Website Report Card: Crossroads Christian Rehab
About Website Report Cards: Our report cards are for website owners who want to improve their sites. We look at websites and formulate our report cards by evaluating four main criteria: first impressions, usability, search engine optimization and technical standards.
Website: CrossroadsChristianRehab.com
1. First Impressions
Immediately after coming to this site I know that the site host and builder is Godaddy. Having experience with Godaddy ourselves, we know that by purchasing your domain name with them that you get free hosting as well. The site is obviously built with a website-tonight, what you see is what you get type of editor.
This is what we like to call an “online business card.”
While there is nothing wrong with having a website hosted by Godaddy, these types of websites do not get found by search engines and therefore only get site traffic through word of mouth communication and other forms of print advertising.
Questions that would immediately go through my mind as a web surfer or future donor are, “How much does this site matter to the organization? Is this nonprofit just getting started, or are have they been around for a while? Is this a professional organization?” It really comes down to trust. A website is one meter in which people can evaluate - for themselves - how much an organization is worth.
As a web design and PR company we would ask, “How is this website - if at all - meeting your brick and mortar goals?” If the answer is that its not, then it can become worse than a waste of money… it can be a hindrance to future donors or partners.
Pleasing to the eye: C
Proximity: B
Alignment: Irrelevant
Repetition: Irrelevant
Contrast: C
Reflection of branding and purpose: D
GRADE: C
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2. Usability
The usability is extremely simple. The main menu stays consistent and is conventional with modern website formats. Every page is functional, some which are more appealing than others, but has no broken links or missing information.
This simplicity is one huge benefit of having a “what you see is what you get” editor for your website when your funds are low. One deterrent, however, is the constant Godaddy ad on the top of the page. While this may irritate users, it also creates a way for them to leave your site. Once clicking on the ads, the browser automatically takes you away from the site and to the Godaddy landing page.
While the purpose of the site is clearly explained in the first paragraph of the homepage, a better place for this to appear is right underneath the name of Crossroads. You may want to replace the quote underneath the name with a quick mission or vision statement.
Another problem the site probably has encountered is its inability to collect consumer data. When you don’t know who is looking at your site or offer a method to collect such data, you lose many potential donors and what we like to call “warm leads.” Although you offer a clear way to contact Crossroads, this confines the user to sending an email or making a phone call rather than submitting their information.
User’s ability to understand, comprehend and interact with the website: A
User’s frustration or anxiety associated with the website: C
User’s ability to find the site’s main purpose upon first glance: C
Consistent Navigation: A +
Easy Navigation: A +
Navigation visibility: A +
Website accomplishes functional goals: C
Use of applications: C
Newsletter Signup: F
GRADE: C
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3. Search Engine Optimization
The site only has two pages indexed in google. The pages are constructed well with lots of text, which will actually help search engine results. The site however has no valuable links pointing toward it, this is hindering search engine traffic. Since half of the information on the page is Godaddy adds, which also hurts search ranking.
A couple quick things that would help search ranking for this site are a blog to post new content on a regular basis, and keyword research. The site has no page rank information which shows its lack of incoming links. This site could be fixed for search engines rather easily.
Title tags: C (they exist but without researched keywords)
Meta tags: C (they exist but with single word keyword phrases)
Clean URLs: A
Semantic information design: A
Descriptive anchor tags: C
Google’s Page Rank: F
GRADE: C
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4. Technical Standards
The first thing I noticed is that the code is not hand written because the only comments are program generated. The site uses a table based layout, which is an old way of laying out pages, and not preferred. Other than this the site does not use any current web technologies.
Doc type declaration: A
HTML or XHTML standards compliant: F (the site has over 20 validation errors. Thats one error every two lines of code)
CSS standards compliant: A
Accessibility standards compliant: A
Well formed code: D
GRADE: C
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FINAL GRADE: Room for a Re-Design
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