Check your web in varied browsers

OK, so you're an avid [Firefox or Internet Explorer or Opera or Safari] browser fan. You checked your web pages and they look fine. In your browser. That's not enough.

You need to know if your web pages look good and don't "break" in other popular browsers. Some services are free, some are paid. Check browsers such as:

• Firefox 2.0
• Internet Explorer 6
• Internet Explorer 7
• Opera (varied versions)
• Safari (a couple of versions). iPhones use Safari, by the way.

Not only that, you need to check different operating systems, because some browser versions can and do differ on different OSs. Consider:

• Mac OSX
• Linux (which has a lot of flavors
• Windows

You can pay one-time or monthly fees to use a commercial service that checks a web page against varied browsers or you can go the free route.

Browsershots is a free online service I like. It uses computers of volunteers around the world to make snapshots of a web page in browser versions you select. After a wait (you can hang on or just return to that web page), you get a collection of thumbnail images. Click on one and get a larger view.

It's very easy to see if everything looks OK or if there's a problem with that browser displaying your web page as you intended. The image below represents about 35 minutes worth of waiting -- a price of the price.

As you can see from the image, one snapshot appears at only half-screen vertically. That's because the volunteer forgot to maximize the browser. When you run into that, this service even has an instant "problem" report for each browser snapshot.

Newsletters: Size matters

Among the many factors you need to think about when designing or redesigning a church newsletter is it's physical size. Why? Size affects:

• Ease of handling the printed newsletter.
• Column width and layout options.
• Ease of online reading.

All those are usability factors that you need to consider. Remember, the key is not what you think looks nice or what you've "always done", but rather how easily and quickly the many different readers of your newsletter can scan and read the content.

Also remember that online readers (and probably many readers of printed editions) scan text rather than reading it. The newsletter layout and design can help or hurt that scanning.

When you offer your newsletter as an electronic file attached to email or online, you have some added responsibilities:

• Make size readable. Make sure you use a size that does not exceed screen width. Make sure that if a visitor resizes a newsletter to their screen width, they can still read it easily. Reduced size fonts can become "squint print" in a hurry.
• Don't design for hi-res. Design for a screen resolution of 800 x 600 pixels, but make sure the newsletter looks good at 1280 x 720 pixels. Why not design for hi-resolution and widescreen? Many people don't maximize browsers when they have widescreen monitors. Check your web site stats to see what screen resolution is most common, but remember that it needs to look great at 800 x 600 pixels (or the Mac equivalent).
• Colors. Keep color saturation and contrast in mind. Many LCD monitors "wash out" contrast and over-saturate colors. Window scrollbars may be very hard to see, as will light pastels or grays.
• No snake columns. Make sure readers don't have to scroll down and then up again on the same page to read your online or electronic file newsletter. This most often happens if you use "newspaper" columns that snake from bottom to top across multiple columns. Columns are fine, but avoid the snaking column. Do that by keeping stories flowing vertically; no column changes. If you have two columns, story text in each column flows only downward.
• Avoid folds. Whenever possible, don't use a folded paper format. A newsletter that has vertical folds results in a newsletter that exceeds the screen width. It also often means columns that snake across the fold. This format is quite hard to read online or in an electronic file format. Don't force your readers to print the newsletter to be able to scan and read it easily. Give up the old print mentality. Think of online and electronic file readers, while keeping the format attractive in print as well.

You can't have it all

Rarely do churches have the staff, volunteers, and funds to do absolutely everything they'd love to. The applies in the web communications as well as other traditional committee areas. So what do you do? You prioritize the work. But how do you do that and involve church members as well as staff.

Below are thoughts about getting fresh ideas and then prioritizing web work using brainstorming:

• Open a session with the understanding that your church cannot do everything it would like to.
• Brainstorm ideas for web communications of all sorts.
• Use a session moderator, one good at encouraging ideas.
• Adopt rules:
• All ideas are welcomed.
• Phrase ideas as positive ones.
• No discussion during this first phase -- just generate tons of ideas.
• Let others' ideas spur you to related ones.
• Don't criticize any idea given. Ideas at this stage may not even be practical, and may be "far out". The aim is a ton of ideas, some of which you'll end up using.
• Ignore whether your church currently has the resources to implement an idea or not. That analysis comes later.
• Set a time limit for brainstorming (30 - 40 minutes, maximum).
• Collect all ideas. One way is to use paper or a large "dry erase board" to record all ideas.
• Use one main collection method. One is a "limb and branch" approach [I forget the technical term] ... draw lines and mark the ideas above the lines. Fan out lines that are related. This actually helps spur ideas! [Anyone who knows the technical term -- post here for the benefit of all.]
• Categorize the ideas (some may fit in more than one category).
• Ask group members what categories (groupings) they see in the ideas.
• Jot down each possible grouping.
• Ask the group to assign actions to the first category.
• Record the responses.One way is to use a different colored dry erase marker for each category, then place "bullets" of that color next to each action associated with the category.
• Move to the next category, and continue till done.
• Record the final results (a digital photo of a dry erase board might work).
• Prioritize ideas
• Do a first cut at prioritizing the categories.
• Do a first cut at prioritizing the actions in each category.
• Disregard available resources at this time. That comes next.
• If the group deems an idea way too "far out" to be done at this time, mark it and put it in a "set-aside" group for now. Always keep ideas. You never know when today's "far out" idea will become practical.
• Analyze categories and actions
• Consider privacy aspects to each action.
• Consider security aspects to each action.
• List any resources needed to accomplish each action.
• Resources include people, time, and things (equipment, web hosting, web developer, etc.)
• List which resources your church already has.
• List which resources should be easy to get.
• List which resources may be very hard to get. Nothing is impossible, but look at the effort-versus-benefit of each "very hard to get" resource.
• Discuss alternative ways and approaches to getting hard-to-get resources. Conference funding? Temporary seminary student help? Grants?
• Agree on which actions should be postponed due to resource constraints.
• Re-examine the priorities in light of security, privacy, and available resources.
• Finalize initial milestones
• Acknowledge that people need to accomplish some actions that they just like to do, regardless of priority.
• Keep the web communications workers happy, motivated, and engaged.
• Re-examine priorities and establish short-term milestones.
• Plan early milestones that will be easy to accomplish -- you need some "wins" fairly fast to keep morale and excitement up
• Agree on how and when to next meet.
• Decide of you want an "email meeting" to add ideas that post-session thoughts and discussion may generate.
• The next meeting should address progress, resource challenges, future resource needs, any changes needed to existing milestones, and any possible milestones for other actions.

Decide on the type of meeting format. Meetings could be in person, via email message exchanges, or a web meeting. Explore options. Seek variety -- keep interest up.

Google's custom search engine

Google now has a "Custom Search Engine". You add code on any web page that immeditely adds a special search box. The key is that Google focuses searches on all sites linked on that page.

Possible uses:

• Search blogroll sites.
• Search based on a web page's theme, as shown by sites the page links to.
• Search focused on the links in a links collection page such as "Religion Resources".

Example use

Churches with topic-related pages that also include "Resource" links, "Related sites" links or similar on a page now get added value from a customized search. On a Missions page, for example, the custom search will let a visitor focus a search on any Mission-related sites linked on that page. So each different topic page -- for example worship, youth, and stewardship -- will result in different search results depending on what links appear on those pages.
This seems to be the replacement for the old "Site-flavored search" beta, which no longer works.

This also appears to be a great reason to add links of interest to the topical area of a church web page. Added value to visitors means happier visitors.

Tips for web designers

Here are some uselful links:

• Top 10 books for Web designers
• Top 12 blogging tips
• Web design - setting goals
• Get off your RSS (SitePoint)
• 3 ways to make a good first impression
• Great church web sites - things to do
• Great church web sites - things to avoid

Criteria for a new web host

Our church is looking at web hosting options. One criterion is to let an average person maintain the web. A second key criterion is to be able to "touch the code" if we have a person capable of doing that.

Below is the long list of criteria we're using to compare web hosting solutions and site builder type options:

• Offers a Content Management System (CMS) and templates suitable for our church's use. The CMS should let nearly everyone (with minimal orientation) add, edit, or delete text, add or delete images, create or delete pages, and upload files.Templates must be pure CSS -- no use of tables for layout.
• XHTML templates are preferred, though XML is OK as long as layout and CSS can be directly edited. (I'm resisting having to devote enough time to learn XML coding for very little benefit -- I won't use it at work, for example.)
  
• Ability to directly edit the code as well as use the CMS.
• Must allow addition of alternate text and/or titles to image code (for accessibility).
• Ability to upload files via FTP or via Web.
• Absolutely no ads or forced frames with hosting company info showing.
• Templates must allow inserting of multiple-level CSS fly-out menus -- horizontal or vertical or both. Single-level menus are not good enough, if we're going to improve the navigation, which we intend to do.
• The web hosting company must be an established one.
• 24 x 7 support. Email is OK, though phone is better.
• Hosting firm has good ratings (when I can find them).
• A very high percentage web server uptime.
• Offers hosting on Windows 2003 server (in order to keep our options open).
• The hosting package includes room for our web to grow (pages/disk space)
• Offers at least 30 email addresses, auto-forwarding, POP access, and Spam filtering.
• Hosting solution is $300 or less per year. (E-Zekiel is way out of our price range for the size web we have.)
• Domain name registration/renewal is inexpensive (these should be very low cost these days).

Optional, but desired features:

• Ability to upload and offer podcasts of sermons
• Ability to embed video (YouTube or similar)
• Ability to display RSS feeds on selected pages (like Blogger's new XML template system allows).

Sermon post format

Using the content suggestions at OurChurch, below is a sample template for a sermon posting in a Pastor's blog:

---

Bible passage(s): [link(s) to an online bible]

Key Bible verse: [link to an online bible]

Sermon Title:

• Main point 1
• Sub-point 1
• Sub-point 2
• Main point 2
• Sub-point 1
• Sub-point 2
• Sub-point 3
• Main point 3
• Sub-point 1
• Sub-point 2

Action step: [The specific action you want people to take in the coming days as a result of this message.]

Dig deeper: [linked references for added information related to the sermon topic.]

• Reference 1
• Reference 2
• Reference 3

Ask the pastor: Click on the "comments" link at the bottom of this posting or contact me at the church's email address. [The "contact me" link could go to the church's "Contact" web page or the actual church email address for the pastor.]

Traits of a great web site

Titus Hoskins in SitePro News lists seven traits of a great web site:

• Keywords are used
• Design is simple
• Pages are optimized
• Navigation is easy
• Content is fresh
• Good enough to bookmark
• Looks cool

Content in Pastors' blogs

What content should appear in a pastor's blog? Anything they want, of course. On the other hand, it depends on why the blog was created and the purpose of the blog.

Pastors may arrive at a church with a blog already. They may well use it for publishing daily happenings (journal style) and musings. If the church wants "their" Pastor's blog to integrate with the church web and church worship, the church and pastor need to discuss a blog that is directly tied to the church. Both type blogs can exist at the same time. Authoring multiple blogs is common.

The Christian Web Trends blog posting lists some great content ideas for "Supercharging sermons with a blog", which I have added to the below tips.

Come decision points about pastor blog content and design on which the church and pastor need to reach agreement:

• If the pastor has or wants a personal journal type blog, is the pastor also willing to author a pastor's blog that is a more direct extension of the local church?
• Should the design integrate with the church web design or its existing blogs?
• Should the pastor's blog contain any sermon texts, summaries, or outlines? Sermon messages can be one form of online evangelism.
• Should a "Sermon blog" be a separate blog or mixed in with the other postings in the church's Pastor's blog?
• Should the church offer (and link) sermon podcasts or video?
• Should the blog allow comments, as is the norm?
• Should any comments should be "moderated", so as to avoid anti-Christian rants and foul language appearing in blog comments? Yes, of course!
• Should the blog contain short "point of view" postings about spiritual life in a secular world? These could be "thought for the week" style, supplement a past sermon, or based on the pastor's and congregation's daily life experiences.

Sermon information

If the pastor's blog will contain sermon information, decide the following:

• When should such information be posted?
  Immediately or after a week or two delay?
  Some pastors and church leaders may fear that offering full text or even outlines immediately might lower actual church attendance. Others may want to immediately offer the message to shut-ins or people who were unable to attend church.
• Should it be full text, paragraph summary, or outline?
  I suggest a two-level outline format, which is easiest to scan. After all, research shows that most surfers scan, not read text on web pages. An outline of two levels includes the key points and yet is short.

Add sermon resource links

If posting sermon outlines, help people dig deeper by stirring in:

• Links to resources related to the sermon topic. Remember that your own church web may contain information or related link collections.
• Links to bible passages for the sermon.
• Titles of materials available in the church library.
• Links to Books, say available from Cokesbury, that are a really great reference.

Add the "So what?"

Sermons at their best are like editorials, not just commentary. Editorials urge their readers to take action. Here's the pastor's chance to reinforce the Christian actions that readers should take in their lives during the coming days and weeks. The Christian Web Trends blog calls these "Action Steps." Be specific. Make each action step short. Use bullets – make the action steps easy to scan.

Encourage contact

If you have enabled comments, your blog postings automatically have a way to "contact us". Some readers, though, may wish to contact the pastor personally, not via a blog comment. So it's best to also add a "Contact us" link. Since this is a Pastor's blog that is tied to your church, how about adding a "Send a prayer request" link too? It couldn't hurt and might be just what some blog reader needs.

Methoblogger Lectionary & other helps

When your pastor, teachers, or any other interested people want to get someone else's take on Common Lectionary readings for the week, surf on over to "The Methoblogger Lectionary Group" site.

There are a ton of helpful web sites and blogs related to preaching and teaching. Add to that web pages helpful to various committees and work areas in the church and you have the makings of a great resource page for your web.

Gather a list of such links and put them on a special "leader helps" type web page, similar to what Avondale Pattillo United Methodist Church has done.

Pastor blog uses

Your congregation might well benefit from a blog authored by your pastor. Why? Your church web site needs to include changing content -- content that will keep people coming back. A pastor's blog is one of many parts to a complete church web site, even for a basic site that's not "fancy":

Some types of static information church web pages:

• Information pages (who we are, what we believe, service information, location, contact information, ...)
• Resource pages (links to spiritual topics and online tools)

Some types of dynamic (changing) web pages:

• Photo albums
• Church news
• Pastor's blog
• Syndicated news
• Syndicated religious cartoons

Here are a few of the many possible uses for a pastor's blog:

• A weekly (or more frequent) pithy spiritual message, musing, or "thought for the week"
• Sermon texts
• Sermon summaries
• Sermon supplemental references (linked)
• Topics related to the denomination

I believe that the below possibilities are of much lower interest and value in a pastor's blog:

• "Pitches" for upcoming events.
  This type subject might be a low-interest item and better suited to a church newsletter or Sunday bulletin supplement.
• "Congratulations" on past events.
  Such items might be better posted in a church news blog or online newsletter.

Communications tips

The Web Evangelism Bulletin has a ton of tips and sample sites each issue, some of which apply to general communications or writing. Here's a few gleaned from that bulletin since November ...

• Communicating Well
• Writing tips
• Boomers and Gen-Xers communicate differently

Cool Kuler Coolest

Adobe Labs has come up with a winner -- Kuler. Fun to use and a boon to web and graphics designers of all types, this color grouping creator and sharing application is a very popular site.

Take the Kuler tour (aka tutorial) to see what it's all about. It even plays cool music while you learn. To create or share color groupings, you'll need an Adobe ID.

The Museum of Modern Betas (MoMB) lists Kuler as #7 in their "Top 100".

Web inventor explains impact of Semantic Web

Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web and is director of the World Wide Web Consortium, explains to MIT's "Technology Review" how the Semantic Web will transform the way we use data.

The video presentation is by Brightcove video publishers. I find the interface interesting and easy to use. The maximum size is not full-screen, but plenty big enough for a computer screen.

• View the 8-minute video of Tim Berners-Lee

My Maps a great new resource

Google has done it again! The Google Maps home page now offers "My Maps". This tool lets you add several map points, lines, shapes, balloon text, pictures, and more.

Prior to this new feature, I had tested MultiPlottr, which is a similar tool and does use Google Maps. Google's My Maps appears slicker and offers the familiar ease of use and easy to learn GUI we've come to expect from Google. With Google My Maps you have to guess at location by dragging a plot marker. Try both and see if you agree.

Side note: There is a limit of 50 plotted addesses per map at present.

Ideas for possible uses

• Plot the street addresses of your church members. A visual look at clustering and dispersion may give you added insight for outreach or visitation planning.
• Plot members' addresses, but use different colors for:
• Members who have moved out of the area but still attend.
• New members within the last year.
• Founding members (if the church is new).
• Members who have not moved out of the area.
• Your church's street address (the key reference point on the map).
• Location of selected community resources (City Hall, Courthouse, City or County agencies that help people, Clothes closets, etc.). This might become the basis for a "Where to get help" portal page for your community.
• Home address of visitors in the past year.
• Plot the location of an event away from the church. The Church Art Online Plus Calendar does this, but that is a paid subscription. You could email this map link to all church members and any visitors that gave you their email address.
• Plot any type of demographic information about your members that is related to their address. Just remember the 50-address per map current limit.

Special note about long links. Remember that if you email map links, you should check the length and potential for problems at the receiving end. If the link is a long one or contains special characters, the recipient's email messages may "break" the link, especially when it wraps lines.

A way to avoid that problem is to use the free "TinyURL" online service to create a special short link when the target is a long one. TinyURL creates a special very short link that points to the long one you provide. An example long link reduced by TinyURL: http://tinyurl.com/ywzpx8 .

TinyURL also offers a "preview" feature that lets people see the actual destination link before they decide to select it. Here's an example of the same link as a "preview" one: http://tinyurl.com/preview.php?num=ywzpx8

Church PR using Flickr

If your church uses Flickr or some similar sites for photo albums, you also have easy access to a unique avenue for identity products.

• Zazzle
  Zazzle site lets you design produce custom stamps, T-shirts, mugs, and more. Custom stamps come in varied sizes using photos of your choice and sizing. They are more expensive than USPS stamps, but it's a unique way of promoting your church. Flickr offers a cross-site link to Zazzle.
• QOOP
  QOOP uses your photos to create custom cards (myCards) of different sizes, calendars, Posters, an more. You can create picture-based business cards, for example. Or mini-cards with a photo on one side and printing on the other. You might want to purchase some for special seasons or to promote select events.
• Moo
  Make notecards or mini-cards

Church webs -- Heal!

A few sites dedicated to helping you improve your web site:

• Heal your church web site
• Is my web site ineffective? (including checklists)
• Top 20 confessed web site sins
• Don't do really weird navigation, no matter how "cool" some designer thinks it is. Go ahead. Figure it out. Then ask yourself if you really want to use it on that web site?

Hone your keywords

You can find out what words are getting associated with any keywords you specify by using Google's Keyword Tool.

Although designed for use with Google AdWords, the handy online Keyword Tool can help you tweak the ones you are using or considering.

Other free keyword-related tools:

• Keyword suggestion tool (1)
• Keyword suggestion tool (2)
• GoogleDuel - compare which of two related words is more popular
• Ontology Finder - get a list of related words. Use the synonyms in your page's text to boost search results.
• Keyword Density tool
• Keyword Cloud
• Keyword Optimizer - Deletes duplicate keywords in the list and alphabetizes the list.
• Add Keyword Typos - lists possible misspellings you may want to add in your Keywords list.

Free online web design course

Project: New is a free online course made up of articles on designing and developing a website. The course has several contributors and uses a downloadable syllabus.

Oh ... and it's not heavy on coding. So don't shy away from it if you're not a coder.

I found the site by selecting a link in a SitePoint book (free sample of Principles of Beautiful Web Design), then following a comment's link in the blog at that site. Aren't hyperlinks wonderful!

Search for free stock photos

The PicFindr site lets you search for free stock photos. It even lets you customize what restrictions you are willing to live with (give credit, not alter, ask permission). The default is no restrictions.

You can also use the Advanced drop-down to match any term (the default is all terms) or show partial match sites.

The PicFindr site describes itself as "not alpha - not beta - just not done yet", but it works well.