Making Good Websites Better

J. • 13 February 2007 • Freemasonry

Dear Unknown Friend,

I’d like to share with you some insight for improving your Lodge websites. The following suggestions will increase your website’s search engine position, and bring in more online users (i.e. petitions, or non-Masonic interest in your organization), and convey a more professional and established appear to your Lodge.

First we need to determine if your site is a digital compost heap. Yes, you read that correctly. Many well intentioned Masonic sites are simply heaps of digital trash languishing a slow death from neglect and poor management. The best means by which to determine how bad or well off your site is, is to reduce it to its most basic form - text. You can do this by visiting Poodle Predictor. Type in your site in the search bar, and select diagnostic view. This presents your site as computers see it. Can you work your way around your site? Is there abundant content? If your site is not usable to search engines, there is a strong possibility it is not usable to people either.

Kinda shocking isn’t it. Once you reduce your site to text, it looks like a bunch of ads, and very little content about your Lodge, or
Freemasonry. So, let’s fix that.

Content is King
Nice backgrounds, cool fonts, and dancing graphics are the antithesis of the web. Content is king, and content is text. When considering a website for your lodge, the first thing to do is find someone who writes well. Websites are an english activity, not a tech activity. Remember this: Write first, tech later!
Write good content. Write compelling content. Write inspiring content. Once you have good content, then add backgrounds and fonts. A nondescript page full of content, is better than a page full of eye-candy and no-content. An information rich experience is essential to a good website.

But not too much content
Web content needs to be broken down into easy chunks. A good title, a one sentence summary + a one paragraph reduction, and then complete article. Take the time to reduce your content to these groupings, and present them accordingly. Users on the web are very selective, and stubbornly fickle. They know exactly what they are looking for, and do not want to wait long to find it.

Who Comes Here
When a non-Masons goes on the web looking for a local Lodge site, or information on Freemasonry, he will not type F&AM or FREE & ACCEPTED MASONS OF WHOVILLE. He will type Freemasons or Freemasonry - maybe Masonic Temple, followed by the city he is located in. It is difficult for Freemasons to change, however an understanding that your website, and your organizational names are not bound together is essential for web success. Your Official Lodge name maybe Masonic Lodge No. 0 Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of Whoville, however this isn’t very web friendly. Changing your web presentation to Masonic Lodge No. 0 AF&AM - Freemasons of Whoville is very web friendly. Help non-Masons find you, and you will be rewarded. This information should be in the TITLE tag of every page on your website.

What do you Most Desire
Search engines work on complex algorithms to understand what a single webpage is all about. Help them along, ensure the words FREEMASON and FREEMASONRY appear at least three times in the body content of every page on your site. Keyword density is the name of the game. Make it happen. The greater the keyword density, to more relevant search engines think the page is.

Web Awards and Ditch-Digging-Dudes and Links
All three of these are worthless. They may be sentimental, they mean well, they are cute. They do nothing but indicate your site is run by amateurs.

  • Replace each award with a page of content, and your site will be better off. Note: Awards don’t actually mean anthing, they are a contrivance to increase the search position of the awarding body. Placing awards on your site, only helps others without reciprocity.
  • The same applies to the ditch-digging-dude and your under construction sign. A web page is either available, or it isn’t. Don’t point out your dirty-laundry (uncompleted pages) to visitors. Don’t publish until you are ready to publish. A website is an evolutionary project, change is a given. Your users know this. All websites are always under construction.
  • A link from your site is a positive vote to another site. Before adding a link to your site consider why you are linking? What is favorable about their site? Do they have a relationship with you?

Is that a page or a paragraph
So, you’ve got some great content. Users are finding their way to your site. Google thinks you are cool enough to warrant a PageRank of 4 with only 8 inbound links. You’ve even got a decent theme for your site. Users are leaving it after 1 one page – what gives? Chances are, your site may be good, and visually stimulating, but is only user-friend to the most extreme hyper-text parsers. This is the time you get a professional involved to help you with cascading style sheets to clear up the good text of your site and structure it into a format that is easy on human eyes. I do not recommend you do this on your own. Get a professional involved. Do not pay more than $100.00.

Location, Location, Location
So, you’ve got some great content. Users are finding their way to your site. Google thinks you are cool enough to warrant a PageRank of 4 with only 10 inbound links. You’ve even got a decent theme for your site. You had a professional give your text a good once over and make it easy on the eyes. Users are still leaving it after 1 one page – what gives. Chances are they can’t find any where else to go on your site. Navigation is another often under evaluated component of a website. Unlike books, which are linear, websites can be approached in nearly any fashion, and reviewed in any order. Before putting your site online, break out the old pen and some index cards, write the title of every page on a single card, and then prioritize your content. Which pages do you want people to find right of the bat? Which pages are secondary pages supporting primary pages? Which pages intuitively follow one another? Navigation is no simple matter, and is just underneath content in overall importance. Take the time to understand the flow of information on your site, and your users will stick around longer. Also, if your navigation is java based – ditch it. It looks pretty, but is of no practical use.

J.

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