Leaders guide to managing a website
From YWAMKnowledgeBase
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This page is intended for leaders who are thinking about having a website to publicise their ministry. Many leaders are thinking about this and most times the leader needs to delegate the process due to not having the technical and artistic skills needed. That is not a problem but unless the leader has a firm grasp on the leadership and communications issues at stake they cant make good decisions.
Contents |
Pre-reading
It is good to have some technical knowledge of websites and communications theory before embarking on a website. Here is some essential pre-reading for this page:
- Websites - an overview of different types of website technology. It will help you choose the right tool
- EuroCom Communication Package - A website is only a part of a strategy. In fact it might not be what you want! This page helps you plan a broader strategy.
- Push and Pull Communications - Different methods of communicating. A website is a "Pull" method. You are hoping lots of people will "Pull" on your information. That is not guarenteed!
Trinity of requirements
Managing a good website requires:
- Technical skills (Programing and Server skills)
- Artistic skills (Art and Writing)
- Management skills (Leadership and strategy)
It should be noted that rarely does one person have all the skills. Also it is likely that the website will be a team effort anyway.
WARNING: It is very rare for a person with Technical Skills to have the Artistic skills!!! Very many web designers appear to be colour blind or at least REALLY like puce on blue as a combination of colours.
There are dangers in a site being too Technical or too Artistic:
- Bottle necks - changes or major updates require a specialist (internal or external). When the specialist is not available the changes can't be made or the site stalls or remains unupdated for a long time
- Sites driven on Technical or Artistic merit might not actually meet the goals the leader sets for them (ie. communicate to people useful information)
- Sites based on special technologies that require special viewers or plugins for people to view them have a danger of excluding some people who can not or will not use the special viewers. (This author will not use Internet Explorer only sites and often has trouble with cutting edge flash sites)
Knowing what you want
- Communicating useful information to people
- Information: feeling, sensation, image AND facts and news. Not just text
- Make sure you know what you want
- Goals
- keep it professional
- Make sure it follows YWAM.org guidelines - we are a YWAM family!
Make it so!
- Make a process so that you can ensure these things end up on the website:
- Make sure you are communicating with crystal clarity who YWAM is and what YWAM is doing.
- Make sure the website is clear in capturing the most important things we are sacrificing our lives for. It must explain what you do.
- Make sure you have a way of measuring whether the site will have achieved its goals. (Specific hits on certain pages, emails, applications etc over a specific time period.)
- Write a brief
- Evaluate
Management of the website
- Frequently review the site statistics and look and feel. Seek feedback.
- Make sure all back-end server hosting/domains paid for and to date
- Install security updates of your website technology ASAP to avoid beeing hacked
- Document all the server details and domain details and site details so others can easily take on the management of the site
- Consider, implement and test a plan for backup and data recovery in place
- Ensure you have staff in place with the right skills to maintain the site
- Making sure it has fresh and good new content
- If you are using flash or video content - make sure you have the source code not just the final movies - you will not be able to modify the content without the source!!!
- Keep asking the question: Does it do what you want?
Consider the options
- keep it simple
- keep it updated
Work at it
- Evaluate it. See Evaluate your YWAM website.
- Keep the content flowing
- Keep training people to work on it
- Keep inviting feedback
- Change it every 3 years or so...
Advice
- As a multi-cultural mission communicating internally and externally we need to be aware that others may find accessing our website difficult: if it is not in their native language or they have a low bandwidth/limited connection to the internet. See Mind The Gap for more.
- Multilingual websites: remember to always communicate in the native tongues of your target audience. English in addition is very helpful. Note multi-lingual websites are hard work but worthwhile.
- Minimum number of Clicks: the more clicks a user takes to get to the information they want the less likely they are to persevere to get there! If your contact info requires a chain of 7 pages to get to many people will never get this vital info! Consider also where you put your DTS or Staff opportunities or news if you want visitors to read it!
- Good Meta information and submission to websites helps people find you. The more accurate and relevant meta-information you have the better rank you will get in search engines, and the more likely visitors searching for what you offer will find you.
- Non-book generation. Only 15% of young people are readers - the other 85% can read but prefer image based information (MTV Generation) However, when they want information they want it quickly. (MTV Generation invented Wikipedia after all). Older people like reading more and can find Image intensive websites confusing and off-putting.
