1	Cyber Field of Dreams A Whirlwind Look at Creating Web-sites
2	Agenda What a Web site can do for you The process of planning, creating, fielding, and maintaining a site Resources
3	How having a Web site can help you Brochure for your ministry “Web Evangelism” Administrative support for your ministry Build online communities Distribute media Sell media or other resources …
4	What do you need to build it? A concept for who your target audience is and wants, and how you’re going to attract and serve them A domain name, e.g. www.MyMinistry.org A design for the structure and look of your site Lots of good Content (text and pictures) Software to help you turn your content into Web pages A Hosting service to put your pages on the Web An Operating plan to make sure your site is drawing visitors and fulfilling its purposes
5	Lifecycle of a Web site Brainstorm Concept Design Execute Feedback Go Live Harness
6	Brainstorm Common types of sites Brochure Bridge Directories Portals Other: eCommerce, Event, Project, etc. Note Additional software may be required to support some of these site types Technical requirements may also differ The online resources will give more detail
7	Brochure sites Purpose Present information about your organization What visitor can do Contact you Email address – risk of spamming Contact form - preferable Examples: http://www.japancan.com http://www.jema.org
8	Bridge sites Purpose Draw people interested in a particular subject Bridge into pre-/evangelistic material What visitor can do View (original!) content Communities can be built using tools like Visitor books Web logs, a.k.a. “Blogs” Forums Example Guitar Tips http://www.guitartips.addr.com
9	Directory sites Purpose Organizes a portion of the Web for particular audiences Relatively low effort way to draw traffic from those audiences Can generate revenue What visitor can do Surf/Contact other orgs Register a site Examples: http://www.dmoz.org http://www.butterflycorp.com
10	Directory: ButterflyCorp
11	Portals Purpose Provide an environment for a community of shared interest What a visitor can do Use services aggregated by the portal, e.g. Read, comment and rate information Post articles Participate in forums Bible verse lookup, lexicons, etc. And so on Examples http://www.crosswalk.org
12	Other common types of sites eCommerce Sell things, downloadable or physical Events Brochure or provide services for attendees E.g. JCPI.net, CAN Worship Seminar Project sites Provide service for project members Example: CAN Worship Seminar administration
13	Project Sites Purpose Provide information and tools to support a particular project May be “public” but more often “private” What a visitor can do Read information, news, etc. Post news, etc. Shared calendar Specialized tools Examples CAN 2004 Worship Seminar project site
14	Summary of common site types
15	Brainstorm to Concept So you’ve brainstormed an idea… You need a Concept Who is the audience? Demographics Imagine your “Peter Pray-er”, “Donald Donor” and “Suzie Seeker” What does Peter need to know (from you)? Will Donald want to send you money online? How will you attract Suzie, and keep her interest?
16	Example: Guitar Hobbyist Bridge Idea: a hobby site for guitarists and hoping to use to expose people to the gospel Concept: Bridge site for amateur rock guitarists, mixing secular and christian rock bands and events, and reviews of albums with a culturally-aware and gospel-informed ear DomainName: www.Nigels11.org (ref. Spinal Tap movie) Visitor profile: Garage Gary: male aged 30-45, English-speaking, likes mainly 80s classic rock, and either plays or aspires to play this genre of music – in his garage. We’ll provide equipment tips, artist reviews, and what equipment the artists are using
17	Design – the Content Garage Gary needs to be helped to navigate his way around your site. Will your structure make sense to him? Is it difficult to find or access things? You need to structure internally for Staying organized Monitoring, and other technical reasons And don’t forget: Vocabulary and style suiting your audience
18	Our Guitar Site’s Two Structures
19	Design – the Look Visual Structure Use a layout “grid” to position the major elements (see basic books on graphic design) Most sites use conventional layouts of elements: Banners, footers Navigation bars A main content pane A side bar (news, etc.) Typography Don’t overdo it. One or two fonts. For text, pick easy-to-read fonts Use of Color Pick colors that are appropriate to audience and content Colors have cultural connotations Colors have hardwired psychological impact Decide on a basic palette of colors: monochrome, primary + secondary, primary + secondary + accents. Free or low-cost tools exist to help you pick a palette, and check them on sample pages.
20	But what if you’re not a designer? Templates Usually 1-3 variant Web pages that you can customize with your own Logo and graphics Templates bundled with Web page creation software (very limited, generic, and hard to “brand”) Templates available on the Web Free stuff (mostly game-geek stuff) Commercial ($25-100), more “brand-able” Fill-in-the-blanks Build-A-Site services Hosting Provider lock-in Inflexible Ask someone! Cheap: Freelance boards on the Web Guild rates: Web design houses [Order custom templates, & put the content in yourself
21	Execute Your content needs to be made Web-friendly Text in HTML, the Web “lingua franca” Avoid formats that make files too large to download Structure into scannable “bites” by splitting up, adding sub-headings, etc. “Compress” graphics to speed up page display Combine your content with your design Use templates to ensure consistent look Prefer CSS formatting for maintainability (CSS = Cascading Style Sheets)
22	Feedback Test with users Does it look inviting? Ask them to find something. Do they easily? Ask them to do something. Can they? Test on different browsers Popular browsers: Windows: Internet Explorer, Netscape, Firefox, … Mac: Internet Explorer, Safari, … Check what browsers YOUR visitors are use Widely different compliance with standards Lots of workarounds and “ad hoc” Tools like MacroMedia’s DreamWeaver can advise you of potential problems
23	Going Live – How the Web works
24	Going Live – What you need to do You need to buy a domain name E.g. Nigels11.org Sold by registrars ($9/year for .com/.org at GoDaddy.com) As a bundled service by Hosting, Web Design companies Your files need to be uploaded to the Hosting companies servers Microsoft FrontPage extensions Available with Microsoft tools (FrontPage, etc.) Uploads only changed files Available on most host providers Can be helpful when several people update the site FTP Shareware or low-cost commercial (e.g. WS_FTP) It’s a semi-manual effort Available on most hosting providers
25	Going Live – Picking a Hosting Provider Types of Hosting Providers: Linux or Windows Doesn’t matter for basic Web pages, most PHP or Perl Ask, if you need services like databases, ASP, .NET Caveat Emptor Free hosting with inappropriate banners Unresponsive/unskilled customer service Site often down or slow because of too many sites on Hosting Provider’s servers Survivability Are they charging enough to stay in business? Can you recreate your site if they belly-up? Hints Use Hosting Providers that provide a trial period, and make sure you test the above points during the trial Ask people you trust for recommendations Time/hassle vs paying a little more for decent service
26	Harness So is it working? How many visitors? From which countries? How long do they visit, and how many pages? How do they find your site? What pages are popular? What pages are unpopular (maybe people can’t find them!) What browsers are they using? Tools Log analyzers Adding counters etc. to pages
27	Harness: Log Analyzer AWSTATS Demo JapanCAN site statistics
28	Harness: Counter SiteMeter
29	Harness: Counter SiteMeter
30	Harness: Counter SiteMeter
31	Harness: SiteMeter Counter
32	Harness Keep your content fresh You planned for this need, right? Your own content Who will create the content? Who can use an HTML editor and upload tools? A Content Management System (CMS) can provide a simpler way to update & maintain content without knowing HTML, Makes sure visual style remains the same, Keeps the site organized Leveraging others efforts Visitor provided content (forums, articles) Keeping out spammers etc. is a problem. Use syndicated content from other sites, e.g. RSS feeds
33	Summary
34	Demo
35	Resources http://www.davehawley.com/CPI2004 has A copy of this presentation Links to related resources, including Using the Web for Christian work Writing for the Web Software Tools for authoring, uploading Hosting services & Domain-Name registrars Tools for monitoring & analyzing “traffic” (visits) Site-type tools Contact forms, Web logs, Forums Directory/Portals Etc. Color, specifying it, psychology of color, palettes, etc.