Church: St. Andrew UMC – Mt. Pleasant, TX
URL: http://www.gbgm-umc.org/standrewumc/
Initial thoughts
The first thing I noticed was the white box at the top that told me your Wednesday night activities were cancelled due to ice – two days ago. Good use of the box at the top, but the notice needs to go.
While I think your text on the homepage is a bit Christianese for outsiders (and likely would scare away any non-Christians), I like the way you give so much information on the front page. You link things very well (worship, study, fellowship, etc) and then have the full table of events (again, linked well) at the bottom.
The overall look of the site is somewhat dated, but that’s always something you can work on. One thing that will help is to lose the thick borders on the tables. Make them a “1″, or use CSS to make them smaller than that.
While I love how the GBGM is helping churches get on the web, the URL you get is awful. For $8.95 at GoDaddy (or similar prices elsewhere) you can get your own domain name and forward it to your GBGM site. Users will still browse at the ugly URL, but you can print and promote a better address like www.standrewmtpleasant.org or whatever.
Browsing around
The links on the left are easy to see and easy to understand. I’m not a big fan of frames, mostly for search engine reasons. We’ll get into that later.
I started by going to the “worship” page to see what you had to offer. Nothing there blew me away, but you covered the main things I needed to know like time, childcare and things of that nature. Also, calling it a “traditional worship service” at a UMC gave me a good idea of what it would be like. However, for a non-UMC member (or non-Christian), they might need more information about what a traditional UMC service is like.
Having the “how to reach us” on the top of every page is great, and the information on that page is perfect.
The calendar opens up in a new window, which probably shouldn’t happen. Since you’re using frames anyhow, that information could just be framed in. Alternatively, you could put a link at the top of the calendar to return to the main site. Either way, you should probably do something so that you don’t have to have it open a new window.
A few things were missing — or else I couldn’t find them, which is just as bad.
1 – Staff. Who is the minister? Other staff? I like to have a separate page for each staff member so that whenever one is referenced on the site you can link directly to their page.
2 – Facility. While the focus of the site should be on the people and activities, it’s always nice to include some information about the building. This is especially useful if you mention a location and then can link to a page with more information about that building. For example, if you say “we’re meeting in the fellowship hall”, that means nothing to someone that has never been to your church. Having a link with a picture of the fellowship hall and it’s location on a campus map will help newcomers feel more confident when they arrive.
Search engine optimization
This section is a bit tricky for you because of the frames. Simply by having frames you are losing TONS of potential visitors on Google, and here is why – Google doesn’t like to index your individual pages because they all have the same URL. Every page on your site is simply http://www.gbgm-umc.org/standrewumc/. Most sites have “children.htm” and “mens-ministry.htm” as separate pages. Since yours are all framed, they’re all the same.
However, Google will sometimes pick up those individual pages, but that’s almost worse. If someone lands on one of your pages (like this worship page) they’re stuck without decent navigation. There’s always the text links at the bottom, but those don’t help a whole lot.
Having your pages framed also means that your page titles are all the same – “St. Andrew United Methodist Church, Mt. Pleasant, Texas, USA”. It’s not a bad title, but it never changes.
Finally, it’s very difficult to bookmark or e-mail individual pages. If someone is not paying attention, they might pull up your Youth page and then send a link to it for someone to check out. Of course, that link is still just www.gbgm-umc.org/standrewumc/ and the person that opens it will just get your homepage.
There are tricks that make it easy to put your menu on every page and still keep it easy to update, such as server side includes or PHP’s include command.
Conclusion
This site has a lot going for it, but could use some substantial changes. At the very least I’d try to get rid of the frames and then go from there.
You’re using StatCounter to keep up with your stats, and they do a good job. I’m somewhat partial to Google Analytics, but StatCounter isn’t far behind. However, I would lose the “xxxx pages visited on this website since March 4, 2005″, as it serves no purpose other than to show off the fact that only about 10 pages are viewed everyday. Your site should give the appearance of being very popular, rather than just admitting that very few people visit. To put it another way, look at any of the big sites out there (Google, Yahoo, CNN, etc) or any of the large church sites – they just don’t put the pageview count at the bottom. It was popular to do in the mid to late 90′s, but the time for that has passed.
The pictures scattered around on the site are placed reasonably well, but should probably be of the people at your church – not the building. You can give all of the info that you want about the building in a “facility” section, but have smiling faces be the main thing on the rest of the pages.
I hope those ideas help. If you (or anyone else) has other thoughts to add, feel free to leave a comment.
Mickey
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Paula’s response (she was having trouble leaving a comment on here)
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I am usually much more timely with the white box… the weather had us a bit out of sorts here. But I added the box so it was just 15 seconds’ of work to update every page. I try to update both my sites once a week.
I will ponder the “Christian-ese” problem… Admittedly, the home page contains the text from the church’s mission statement verbatim. I’m the preacher’s wife, and using what they already had was the quickest way to get started. I have tried to change up the Ministries page to be more non-UM or non-Christian friendly. I am such an introvert that the evangelism & witness part don’t come very easily to me.
Re: thick borders on tables… all pages? or some specific place(s)?
I don’t have a budget and even $8.95 would better go to children’s choir music from my pocket, imo. Once a URL is bookmarked, who cares what it is? (I know what your response is, so don’t waste keystrokes.
) It’s not the URL that people remember… it’s what they search for in Google, right? Meta tags, etc… I still have some research & work to do on those, but I’ve been reading your articles and whittling away.
I have the calendar in a separate window because I just use the output of Outlook for speed. I used to add a line that said “Close this window to return to the site.” or some such at the top, but then I got lazy and thought computer literate folks know how to close a window anyway. I don’t think new windows are a negative. In fact, they are recommended when linking to another site (e.g., our links page), so the user never really leaves your site.
If I had staff people who would contribute and wanted their own page, I would do what you say. However, the pastor and the youth coordinator communicate via the newsletter… I could add links from homepage to those… let me noodle on that, because the filenames change, etc…. Do people really want to read about a staff person’s background? Or are you thinking of having a brief welcome message? I suppose having their personal email addresses would be good, but the pastor gets the email at the church anyway and the youth coordinator’s address is on the youth page already (with cell phone & offer of a ride). I have yet to receive an email from the website… or maybe one last year sometime?
Facility. Mickey, we are just not that big… we don’t even call it a “campus.” And once you turn into the (one) parking lot, the signage is pretty good. Well, we’re actually in a “transformation churches” program which involves among other things an expert visiting our facilities and making recommendations, so “we shall see” as the saying goes. However, I will keep the “making people comfortable about finding things once they get here” suggestion in mind. I could at least improve the contact page.
I have been working on the search engine vs. frames issues. The logo links back to the index page, so landing on a page from the search engine results can be “fixed” with one click. Not perfect, I admit, but surely “decent.” In one paragraph you praise the contact us on every page and in another paragraph you diss the name of the church on every page!
Actually, the UMConnect folks are the ones who convinced me to have it “everywhere,” and I use SSI for that anyway, not a frame. There is only the menu frame on the left and the content frame on the right.
Re: keeping menu buttons on the screen when people scroll down through a page of information–how would I do that without a separate frame on the left?
I wrestle with pictures. I do have some, of the kids, but I checked with their parents before doing that. It’s the question of permission to put someone on the internet. No, don’t spend keystrokes on this one either, as we have discussed it to death on UMConnect, more than once!
I still modify the newsletter instead of using PDF so I can remove last names & phone #’s—-although I exclude the newsletter pages/files in my robots file. (?) Anyway, I am about to start working on a presentation for our big stewardship Sunday next month, so maybe I can find some good ones to put on the site…. at least until I hit the 5 meg max at GBGM. 
I have also changed the anchor logo to images of our altar decorated for different occasions… still not people, but at least it’s the inside of our facility! 
< < I will ponder the "Christian-ese" problem >>
As I look at more and more sites, yours isn’t as bad as many others. Of course, it still could use some work, but as I said in my review it’s just a “bit” Christianese.
This is a large challenge for many churches, as you want to profess the Gospel openly, but not turn off any visitors before they have a chance to come in.
< < thick borders on tables >>
I’m certainly not a style expert – I’m better with the nuts and bolts. However, tables are heading out of style quickly (though I still use them a lot) and tables with thick borders went out a few years ago. Certainly not a bit deal, though.
< < Once a URL is bookmarked, who cares what it is? >>
I agree with that completely. However, it’s very hard to TELL people about a site and hope that they’ll remember “www-dot-g-b-g-m-dash-u-m-c-dot-org-slash-standrewumc” rather than simply “standrewumc-dot-org” (or whatever). That being said, I can’t fault you for wanting to put your money to other uses.
< < Meta tags >>
Don’t worry about them – they’ve been abused for so long that they’re virtually useless. Focus on good content on your pages and that will serve you far better.
< < separate window >>
I simply consider this bad practice, although it can be argued both ways. Jakob Nielsen is a well-respected expert on web usability and I share his thoughts on it. The best article can be found here:
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/open_new_windows.html
To quote from it:
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Since 1999, it’s been a firm Web usability guideline to refrain from opening new browser windows for several reasons:
* When new windows appear that users didn’t ask for, it’s both confusing and disruptive.
* If the new window completely obscures the old one, many users don’t even realize a new window has opened.
* Less-technical users can’t manage multiple windows.
* New windows can defeat users who are blind or have low vision, as, for example, when a new window opens outside the part of the screen that’s magnified for a low-vision user.
The common rationale designers have for opening new windows is “to keep users on our site,” but that’s bogus reasoning. If people want to leave, they’ll leave. And if they just want to look at the other site, they’ll return to your site by clicking the Back button — the second most used feature on the Web (after hypertext links). In fact, one of the usability problems of opening new windows is that they alter the expected behavior for returning to the previous location.
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< < staff people >>
I’m coming at this from the perspective of a new visitor to your site, not someone that is already familiar with the church. I don’t need a full background on the staff members, but a photo would be nice.
< < facility >>
I wasn’t aware your church was that small, which is a testament to how much information you have on the site. Also, I’m coming from a large church with awful signage, so having more info on the website is helpful for us.
< < In one paragraph you praise the contact us on every page and in another paragraph you diss the name of the church on every page! >>
I guess I wasn’t clear about what I meant by “title”. The title of a page is the text that shows up in the blue address bar at the top of your browser (and also is the default text for bookmarks). It’s quite important to keep that information accurate for EACH page, which isn’t possible with frames.
< < keeping menu buttons on the screen when people scroll down through a page of information--how would I do that without a separate frame on the left? >>
Simply put – you don’t. That certainly is a good argument for keeping frames, but I think it’s the only argument in that direction. Users are used to scrolling up to find the menu if it gets out of view. Also, pages should never be excessively long anyhow – if they get long, they should be broken up into individual pages.
< < pictures >>
I know it can be tough permission-wise. Just wanted to mention it.
Mickey, Since we had some rare sunshine today, I took some pictures of the facilities. I noticed that our signage is not as good as I thought! I should have the pictures up by tonight. I am also pursuing adding pictures of people: There will be an announcement in next week’s newsletter about a “website facelift” — we’ll add pictures with no names, and people should contact the church office to “opt out” if they don’t want their pictures on the internet. So, we should have people on the site in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, I can get one of the pastor out there right away!
Your review has spurred me on to make some real changes!
Thanks!