there are some not-so-stupid browser tricks you can employ – provided you have the right browser.

    For example, while gMail does provide a secure login, it does not provide encryption when I’m emailing you about my upcoming trip to Jordan. Same too when I blog this post using Google Docs.

    Fortunately, I use FireFox, which in turn allows me to plug-in the Customize Google extension, which in turn allows me to check an option to “Secure (switch to https).” Voila!

    Similarly, I Pidgin-Encrypt my instant messaging (not to be confused with the actual IM Pidgin Client, though the two are related).

    If I must to FTP, then I use SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) – and when possible – using an encrypted zip file. Yes, I’m aware the PKZip password protection is inherently weak, but it’s stronger than nothing.

    4. Password Strongly

    All the security in the world won’t help me if I use the same password for everything, and that password is something relatively easy to guess or crack. For example … a login of ‘dean’ and password of ‘peters’ I would think would take even the lames of script kiddie all of 5 seconds to figure out.

    If you can’t figure out how to create a memorable but strong password, fear not. There are plenty of online services. Here are 3 that didn’t ask me who I was before generating some solutions:

    5. Speak Nothing

    Having spent some time with a top-secret security clearance, I know what the phrase “need to know” means:

    • the best way to keep a secret is not to tell anyone;
    • failing that, only tell the secret to those who must know;
    • never write anything down;
    • shred everything; and
    • trust no one.

    So asides from keeping our ‘yaps shut’ – this also means

    • turning off any file, printer and/or other fun network sharing;
    • turning on any firewall, spyware and anti-virus detection; and
    • depending on your operating system and configuration, shutting down open ports.

    Yeah, that last one is not too easy, but I figure if you’re savvy enough to run a server, you’re savvy enough to know you’ve got some entry ways your firewall may not catch (for the rest of you, just make sure your firewall application is running).

    Conclusion

    I know this last bit sounds a bit blunt – especially for those of you working with churches, charities and missions – especially that last point.

    But the last thing we need is to have our personal lives, our ministries and/or our livelihoods imperiled by an ever constant swarm of sinners who would think nothing of emptying out your bank account, ruining your retirement fun, and tapping out your travel funds to fun places like Jordan.

    Better to remain a little bit paranoid about private information so you can keep you mind on publicly pronouncing the good news that is Christ crucified and Christ resurrected.

  • 5 love notes from the mailbag

    I’m usually very responsive to comments and emails – as such interaction often results in long-term, online friendships with other developers. That said, sometimes I get ‘love notes’ that either request assistance when I’m mega-busy, or whose purpose is to tear me apart for ‘bashing the Body.’ Here are 5 examples of such – followed by some witty snarkasm on my part.

    1. A Misraelite responds to my article entitled ‘Why Christians Should Have Nothing To Do With Snowmobiles:’

      I was doing research on why people are turned off by Christianity. I could not believe what I read! Riding a snowmobile is a sin? There is no scripture that backs that up! These are the types of things that would make people wonder away or make them not even consider becoming a Christian! In fact, I challenge you to make this a ministry that could be used to bring souls either to christ or closer!

      My Response: Personally, I think alot of people are turned-off by the great cloud of witlessness who don’t know a joke when they see it.

    2. A gutsy steward asks:

      Dean – So we’re an old school Presbyterian Church … We’ve gone from no website, to a simple wordpress template.The initial idea was to have something functional online while we develop the real thing.

      Would you be interested in using this as a test case / makeover show for creating a website that does work? For recommending how to take something basic like this and making it a functional web residence for us?

      My Response: Yes. I love a teachable spirit, as exemplified by your courageous offer. Expect an article next week w/at least 5 pointers that encourages others to do likewise (in love).

    3. A quick email with a quicker response:

      How can I create a Sermon page with all the sermons so that viewers can select the sermon or sermons they wish to view?

      My Response: A sermons blog. WordPress on your own server, or Blogger on Google’s – both are great places to start. You can even use Google Docs to post to either once you get things established.

    4. From the flanks in response to ‘Too cool for Old School – Sonrise Baptist Church Newnan, GA:’

      How did you find this church in Newnan, GA? Out of genuine concern for this church, did you contact them and encourage them with your criticism?

      My Response: Out of genuine concern for the Body online, I have spies everywhere. Seriously, I would think such a genuinely concerned person would have contacted those involved in said website – which is why said question has me a bit suspicious over such ‘genuine concern.’

    5. From the ranks, also in response to ‘Too cool for Old School – Sonrise Baptist Church Newnan, GA:’

      Why, everywhere you go, do they insist on hiding the service times. Even on the directions and service times page, they are hidden. And they are hidden under sideways text, which is even worse.

      My Response: Out of genuine concern for everyone concerned, to keep me off the streets at night.

    So there you have it folks! Five reasons to keep them comments and love notes coming!

  • Pastors, programmers & graphic artists listen up: your user isn’t you

    Unless you’re writing a church website for a bunch of blogging pastors, frustrated graphic artists and/or “… burned out computer geeks, your user isn’t you. … This is very hard to get through somebody’s head; it’s very hard to get rid of this notion that what you like your user is going to like… Again, your user is not you.”

    Please pardon my blatant rip-off of Deborah Hartmann’s quote of David S. Platt’s recent keynote entitled “Why Software Sucks.”

    Perhaps it is 30 hours of planes and airports traveling back from Kuala Lumpur that’s made me a bit grumpy. Perhaps it is the head-cold inflicted on me by the sick six year old who kicked my right side most of the way home. Or perhaps it’s just the continual parade of church websites that suck that has me annoyed at the great cloud of witlessness that is the Church online.

    Probably a bit of all three. None-the-less, there’s a simple truth that I think to many of us are missing when it comes to designing and maintaining our church and charity websites which I’m hoping gets quoted and discussed web-wide:

    “For the most part, people aren’t seeking the church experience online – rather they are shopping online for a real-world church experience.” – Dean Peters, HealYourChurchWebSite.com, 16Sep07.

    Agree or disagree, I’d like this meme mulled-over in as many places as possible – and along with it, the following 5 suggestions to make your church website work, based on David Platt’s 5 suggestions to ” Just Make It Work:”

    1. Add a novice to the design team: I’m thinking a silver-haired seasoned citizen as they are often overlooked, yet comprise a significant population of any church body.
    2. Break convention when needed: Quit thinking brochureware (print marketing) and/or writing like Spurgeon – the web is different.
    3. Avoid feature “silliness”: Your website isn’t a stinkin’ art project, so cool it with the cheap tricks.
    4. Instrument your application very carefully: again I’m thinking silver-haired seasoned citizen and other members of the “silent majority” who may not be geeky cool, but are the ones who need an effective church website the most.
    5. Consider whether design decisions are taking you closer or farther away from the software *just* working: this implies you have a clear understanding of what it is your church and/or charity website is trying to accomplish. Meaning, I’d document some use cases.

    In the meantime, I’m going to work on some articles this coming week to detail some simple procedures that will take your church website from cool and unused, to effective and often implemented.

    As always, your comments, questions and concerns are always welcome.

  • 5 tips for blogging sermons effectively

    Just publishing your sermon notes to your church’s blog is not enough – not if you want anyone to actually read them. Here are five simple things you can do to make your sermon notes more visible to more readers through more search engines.

    Why this is important:

    Ah sermons … the holy grail of any church website … not only because they provide church webmasters with a source of dynamic and (hopefully) compelling content, but because the (hopefully) compelling content serves seekers and members alike.

    Problem is, many sermons online go unread because they’re posted “as-is” rather than following these five simple steps that will (hopefully) increase their visibility on various search engines – especially Google:

    1. Put your key content on top

      Search engines index by title, so if you have some key words that represent your key points, put them in the title of your post – even if it is slightly different than the title of last Sunday’s sermon.

      Search engines display excerpts after the title – so help your readers out by putting your key points in those first 128 words or so.

    2. Lose the church-speak

      Don’t compel those not familiar with the vernacular of your congregation to have to learn a dialect of ancient Greek just to figure out what you’re saying.

      Likewise, avoid kitschy clichés and internal acronyms – they’re lost on first time visitors.

    3. Focus on what benefits the reader

      Rather than beating the faithful, make sure your titles and excerpts provide a “what’s in it for me” moment – so that the seeker is encourage to read the rest of the sermon, rather than click on over to CNN.
      For example, instead of:

      • title: Seven Deadly Sins
        excerpt: Seven reasons the World is going to hell in a hand basket

      Try:

      • title: The Wisdom of Proverb 6
        excerpt: 7 things you can control to life better now and hereafter.

    4. Write inviting titles

      Write titles that make people hunger for more.
      For example, instead of:

      • This sermon will discuss the fruits of the spirit, how they effect you, and what you should do.

      Try:

      • 9 yummy fruits of the spirit to nourish your walk

    5. Enjoy the art of the subtitle

      For example, instead of simply:

      • Daniel 3:1-30

      Try:

      • Daniel 3: Nebuchadnezzar’s epiphany at the fiery furnace door

    Here’s the best part of the above – while I demonstrated changes in titles – I did so without compromising on the content. Same can go for you.

    And how will you know if and when you’re effectively re-factoring your sermon titles and excerpts? Simple – begin using tools such as Google’s Analytics to track not only how many visitors hit your site, but what key words they use to get there and how long they stay there when they visit.

    Such analysis will quickly provide you with the information you need to gauge just how well you’re doing when you post your sermons online – especially those of you using blogs at inexpensive content management systems for your church and/or charity organization.

  • 5 to ways permanently redirect an old church domain name to a new domain name

    It is no sin for a church to change their domain name. However, it is an unspeakable Internet offense if you do not provide visitors – and search engines – with a quick, simple and painless redirect from the old domain to the new. Unfortunately not all church webmasters know even 1 way to avoid said sin, let alone 5; that is until now:

    While I was surfing about for candidates on another topic, I came across the home page for the Vestavia Hills United Methodist Church of Birmingham, AL … or at least what I thought was the home page.

    Actually, I’m thinking it was the old home page, or a home page whose sole purpose is to redirect visitors from vhumc.org to vestaviahillsumc.org – but does so in a way that gets in the way of seekers and search engines alike.

    To that end, I’ve taken the time to demonstrate five different methods of implementing a search engine friendly, permanent redirect from the old domain name to the new – and in most cases, passing along any query string that may be the result of an old bookmark:

    1. mod_rewrite (via .htaccess)
    # The most preferred, but also at time the most difficult of approaches
    # requiring you modify your .htaccess file as follows:
    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www.)?vhumc.org$ [NC]
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://vestaviahillsumc.org/$1 [R=301,L]
    2. Perl:
    #!/usr/bin/perl -w
    # some might argue that this is the most difficult method, and
    # I might tend to agree as a n00b might find out that they should NOT
    # delete the blank spaces and line feeds in between the quote {} tags.
    #
    use strict;
    my $q = ($ENV{'QUERY_STRING'}) ? "?".$ENV{'QUERY_STRING'} : "";
    print qq{Status: 301 Moved Permanantly
    Location: http://www.vestaviahillsumc.org/$q\n\n};
    exit;
    3. ASP classic
    ' # yes, I know we live in the age of .NET, but if you note, today's subject
    ' # is redirecting to an .asp kinda host, so it could be the same for their
    ' # old domain.
    < %@ Language=VBScript %>
    < %
    qs = ""
    if(Request.QueryString.Count > 0) qs = "?" & Request.QueryString
    Response.Status="301 Moved Permanently"
    Response.AddHeader "Location", "http://vestaviahillsumc.org/" & qs
    Response.End
    %>
    4. PHP
    < ?php
    // # perhaps the easiest and most reliable solution for most of you out there
    // get querystring - if it exists
    $q = empty($_SERVER['QUERY_STRING']) ? "" : "?".$_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'];
    // Permanent redirection
    header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
    header("Location: http://vestaviahillsumc.org/".$q);
    exit();
    ?>
    5. JavaScript
    <script type="text/javascript">
    /*
    # I don't prefer this method as most search engines won't get it, still
    # it is sometimes the only solution a limited webmaster can muster on
    # a limited budget and hosting situation.
    #
    # Also note we don't merely assign a value to href, there is a good reason
    # for this explained here:
    # http://andylangton.co.uk/articles/javascript/javascript-redirect-scripts/
    */
    var qs = window.top.location.search.substring(1);
    qs= (isEmpty(qs) ? "" : "?" + qs);/* capture query string */
    location.replace('http://www.vestaviahillsumc.org/' + qs);
    </script>

    As you can see, there’s more than one way to skin the old redirect cat. Of course there is also more than one way to foul this all up, which is why I’m providing you with a list of additional reading references just in case you find you’ve caused irreparable harm to your website and reputation the above examples as is (note, you’ve just been warned with my disclaimer):

    That said, if you’re still pondering which method to employ, here are my rules of thumb regarding which redirect method to use in which order:

    1. If you have shell access and the know-how:
      .htaccess (mod_rewrite)
    2. If you can’t do it .htaccess
      php
    3. if you can’t do it PHP
      Perl
    4. if you can’t do it Perl
      javascript
    5. if you can’t do it Javascript
      meta tag
    6. if you can’t do the meta tag
      hire some help

    Oh and for those of you who note that I didn’t include a “how to redirect using the refresh meta tag” – it’s because one of the objectives in this exercise is to redirect to preserve search engine visibility and ranking. The unfortunate abuse by spammers of the taggery means potentially hiding your lamp beneath a basket due to no fault of your own.

    For more information on how to modify the .htaccess file to redirect domains can be found here:

    Still interested in reading more on the topic of redirecting from old domains to new domains? Want to see where I got and/or vetted some of my solutions?

  • Simpsonized Server Unavailable – an unsuccessful lesson in success

    Late last week, several national newspapers and e-zines published several stories about a silly little promotion for an upcoming, onscreen ‘Homeric’ tale : SimpsonizeMe.com. Unfortunately those coming late to the party may have to wait a bit as the popularity of this interactive Flash-based toy created enough buzz and traffic to crush the server on which it was hosted.

    I write quite a bit about planning contingencies for failure, but I think the quick little lesson here is to also have in your back pocket an alternative route for popularity.

    A bit rarer a problem with church and charity web sites, but here are five things the ‘Simpsonize Me’ server failure teaches us consider regarding the management of successful web sites in order of magnitude:

    1. more monthly bandwidth – is a measure of data transfer, the trick here is to increase your monthly allotment ahead of time so you’re not paying a penalty premium when you get pounded
    2. a dedicated server – a type of Internet hosting where the client leases an entire server not shared with anyone, before your hosting provider kicks you off for hogging all the shared resources
    3. server farm – a collection of computer servers to accomplish server needs far beyond the capability of one machine
    4. load balancing – a technique to spread processing between many computers, which is another way to maximize multiple machines
    5. throttled input – last resort, but a cut-off point where your server nicely but firmly says “no mas“

    Point is: be like Ned and not like Homer – plan ahead – or at least have a clue of what to do if things become wildly successful.

    Some articles to read while the computing crew at Burger King figure out how best to deal with the new found popularity their ‘Simpsonize Me’ game has garnered: