|
WB Home
Volunteers
News
Membership
Calendar
Awards
Forms
Training
Roundtable
Camping
Camporee
Ski Trip
Units
FOS
Interfaith
Links
Web Master
|
BUILDING YOUR OWN WEB PAGE
Although not a comprehensive guide, the
following tips may help you in building a website for your Scouting
organization:
CONSIDERATIONS
First Things First - Planning
- Decide what kinds of information you
want to publish
- Who will develop content and who will
do the web publishing
- Where will you host your website
- How will you let your target audience
know about your web page
- When will you update your content
Setting Up A Website
- Hosting:
Make arrangements with an Internet Service Provider to host your
website.
- Uploading:
Look for a host that will allow you to upload files via File
Transfer Protocol (FTP) instead of a proprietary web based device
that forces you to load one file at a time.
- Server Space:
Make sure that the host offers enough free space for what you want
to put on the web. Shoot for 5 megabytes or higher to start.
- Contract: Review
the hosting arrangement to make sure you do not have to include
content from the host that might be inconsistent with the aims and
objectives of Scouting; e.g., you do not want to have a banner add
that changes to advertisements for alcoholic beverages or
promotion of a site with adult content.
- Free Hosting: You
can visit The
NetCommish or WEBnME
Free Hosting Links where there are lists of ISPs that provide
free website hosting. I've listed an additional set of link below.
In addition you may want to consult the
agreement you entered into with your ISP to get access to the
Internet. Most providers offer a limited amount of fee web space.
For example, AOL offers members the option to have up to five
screen names with 2 MB of space for web pages for each screen name
(total - 10 MB).
- Inexpensive Hosting:
Look for Scouters on the web who offer hosting at below market
rates.
- Local Resources: Check
with local Scouters in your area to see whether a local ISP offers
free hosting. In some areas ISPs even compete to offer free
hosting to non-profit organizations.
Plan a template for each of your
web pages that includes:
- Title Tags
- make sure that each page is identified with a title that
describes the page. This is what search engine robots will use to
index your website. Include key words related to the page
including the word "Scout" and the name of your
organization. The name of your city and state may also be helpful.
Remember that when someone bookmarks your page the information in
this tag will become the bookmark's name. Titles like "home
page" are not very helpful. Instead try something like
"Boy Scout Troop 13, Kilian, Texas - Home Page"
- Identify Your Site: Use
A Masthead or something that identifies your website on each page.
You want visitors to know when they are on your website and when
they have reached someone else's website.
- Make It Easy to Navigate Navigation
links - Always make sure you have links on each page that lead
visitors back to your home page or any key web pages on your site.
At this point you may want to
sit down and draw a diagram of how you want your website
organized. Usually it is best to have a simple home page that only
gives the most important information in very brief form to a
visitor and links to the rest of your website. Most successful
websites have a hierarchy of pages. The top level is the home
page. The next level of pages are tables of contents arranged by
subject area. Finally the bulk of pages are at the third level
where most of your information is presented. Be careful not to
have too many levels. Most users will not go beyond four levels.
Example:
- Home Page
- Calendar of Events
- About our Troop
- Meetings
- Leaders
- Getting Ready for
Camp Checklist
- How to Join
- What's New
- Activities
- Campout
- Summer Camp
- Hike
- Scouting for Food
If you use an image map for
your navigation, make sure to also include text links.
Otherwise, some people may not be able to get beyond your
front door because their browser doesn't support image map
links. Redundant navigation isn't bad.
- Content Area: The
middle of your page is where you are going to place your content
and perhaps links.
- Footer information:
At the bottom of each page include information about copyrights,
if you have any and contact information. Each page should provide
a method of contacting the web page owner to make suggestions or
alert you to problems. Generally including an hyperlink to an
e-mail address is sufficient. If you can include a link to a
suggestion form that is better.
Develop a web policy for your
pages
- Laws and Rules: Check
to see whether there any laws restricting what you can place on
your website or any rules from your Scouting Association on web
content
- Council:
Incorporate your Council's web policy, if there is one. (US);
example - National
Capital Area Council's Privacy Policy
- District:
Incorporate your District's web policy, if there is one. (US)
- Privacy:
Address privacy and youth protection issues
- Commercialism:
You may want to avoid links to commercial websites to avoid giving
the appearance of a Scouting endorsement of a particular
commercial product
- Link Restrictions:
You may want to restrict links to only local Scouting units, your
District, and your Council
- Scouts with Disabilities:
You may want to require all pages to be compatible with a text
based web browser like LYNX. This means that all graphics will
need to use the "ALT" tag to identify the graphic and
any link related to the graphic, if it is used for navigation.
This will also help people with disabilities to navigate your
site.
Writing the HTML
- Look at How Others Do It: It's
a good idea to look at other pages and view the HTML source to
find out how a certain effect can be achieved.
- Free Template: A great place to look is eScouting.net. Try the link below:
 |
| Scouting Website Design & Development | - Backgrounds: Keep
your background light and simple - a busy background will make it
difficult to read your content. Also make sure that your text has
good contrast values with your background. For example, light
purple on bright yellow is hard too read and may make your visitor
look for an air sickness bag.
- Keep It Simple: Don't
overdo the bells and whistles - if you use java applets,
javascripts, heavy graphics, etc. all on one page, it may take
forever to load for a modem user and obscure the message you are
trying to get across. While the page may look really neat to the
author, most visitors will move on to another page, if it doesn't
load in 15-30 seconds. Keep It Simple.
- Graphics: Use
graphics to enhance your pages and help tell your story, but
remember that the larger the graphic the slower your page will be
to load. Try using only a few graphics for each page and keep them
as small as possible. (Do not rely on width and height parameters
in your html to make the graphic smaller. This does not decrease
the file size of your graphic and actually takes longer to load
because your user's browser has to calculate the resizing of the
graphic. Instead resize the graphic to exactly what you want with
a graphics editor program.)
Preferred graphics formats
include GIF and JPEG. Other formats may not be supported by all
browsers. GIF works best for small objects, line art, and lower
resolution images. JPEG is preferred for complex images, such as
photographs.
Attracting and Keeping Visitors
- Register your website with popular
search engines
- E-mail an announcement about your
website to online Scouting groups like Scouts-L
- E-mail local Scouters about the
opening of your website
- Notify other Scouters that maintain
link sites or indices to Scouting websites
- Notify public service websites for
your community and ask for a link
- Put an announcement in your local
Scouting newsletter
- Use word-of-mouth locally too
- Update your content regularly, stale
content will suggest to a visitor that one visit is enough
- If available from your host, use
website statistics to help you decide what pages are being used and
which ones are not. This may help you figure out what needs work, what
needs to go and what needs to be expanded.
- As for comments and evaluation
- Respond to customer needs - don't
argue with suggestions, use them when possible
- Make your content valuable - offer
what customers want
Free Web Sites for Units:
FREE Banner-free Websites from Troops and Packs Online (TAPO)
& Explorers and Venturers Online (EVO).
|
