Nonprofit Expressions

Website Report Cards
(for website owners)

Have you ever gone to a website and said “I wish my website looked like this!”

What is it about a website that either draws you in, or makes want to click the “back” button? There are no black and white rules of web design. Everyone has a different opinion on style, a different method of navigating, and a different level of web experience.

But the fact is that there is some criteria that the majority of the World Wide Web can agree makes a website “bad” or “good.”

In our experience doing website re-designs (taking an old site and making it better) it is important that you (as a website owner) know what to look for in your website, and know what to ask your web designer! We have decided that a report card method would be the most helpful.

How we decided on the criteria:

1. First Impressions
Is the website pleasing the the eye? While this is the most subjective of the four criteria, based on our own experience and expertise, there IS such a thing as bad design,

In design school they teach us that there are four basic principals of good design. They include: proximity, alignment, repetition and contrast.

Another question to ask is: Do the colors and images reflect the organization’s branding and purpose?

2. Usability
In grading usability, we follow the concepts set out by people like Steve Krug (web usability consultant whose clients include Apple, AOL, Netscape and many others). Usability is the visitor’s ability to understand, comprehend and interact with the website without frustration or anxiety.

Can you tell what the site’s main purpose is upon first glances? Most websites only have 3 seconds to introduce themselves to a visitor before they click the “back” button.

Is the navigation consistent, easy to understand and highly visible? Is the information flow in such a way that you can find what you are looking for without having to think about it? Does the website accomplish its goal in a functional way? Do the applications work? Is there a newsletter, and is it easy to sign up for?

3. Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of increasing the amount of traffic a website gets from search engines by using targeted key words.

Does the site have title tags, meta tags, and clean URLs? Does it have semantic information design (such as an h2 tag following an h1 tag)? Does it have descriptive anchor tags?

Although there are only a handful of questions here, SEO is actually a very complex topic that we could talk about for hours. These, however, are the criteria that we are placing in our report cards.

4. Technical Standards
The technical standards are not subjective criteria. These are critical elements used by software engineers in the technical community even beyond the scope of web design.

Does the website have doc type declaration? Is it HTML or XHTML standards compliant? CSS standards compliant? Accessibility standards compliant?

And last, does it have well formed code?
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Now that you understanding our criteria, let me explain our grading methods. First, each of the four criteria will be a separate grade in of itself - like a report card from grade school! Each subject gets its own grade.

Second, we will give the website a pass or failing overall grade. This will tell you if it is still stuck in kindergarten, or has graduated to go to college! (Is it stuck in code from the 90s, or is it up to Web 2.0 standards).

So stay tuned for our Website Report Cards. Our first grade will be given to NewChurches.com.

For a free report card on your website, please contact info@nonprofit-expressions.com

Is your organization planning for the future with regards to your current web development?Good web development requires careful planning, as well as vast investments of time, energy and often, money. In order to get the most return on these investments a good understanding of the internet’s future is important.The Internet is in a constant state of flux and growth. Hundreds of millions of websites exist on the vast data network we call the Internet. Change is inevitable because technology is always improving. The Internet has undergone periods wherein the methods used for web development change.The element of the Internet that is key to understand is which browsers everyone uses to view the Web. In the late 1990’s Internet Explorer and Netscape navigator were the two most widely known and used browsers available. Most people had a preference for one or the other usually based on the one they were introduced to. As time passed Internet Explorer (IE) became the standard because it comes already installed in Microsoft Windows. It has become the default browser used to view the Internet. As Netscape declined in use other browsers became popular, particularly among those who are not fans of IE or Microsoft. For instance, Safari is the preferred browser for people who use Apple Mac computers. Mac’s Safari browser just released a windows compatible version with the launch of its new iPhone. Just as Mac users love Safari, web developers and computer engineers prefer FireFox. Our company uses FireFox exclusively because it is one of the only fully standards-compliant browsers on the market. It is not only a better application than IE, it is also more stable.Because different people like to use different software to view the Internet, for a short period from the late 1990’s up until 2003 it was common for websites to have two versions, one built for IE and one for Netscape. Among the changes caused by the dot-com crash was the realization that there needs to be one standard way of developing websites. This allows all browsers to understand and display content the same way.The creator of the world wide web, Tim Berners-Lee, founded the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) in 1994. The organization consists of members from around the globe who make recommendations that will help bring the web to its full potential. This organization brainstorms and debates over the best way to make the behind-the-scenes aspects of the Internet work. They are constantly releasing new technologies and frameworks for developers to use as standard when creating web browsers and websites.Web technologies come and go with time. Animated .gif files, for instance, were hugely popular at one point but are not seen often on the web today. Countless other technologies have disappeared into the past which is why standards are so important.If your site is built using today’s standards it will look acceptable to people using old computers (and thus old browsers), as well as people using the Internet today and far into tomorrow.The movement to build websites based on standards has always existed in some form, but it was not until 2003 that it really began to pickup steam in the web design community. The proof is in the pudding, because standards-based websites designed in 2003 still look nice and display well in today’s newest browsers.As time passes, the browsers people use will continue to change, and browsers will get better at adhering to standards put in place by the W3C.So what are these mythical standards?Today, July 2007, the standards are xhtml 1.0, html 4.1, CSS 1.0 and Section 508. These are the basics that all sites should be based on. Even when using advanced applications that rely on ASP or PHP (advanced web technologies), the need for standards-compliant xhtml and css remains.XHTML 1.0 is the newest version of html. This is the markup language that all sites use to communicate with browsers. This code tells the browser how to understand the information presented in a web page.CSS 1.0 is the standard for giving sites the look, feel, and layout of the page. While the xhtml might tell the browser that a paragraph is a paragraph, the css tells the browser where it should be displayed on the page, what font to use, and other information about how it should look.Section 508 is the set of government regulations regarding the construction of federal websites. The law requires that government websites must be accessible to people with disabilities. These guidelines are good for all websites.So how do I know if my site follows standards? The easiest method to finding this out is validation. The W3C has created code validation tools that will inform you of your sites adherence to standards. Here is a list of validation tools you might find helpful:

• HTML Validation
• CSS Validation
• Section 580 Validation

How to use these toolsYou can simply put the address of your website into the validation pages and they will tell you if your site passed or failed. If your site returns “passed”, then good job for having a head start over most of the web. If you failed, however, you will receive a list of errors and technical reasons for the failures. It is not a big deal if you have a few errors, but more than ten or so could be an issue. It is not uncommon to see websites with 50 or more errors. In that case, it would be wise to consider fixing these problems in an upcoming site update.What if my site is in the planning stages? If your site is not yet up and running you should ask your developers if they build standards-compliant websites. If they seem unsure of what this means, they are not operating at a level that is considered professional for today’s design teams. This does not make them a bad designer, but you should request they start creating standards-compliant sites, beginning with yours. If they are not willing to do so, you should take your business elsewhere.Websites should be viewed as a long-term investment. Most websites will exist as long as the organization or business exists. That does not mean that it will not need updating in the future, but if your site will not look professional and function well for at least five years, you are making a poor investment. Every site can use updates and expansions, but you should not have to completely overhaul a site annually, if you paid good money for it initially. Only an Internet-based business would be able to justify that cost on a yearly basis.If your website is based on standards, it will be easier to update, and easier for others to edit down the road, should your original developers move on or cease to exist. If you should need a complete overhaul, a standards-based website built on the most current technology could save you up to 70% of the cost and time spent on a re-design.Please feel free to contact us with your questions.

Don’t let Black Hat SEO practices damage your brand

In the world of search engine optimization there are two schools of thought. The first, “White Hat” SEO, uses great content, smart link writing techniques, great information structure, link campaigns, and extensive keyword analysis to create pages that rank well on the search engines. These sites stand the test of time and deliver the results your organization deserves.

The other school of thought, “Black Hat” SEO, is in a constant battle to trick, manipulate, and defraud search engine results. The techniques used include creating link farms (many sites that link to each other), cloaking (trying to fool the search engines by redirecting from one domain to another), and stuffing keyword phrases in places people cannot read.

Today’s Black Hat SEO techniques are in fact just old methods of tricking Google and Yahoo into giving you good search engine results. The results often work very well if done correctly but it is a short-lived victory. The search engines are constantly updating the parameters they use to rank sites. They are dedicated to finding sites that should not rank so high and bringing them down to size. Currently that means you get placed in the “sand box”. The sand box is a very friendly term for what really means blacklisted. If your site is identified as trying to trick the search engines you can be banned from appearance on the index entirely.

The consequences of getting blacklisted can be jaw dropping. Imagine one day that your website that has thousands of dollars and countless hours invested simply ceases to exist on Google, Yahoo and MSN. It would be as detrimental to some businesses as having all brick and mortar locations burnt down in one weekend. Just like it would take a company months or even years to fully rebuild physically, it can take months and even years to dig your way out of the sandbox.

The risk is foolish to any real business or organization. Losing credibility from the search engines is a needless mistake when the guidelines are so clearly listed on every major search engine. Google Senior Webspam team member Matt Cutts explains that by simply following the rules and developing great sites you can achieve search engine recognition. In today’s day and age, spam is a real problem and the search engines are becoming more effective at catching it.

So don’t make the mistake of spamming the search engines; instead, make sure your site’s SEO team is both ethical and looking out for your best interests.

Here is a list of the SEO guidelines for the major 3 search engines.

The Google Webmaster guidelines

The Yahoo Webmaster guidelines

The MSN Webmaster guidelines

Keep in mind that over 80% of all search traffic is on Google, while MSN and Yahoo represent less than 20% of search traffic online. If you follow the guidelines on the Google page, you should do well everywhere else.