Soon you’ll be facing some tough choices. What will the redesign include? And what won’t make the cut? No worries. It will be much more obvious thanks to all of your preparation. You’ll be making informed choices.

Thus far, however, the information we’ve gathered has had an inward focus. I’ve set it up that way for two reasons. First, over the years I’ve noticed that the most frequently skipped redesign tasks are the introspective ones. Many people in charge of redesigns make assumptions without even realizing it. The classic is to think that most of your site users are a lot like you, with the same needs and understanding.

How can you possibly create a good website if you don’t really know what its users most need? But looking inward, you not only understand your congregation better, you’ve also flushed out your own personal hopes and desires, and can tune these against what others have said.

Second, with this growing understanding of what your site really needs, you’ll find more meaningful books, websites, videos, newsletters, etc. You’ll have a much sharper lens with which to analyze this otherwise overwhelming input. So this is the first of three short posts on external resources.

Staying Current Enough

There’s an enormous, groaning smorgasbord of tech news resources out there begging for your time and attention. Worse, many of them are first rate. It’s drinking water from a fire hose. How do you keep from downing? The key is simple: find the ones you enjoy the most. And be incredibly selective.

Periodically I have to put myself on a tech news crash diet. I’m doing pretty well at the moment — down to one blog, one news service, one e-newsletter and an assortment of podcasts. And here are my top picks.

• E-newsletters: Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox.
  Very high signal to noise, this weekly email is a shortcut to substantive research on improving websites.
• Blogs: Mashable. (AKA “Social Media News and Web Tips”)
  Sometimes I wish I didn’t like Mashable so much. There’s always too much good info to read. Their mission is “to empower and inspire people by spreading knowledge of social media and technology” and my heavens do they succeed.
• News Services: Techmeme.
  Techmeme is none-too-attractive, but you can tell at a glance what’s happening at this moment in the tech world. It’s compiled using a computer algorithm with (as they put it) “direct human editorial input.”
• Podcasts: The Big Web Show.
  It’s co-hosted by Jeffrey Zeldman, a leading light since the dawn of Web time in design and standards, who happens to have a lovely, growly voice. While it’s in-depth interviews with all kinds of people, what they choose to focus on will give you a good sense of leading (as opposed to bleeding) edge in Web tech.

I’m religious (so to speak) about reviewing the first three. For podcasts, however, I’m unabashedly whimsical. I do actually listen to the first part of Tech News Today several mornings each week while exercising. But the rest are catch-as-catch can. That said, soon (hopefully today) I’ll be trading in my 1996 MomMobile (a mini-van) for a new car that can stream podcasts from my phone. It’s my number one criterion after safety and reliability. If all goes according to plan, my podcast listening will soon skyrocket.

But back to you…. Just look around and try different tech news services on for size. My hope for you is that you’ll find ones that give you as much pleasure as mine do me. It’s such fun. May it be the same for you. Life is short.

But there comes a breaking point. After two heavy-duty church weeks (a sermon one week, Music Sunday the next) last Saturday I finally had a few hours to myself. I was about to push myself into web work when a little bell went off in my head. It’s a bell I need to pay more attention to, and I expect I’m not alone in this.

The bell was… why? I mean that really fundamental why. Why do I go to church? Does church as a marathon long-distance sprint work? For that matter does any long-distance sprint work? Isn’t that a sure recipe for burnout?

If one of my fellow volunteers had a similar overload and came to me wondering about a break, I’d say go for it. ASAP. Don’t let burnout start.

So here are my first two tips for overbooked volunteers.

1. Pay close attention to that little voice in your head. It may not be as random or self-centered as it seems at first blush.

2. Do unto yourself as you would do unto others. (Is this the bronze rule?)

As it happened, once I put these responsibilities to one side and allowed myself to do what I needed to do, one of those life-altering moments unfolded.

An Aside

For those interested in the particulars, the sermon I gave two weeks ago was about my experiences in the wake of clergy misconduct that happened in my church many years ago. I’m very fortunate to be part of a trail-blazing congregation that has not run away from its past, but rather has done what it takes to recover. We now have not only a strong and wise lay leadership and two wonderful ministers, but we are growing at a steady clip.

The service was incredible and the response surpassed my wildest dreams. There’s been an outpouring of support and understanding in the days since, including our Social Justice committee wanting to figure out next steps to improve things.

All last week I either avoided or struggled with writing something that would help move things along. But Saturday I relaxed and Sunday, when listening to a sermon about death and love, it gelled. I realized that I no longer had to fear our denomination’s leadership, that I could approach them in a spirit of love. I learned a long time ago that in the end my anger, however righteous, hurts me the most. But this was another facet. As I let go of fear and toned my language down, I realized that speaking from love holds not only more hope, but also more power.

This would never have happened if I hadn’t slowed down. Whatever I’m doing when super-busy dominates my mind. Plus I get tired. Either would have precluded what happened.

Two last tips

Returning to website redesign…. How do you get back on track after one of these unexpected breaks? How do you not get lost in guilt or distraction? I have two more suggestions.

3. Make a date with yourself for your next step. Mine is early next Saturday morning over a cup of coffee, when I’ll start writing up the next redesign blog post.

4. If you are working on site redesign, be sure at the front end to budget in lots of time.

Yes, your congregation’s website matters. In fact, it matters a very great deal. But some things matter more.

So how do you go about assembling this august group? Really it’s just another set of small steps.

Website Roles

Let’s start by breaking down the roles that all congregational websites need and where to find people to fill them. (A full explanation of each of these roles and how they work together can be found in The Nine Roles and Skills that Make or Break Your Church Website.)

Your first order of business will be identifying which of these roles you actually need. Chances are it will be most, though members of the team often fill more than one role.

Then you’ll need to find people that are a good match for each position. If you’re a web professional, others may assume you can and will do everything. Even if you’re that rare person who has most of the necessary skills, please, please, please, don’t let others pressure you into this (unless you’re a congregation of about two people).

For me, it’s relatively easy to find good people. I’ve been one of my church’s webmasters for many years, and as such often hear about members who might be a fit. Even so, I check periodically with our staff — the Membership Coordinator and the Director of Religious Education in particular — to learn about possibilities. And I work closely with our Communications Committee, which tends to attract people with the right skills.

That said, be careful about the warm body syndrome congregations seem to suffer from. Some random volunteer may be worse than no one. You have to find people with the right talents and interests. (See below for some job qualifications.)

I never do cold-calls for a redesign team. Rather, first I find out about people; then I approach them and check them out to see if and how they might work out. One of the most rewarding parts of this job is that many of the people I ask truly enjoy this type of work and like to give back to the congregation. So they are delighted to be asked.

Take your time. You don’t have to be exhaustive about finding possible candidates, but it’s still going to take a few weeks. And you can be working on some of the next planning steps at the same time. Also, some jobs (PR in particular) can wait until later.

When you can’t come up with good people for the team, that’s the time to consider outsourcing and setting up a budget.

Qualifications For the More Unusual Jobs

I’m going to assume you know how to find people such as photographers, but there are a few jobs which can be intimidatingly unfamiliar to those who aren’t web professionals.

The qualifications for core webby jobs usually relate directly to what content management system (CMS) you’re going to use for your site. I’ll be going into this in more detail in a few weeks, so if you want, you can hold off on this piece until then. But for those ready to move ahead, here’s a short version of selecting a CMS.

For a redesign it’s no longer a question of if you should have a CMS, but rather which one. If you already have someone in your congregation who is a good developer for a particular CMS, they want to be part of the team, and they aren’t likely to disappear soon, that CMS is almost certainly the best choice for you. WordPress, Drupal and Joomla! are all good. If you don’t have someone experienced in developing for a well-known CMS, then chances are WordPress is your best choice. It’s by far the most popular CMS and it’s easy to learn.

Then here’s how the geekier roles work.

• Web developers are a hybrid between a designer and programmer and typically are good at developing for at least one CMS. They will be very familiar with HTML, CSS, PHP and JavaScript. If you can get such a person, they often can cover both the developer and designer role.
• Programmers typically develop software, not websites. However, you may need their skills in specialized areas. My church has an awesome programmer who has developed tools such as an inventory system for our church auction.
• Usability / Information Architect / Analysts transform chunks of content into good websites. They need to be familiar with things such as paper prototyping, search engine optimization (SEO), Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools. This role can often be combined with project management or, second best, web development.
• Designers. Traditionally graphic artists are trained to design for print, which is surprisingly different from web design. If you have a good graphic artist who wants to be on the team, by all means, add him or her, but don’t rely on one untrained as a web developer to do the site look-and-feel. Instead such a person can help with logos, photos and arrangements of individual pages, and can serve in an advisory capacity for the look-and-feel.
• PR / Marketing. More and more this role is synonymous with social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.). If you have someone who does this professionally and is willing to do it for your church, absolutely add him or her to the team.
• System Administrator / Site Hosting. While it’s true this is a fundamental role, it’s a virtual (so to speak) certainty that you will outsource this. In a few weeks, we’ll have a post on how to choose a good web host, so there’s no need to worry about this now.

Outsourcing and Redesign Budgets

Congregations tend to treat outsourcing for the Web as a blob, but this leads to mistakes such as hiring a programmer to do design and vice versa. Instead it should be based on what roles aren’t easily filled by staff or volunteers.

If you do have a gap to fill, it’s most likely what you need is a web developer for the CMS you’re going to use, which by process of elimination in this case would be WordPress. Speaking WordPress jargon, you’ll need to look for someone who can develop a WordPress theme for your congregation.

The good news is such people are relatively common. I’d advise looking locally. Just search Google or Bing. I know this too can be off-putting for those who aren’t techies, but usually it’s quite easy. To show you how straight-forward it is, let me walk you through an example.

When I searched “wordpress nashville,” the top three results were Ah So Designs, WordPress Nashville – Meetup and Mitch Canter is [studionashvegas]. The first has a lovely clean design and highlights “responsive design” (both promising), but images on two of the three case studies were broken and it didn’t appear to have been updated since last July. Were I serious, I would rule them out. The second is about a get-together for local WordPress developers. I might go to the next meet-up to observe and see if any of the people looked promising. The third (Mitch Canter) I’ve actually heard speak and know is first-rate. But if I didn’t know this and really needed someone, I’d contact him to see if he’s available and how much it would cost.

Were I really in the market, I’d review several more, but hopefully this gives you a sense of how to proceed. It’s mostly common sense. One other bit of common sense — don’t prepay.

Actual rates vary a great deal, plus they depend on what you require. My guess is the least you can get away with would be around $1,000. $1,500 is a number I hear mentioned frequently for redesigns. Of course it can be a great deal more than that, particularly if you need some fancy-shmantzy programming. But presumably if you need that, you can also afford it.

What if you can’t manage even $1,000? All’s not lost. While you won’t be able to customize as much, there are plenty of great, free WordPress themes. You could even use WordPress.com (not to be confused with WordPress.org), but then you will be more limited in what you can do. A better bet is using Dreamhost for free as a nonprofit and then doing a one-click WordPress install. Dreamhost is the company I use and they are first-rate.

For logos, there are some ridiculously inexpensive resources on the Web. I’ve never used any, but a couple of people I know highly recommend LogoNerds. Their price is negligible, even by church standards — around $50.

Team Assembled. Now What?

My particular denomination is famous (or is it infamous?) for its kudzu-like use of committees. At the denominational level, there’s even a Committee on Committees. Seriously. Fortunately I tend to like committee meetings. But even I don’t see the need to meet just for the sake of meeting. And redesigns don’t involve standard committee topics such as policies or programming. They are very task oriented. So if you do have any “meetings” for the whole team, I’d recommend they be primarily for social occasions — particularly as you get certain big jobs done. Have fun. It matters.

For core work, meet strategically. I got together last week with our designer. It was a beautiful day, so we sat in the playground where she could keep an eye on her granddaughter. In the next few weeks she and I plan to meet with the editor, most likely over coffee.

Actually, for the team the single most important thing is to express appreciation. It may be obvious, but this is church (or the equivalent) and it’s paramount not to take what people do for granted. That way lies burnout and loss of membership.

Exactly how you do this will vary according to your congregation’s culture, although I would think frequent thank yous are always a must. In my congregation, expressions of appreciation can sometimes be very public, but this does risk forgetting some quiet, dedicated soul. Other possibilities are writing thank you notes, mentioning your fabulous team by name in the bulletin, or giving little gifts like chocolate.

In Summary

1. Figure out what web roles you need to fill.
2. When possible fill these jobs with volunteers or staff, but be sure they are qualified
3. Outsource the remainder.
   - Determine a budget based on this.
4. Thank everyone — often.

Next time we’ll be gathering redesign resources. Actually it may be a couple of weeks. I do most Faith and Web writing on weekends, and next Sunday I’m giving a sermon. Oh my. Wish me luck. I’ve only done this once before. Chances are I’ll emerge from this a bit more appreciative of my church’s wonderful ministers. Even if they won’t help me build websites….

So this week we’re going to be looking at two of my favorite redesign planning “deliverables” — things you can not only share, but also help the planning process in a big way.

1. A Redesign Blog

This is optional, but it’s such fun and so easy to share that I’d strongly encourage you to give it a whirl. Some of the reasons you might want to take this extra step are:

• Transparency
• Another way to get feedback
• A central place to store planning documentation
• An easy way to try out new technologies and see how you like them
• A way to give periodic updates to leadership and staff

I recently set up a blog for our redesign, and have already gotten good feedback on it — particularly from our Communications Committee representative to the Board. It gave her something to show at the most recent Board meeting.

For blog software, I chose WordPress.com. I’m steeped in WordPress.org, which is not exactly the same, and I wanted to learn first-hand what’s different. (An aside: I’ve been surprised at how many differences there are.) I also chose a theme with a simple and neutral look — to keep focus on the redesign, not the blog.

2. A Redesign Roadmap

I learned about “redesign roadmaps” 10 years ago in the first edition of Kelly Goto and Emily Cutler’s excellent book Web ReDesign: Workflow that Works and have been using them ever since. They fall somewhere between to-do lists and full-blown project management software like Microsoft Project.

Until now, I’ve always done them in Excel. But for this redesign, I’ve experimented with a Google Docs spreadsheet. So far, I don’t like it as much as Excel, but that’s probably mostly because I’m not as familiar with it. Goodness knows the price is right.

Just pick some software that works for you and is good for list-making. If you have any particular favorites, I’d love to hear. There are tons of list-making apps, but I’ve never gotten serious about any.

Start small. You don’t have to itemize everything right away. In fact you can’t at this stage. The list will grow in time, especially over the next few weeks.

Here’s what my current roadmap looks like thus far. And here’s what my roadmap for our previous redesign ended up looking like.

One tip: when things pop into your mind that you might otherwise forget, be sure to capture them here. Don’t worry if they’re minor. My lists typically end up full of tiny details for just after launch — things I can’t do before then (for example checking to be sure the 404 page is working correctly).

Also you don’t have to slavishly follow the list in the order it’s written. As a general rule you’ll go sequentially, especially for what project managers call “dependencies,” i.e. a series of steps that necessarily follow one another. But as soon as you have a team in place, you’ll want to do some things concurrently. For example, you can’t edit content before you gather it, but your developer can be coding while your editor is editing.

In a way it’s all rather obvious, but the beauty of the roadmap is it’s plotted out so you can see patterns — and it’s tangible. You don’t have to clog your brain up with remembering these items, you have something to show leadership, and at any given time you can look to see what team members might work on next.

Speaking of the team, next week we’ll be working on that very thing — lining up people with the right skills to get the different jobs done. Until then, have fun creating your own deliverables.

Sometimes you already know. For example, if your congregation doesn’t have a site at all, your number one need is a no-brainer. Of course even then you have to determine what specifically is most needed for the site-to-be. You can’t do it all with one design or redesign.

The easiest way to get this information is (no surprise here) to do needs assessments. It’s also one of the most enjoyable aspects of redesign — for everyone involved. People love to be asked their opinions, especially if it’s close to their hearts. At the same time, it builds support and enthusiasm for the project.

There are five steps involved in doing site needs assessments.

1. Identify the site’s “stakeholders.” The Web is divided into three great parts: users (your site visitors), builders (those who put the site infrastructure in place, i.e. you and me) and stakeholders (typically the leaders of the organization).

At my church the primary stakeholders are the staff and the committee chairs responsible for programatic parts of church life such as Worship and Fund Raising. As we move towards having a real intranet, the Board is also becoming a major stakeholder. In any event it’s a good idea to keep the Board happy, so why not do a needs assessment with them too?

2. Schedule meetings with the primary stakeholders. In my experience this is the most challenging step. Everyone is so busy.

What I did was to email the senior minister and the chair of the board. I told them a bit about the redesign and explained the benefits of the needs assessment. I’m married to the Committee Council Chair so it was easy enough to contact him. The minister invited me to the very next staff meeting, and the Board Chair suggested lunch. That was great fun, and turned into an invitation to the Board’s retreat. The Council meets very little and I wasn’t able to schedule with them. Instead, I set up a general session and encouraged Council members in particular to come.

The time required varies according to the number of people. Our staff of 5 took 45 minutes (though an hour would have been better). The Board of 12 took 1.5 hours. The general session we gave 1.5 hours.

3. Figure out the questions most likely to elicit the information you need. The questions I came up with were:

• What is working well with the site?
• What isn’t working so well? What are the gaps?
• What are some key objectives for the website?
• How might we measure success?
• What kind of services would be most helpful? (Examples might be a Content Management System, an online calendar or photo galleries
• If you could change one thing about our website, what would it be? What would be most helpful to you?

For the Board I did a full Communications Needs Assessment. (It has to do with our strategic plan.) In case it might be helpful, here are those questions too.

• What communications do we do well? (Go around in a circle)
• What poorly or not at all? What are the costs of these? What are the benefits?
• What are the values you think are most significant in our congregation? Which get the least attention? Which get the most? Where are these communicated most clearly? How can we improve?
• What aspects of our congregational life do you think are central, enduring and distinctive? Where are these communicated most clearly? How can we improve?
• In what ways do we reach into our community? Which forms of our outreach are distinctive and unique for our congregation? What others might we do?
• If you could change one thing about our communications, what would it be? (Go aound in a circle.)

4. Conduct the meetings. What’s needed for these again depends on the number of people. If it’s 10 or more people, you’ll need another person to help, so one can run the meeting while the other records the answers. You’ll also need a flip chart to do the recording on. Between 5 and 10, a flip chart and second person help but aren’t critical. For 5 and under, one person and a pad of paper are fine.

5. Write up your notes. Do this as soon as you possibly can, so you can fill in blanks. Then share your notes with the stakeholders.

My guess is you’ll be delighted with the results for relatively effort on your part.

For all three of our sessions, there were excellent ideas (some that didn’t even have to wait for redesign) and the enthusiasm and support were palpable. These sessions have created a sense of group ownership like never before. In the past the website has been somewhat siloed — perceived as work for only our Communications Committee. But now, a variety of leaders know and care about it. More to the point some are already building new web pages. The best example is our chair of Fund Raising. She wanted a Web page listing books and linking to Amazon as an affiliate. A retired librarian at that same meeting gladly volunteered to manage it. I’ve now set up a WordPress page for them and they will launch it as soon as our affiliate status is in place.

Surveys

Similar to needs assessments, surveys can also help you get at what’s most needed. And they are remarkable easy to do using tools like SurveyMonkey. However, before you go down that path, be sure to get permission from leadership. At times, congregations can be over-surveyed. (That’s the case right now for my congregation.) In addition, I’ve never found the data from them as useful as the data from needs assessments, nor do they help build support. As a result, I wouldn’t recommend doing surveys instead of needs assessments, but they can be a helpful supplement.

If you’re interested in doing a survey, I’d suggest that you be as brief as possible and start with a warm but quick welcome — for example, “We value your opinion. Please help us improve our site by answering just 4 questions.” Here are some questions you might want to consider (but please don’t use all of them):

• What is your involvement with our congregation? (List choices such as visitor, new member, member for over 2 years, staff)
• How often do you visit our site?
• Have you been able to find the information you were looking for?
• If not, what were you unable to find?
• How can our website be improved?
• Would you like to receive our electronic newsletter?
• Other comments or suggestions.

Next Week

The next step in our series will be drafting a “roadmap” of work. But that’s a couple of weeks away, since this weekend is Mr. Web Diva’s birthday and we’re having a tree climbing party. Consider it a little break. Until then, happy redesign.

It’s surprisingly easy to do this with a new breed of software tailored to websites, loosely named “analytics.”

Analytics actually is more than just software. It’s a process — a process of matching core goals with objective numbers. In other words half the equation is the number-crunching software; the other half is people culling the most meaningful trends out of these numbers.

It’s a beautiful thing. Analytics move you and your site past opinions, past committee-think, past politics, and even at times past individual design sensibilities. You can tell which pages are most attractive to users, which least, the technologies used, sites users came from, how long they stay on your site, the most popular search terms, and a ton of other helpful information.

The sooner you can use analytics in your redesign the better.

Google Analytics

The leader of the analytics software pack is Google Analytics. It’s free, relatively easy to install, gives you a wealth of data, and automatically gives you handsome, dying-to-be-shared graphs of what’s happening on your site. The information it generates is always helpful, but never more than in the early stages of a redesign.

If you’re already using analytics for your site, now is the time to review the data. If you’re not yet using analytics and have a site, now is the time to start. Within a month, you’ll be getting invaluable insights from this data.

To install Google Analytics, go to their site at google.com/analytics/ and set up a Google account if you don’t already have one. (This is the same account used for Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google+. If you have any of those, you’ve already got one.) Just sign in and follow the instructions.

Usually the most challenging part is adding the code. The code looks like this, where UA-XXXXXXXX-X is your account number:

Most people do this one of two ways. Either you have your webmaster add it to the site or else your content management system has a way to add the account number and takes care of the code for you. If you’re using WordPress, it’s easy to add with a plug-in like Google Analytics for WordPress.

Quick Wins with Google Analytics

The second challenge with Google Analytics is learning to swim in the sea of numbers. Much of the data isn’t that useful, so where do you find the good stuff?

Going through the menu on the left, the following are my top picks:

1. Visitors / Overview. This will give you a good idea of how many people come to your site — plus trends on when they come and don’t. For example, on snowy Sundays visits to our website tend to double or triple — data I can later report to the Board and staff; it also lets me know we need to incorporate space for an emergency banner into the redesign.
2. Visitors / Browser Capabilities / Browsers and OS. This quickly tells you what people are using to see your site. It’s here I learned that over 9% of visitors to my congregation’s site are using smart phones. I also learned that Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) is used less than 1%. Not having to worry about IE6 is going to made design much easier in the coming months. IE6 renders sites differently than other browsers and is a pain for web designers to accommodate.
3. Traffic Sources / Referring Sites. What sites aside from search engines are sending people to your site? Facebook is high up on our list — something our Board needed to know, given how little we use Facebook.
4. Content / Overview. This tells you two things: first how many page views are made and second the overall “bounce rate.” Bounce rate measures visitors that look at one page and then leave your site without going to another page. This isn’t always a bad thing. In fact a bounce rate of 50% is usually not a problem.
5. Content / Top Content. This lists your most popular pages. On our site, #1 is the home page (no surprise), #2 the visitor page (hooray — great news!) and #3 for now is construction (a surprise, but it makes sense since our sanctuary and social area are being renovated). One other easy win: in the table on this page click on the “Pageviews” column header. It will reverse the order and you can see pages with very little traffic. Now you know what’s hot and what’s not.

Alternatives to Google Analytics

Analytics software comes in two basic types. The first, including Google Analytics, is JavaScript-based. You put a snippet of JavaScript code in your site and then visit the mothership to read the results. The big advantage of this method is that it’s relatively easy, both to set up and use. The disadvantages are it’s third party (out of your control), users have to have JavaScript turned on, and it doesn’t measure files that don’t have the snippet of code (including PDFs). Clicky Web Analytics is an increasingly popular alternative that falls in this category.

The second type is server-based software that analyzes what are called “log files.” Server log files keep track of every single transaction. Thus advantages include the ability to track all media types (including PDFs) and users don’t have to have JavaScript on. Most of all, it’s in your control. If you make a mistake all is not lost forever. On the other hand, it can be difficult to install and the free ones don’t render your data in a way that’s as obviously meaningful as their JavaScript cousins. The most popular free log analyzers are AWStats and Analog. If your host comes with either pre-installed, by all means, use it.

In fact, you can use as many types of analytics on the same site as you wish. At work I use AWStats in addition to Google Analytics. But for my church I just use Google Analytics — and it’s plenty.

Beyond Analytics

There are a two other applications closely related to analytics that you might want to consider for your site — both from Google. Google, it seems, rules the analytics roost.

Google Webmaster Tools helps you with your site’s placement on Google. It tells you the most popular search terms used for your site, records pages that aren’t found and a number of other helpful, if rather geeky, things.

Feedburner is analytics for blogs and other sites that syndicate content with RSS feeds. One of the neatest things about Feedburner is it lets you email your syndicated content to those who are interested. That’s what I use at the top of the sidebar of this very site.

Further Resources

For those interested in learning more about analytics, my favorite resources are:

• Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics by Brian Clifton
• Videos from the Google Analytics Blog

Next week we’ll start the formal kickoff of redesign — rolling it up to leadership with needs assessments. Until then, have fun digging through web data.

To do this, you’ll need a place to record not just these thoughts, but other plans as you get further into the redesign. This is completely a matter of personal style. What matters is that it works for you; it’s much easier to stay organized if you like your tools. Some options are:

• An app — maybe one that you can get on both your mobile and computer;
• A three-ring binder;
• A Moleskine;
• 3×5 cards in a box.

My choice? Honestly I’m an office supply groupie. I’d take all of the above if it worked. But it’s good to consolidate plans into one place as much as possible. So my core “notebook” is Google Docs, supplemented by Evernote for to do lists and a pad of paper (for notes to transcribe into Google Docs).

With “notebook” in hand, it’s time to record your answers to two questions.

Question 1: What are the main audiences for your site?

Websites are all about people — specifically the people who use your site. While it’s technically true that anyone in the world can visit your site, it really isn’t for everyone. In fact, if you try to make it for everyone, it won’t work well for anyone.

It’s just a matter of figuring out which groups of people on the Web matter most to you, and then focusing on meeting their needs. For congregations, an audience breakdown usually looks something like this:

Primary audiences

1. Seekers — people who are considering or looking for a congregational home
2. Visitors — people interested in coming to your church, although it may be for non-church events.
3. Members and friends
4. Congregational leaders
5. Staff

Secondary audiences

1. Denominational leadership
2. Local congregational leaders from other denominations and faiths
3. Congregational leaders from your denomination (national or international)
4. Prospective staff

Another way you can analyze your audiences is on a continuum of familiarity. For my church, one end of the continuum is active leaders born and raised in the congregation. At the other end is people who have never heard of Unitarian Universalism.

For each of your primary audiences, write another list — this time what you think they most need from your site and and how well your current site meets this need.

The list won’t be definitive. It’s just an early exploration, preparing you to get feedback from a variety of users over the next couple of months.

Question 2: What are some goals of the redesign?

Don’t forget: now is time to be open to possibility. Later things will be more focused and limited by realities, but not yet.

Relax and let you mind wander around web possibilities. Think of your very favorite websites. Do any give you ideas relevant to your site? If so, write them down.

Go through the list of needs you just wrote down in answer to the first question and see what leaps out at you. Make special note of those.

If, like me, you come into this redesign with a few key things already on your mind, write those down as well.

If your list is long, pick three or four that mean the most to you.

My list:

1. Build a content management system for the whole site.
2. Create areas of the site where the Board and committees can centralize their documentation.
3. Make the site work better on smart phones and other small mobiles. Maybe even develop what’s called a responsive design.

An Aside: Are there are any obstacles in your way?

If there are, it’s good to look at them right away. Whether real or imagined, in the words of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, they can be gumption traps.

Usually the best way out of these redesign traps is to plan, organizing discreet tasks into understandable groups in a logical sequence. Naming the various jobs and barriers is a release, since it’s no longer an amorphous blob hanging over you. And that’s of course what these steps are all about.

In case that’s not enough to get you past whatever is in the way, my bet is it’s one of the following issues, and here are some specific ideas for addressing each of them.

• “I won’t have enough time.” When I say things like this to one friend of mine, without fail he says it’s not a matter of time but priorities. Of course, he’s right. Look at what is making you say this, and remember this will only be a few hours a week. Do all of the other things on your plate truly have to be higher priority than redesign? Think about it. They may honestly be. Only you can say.
• “I don’t know the first thing about web development or design.” Let me reiterate: these are not critical skills for managing this project. It’s great if you have some of them, but if not, there are lots of first-rate tools non-techies can use. Plus in a few weeks we’ll cover finding people with these skills — when we get to building a team.
• “Our current webmaster doesn’t think we need a redesign, and she takes it personally when I try to suggest such things to her.” This sounds as if conflict is brewing around the website. If so, take heart. You’re far from alone. Behind the scenes I run into various types of web-related conflict with surprising frequency. I can’t tell you how important it is for the health of your congregation, not just its website, to deal with such issues. The wonderful people at Congregational Resource Guide recently interviewed me about dealing with conflict over websites. The video is due to air in a few days and I’ll put a link here as soon as it’s online.

Have I overlooked a gumption trap? If so, I’d love to hear about it. Maybe I can help you past it. Please let me know in the comments.

Next week will be more hands-on — a first foray into some of the coolest tech tools out there — analytics apps. Until then, I hope you come up with fabulous ideas for your congregation’s redesign.

Over the next few months I’ll be on a journey overhauling my church’s site. I’d love for you to join me and rebuild your congregation’s site, perhaps even at the same time.

Although I tend to be hands-on, I’ve learned over the years that great congregational work is as much about process as it is product, and thus the goals are….

1. Make it as easy as possible.
2. Make it fun.
3. And of course, build excellent websites for your congregations and for mine.

Think about the big picture…. The more great congregational websites there are, the stronger our collective outreach and ministry will be, which in turn means the better the world will become. It all starts with a single step.

Is This Series Right For You?

Many of you already know your site needs work. Your current one just isn’t doing what you need it to. And some of you don’t have a site at all. Design and redesign aren’t that different, so this series is definitely for you too.

But there’s another group I hope to reach as well. That’s those with a site that’s good, but not yet what it could be — a site that only scrapes the surface of the Web’s potential. My church falls in this category. If you ask most of our members they’ll tell you we have a great site. It welcomes visitors, it looks attractive, etc. But if you probe just a little, it’s easy to find areas with room for significant improvement. For example, over 9% of people coming to our site are using smart phones, but it’s not optimized for small mobiles.

But Don’t You Have to Be a Web Ninja To Do a Redesign?

I adore Web ninjas, but no, that’s not the critical role for this project. Your congregation isn’t Google or Facebook.

There are only two absolute requirements.

First, you must be motivated. You have to know in your gut that a redesign really matters for your congregation. You don’t need to understand all the particulars of why this is true yet. We’ll get to that in just a few weeks. What you need is the energy to start this process and keep it moving. The best source of that is confidence that what you’re doing will make a big difference.

Second, if you’re a volunteer, you need to be very familiar with the congregation — most likely having been an active member for some years. If you’re staff and don’t yet know the congregation well, I assume that this is already a priority for you for many reasons. Do what you need to do to really understand the community before launching into this project. An outside perspective is helpful for redesign, but not for the project lead.

If you are a geek, wonderful. It will certainly help in many ways. But if you aren’t rest assured you can find the right people and we’ll get to that soon too.

Easy? How Can That Possibly Be for Redesign?

Simple: we’ll break the project into a series of steps. Most of the steps are surprisingly modest and quick. Actually, they have to be because I only have a few hours a week to devote to this work. And I expect that’s true for many of you too, whether volunteer or staff.

The key is breaking the project down into manageable chunks, plus not fretting about areas you don’t know a lot about before you are out of the gate.

How Much Work Will It Be?

To make this fun, the key is to be relaxed and confident about what you’re doing. There are three things that will make this possible for all of us.

1. Each week won’t take much time — just a few hours on average. That’s because we’ll be spreading the redesign out over quite a number months. We should be wrapping up and launching our amazing new sites in the spring.

2. You must not do this by yourself. A congregational website isn’t a personal blog or a small business site run by a lone wolf. By its very nature, a good congregational site requires participation and buy-in. Moreover, early on you’ll assemble a small team of people with complementary skills to do the core jobs such as editing the content. With a team, you’ll spread the work around.

3. €œTest early, test often.€ That’s a dictum Web ninjas hear frequently. It’s not only easy to say, it’s easy to do. And yet…. In my experience it’s the most common mistake made in building websites: the architects assume that they know how others will use their site, so they don’t test. In fact, the closer to the site you are, the narrower your focus becomes. In other words, you’re almost certain to miss the obvious. But we won’t fall into that trap. We will be taking time to get feedback at many stages of the process. It may sound like extra work, but in the end, I promise it will not only make for a better site, it will save you time.

What’s Next?

If you’re interested in what the steps are likely to be, here’s the initial list of steps.

For each post in the series I’ll cover what you need to do for it and why, what I’ve learned from doing the particular step, and what’s coming next. Speaking of which, get ready….

Next week we’ll be launching the project with a first and very easy step — a bit of initial planning. Your assignment is to pick your notebook (or notebooks) of choice. They could be paper or virtual, small (maybe 3x5s or a smart phone) or large (perhaps a whiteboard that you take photos of). Whatever works best for you. My notebook? I’ll let you know in the next installment.

Two things in particular make Faith 2012 well-suited to congregations. First, is the look. Not only is the tone geared to churches, synagogs, mosques, temples, etc., it’s easy to adapt by using your own photos in the the headers and changing the background. Second, the information architecture and menus are structured based on what I’ve learned from working with congregations over the years — and they too are very flexible.

In addition, unlike the majority of WordPress themes I’ve seen, search engine optimization is baked into the code in areas such as the the title and header tags. It surprises me how uncommon this is. My best guess is the worlds of WordPress developers and marketers don’t overlap that much. That said, the themes that come pre-installed with WordPress have excellent Google juice.

This has been a dream of mine and in the pipelines for almost a year. It began last November when I was approached by a sister congregation, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Bowling Green. We were in accord that many, many congregations need help with their websites, and they were open to my idea of developing a theme for them and then adapting it for the larger world. My heartfelt thanks goes to them for their support.

So today, at last, I release it into the Web stream. The Faith 2012 site includes some documentation and examples, as well as download links. Please don’t hesitate to let me know if you have questions or suggestions.

Given the happiness-quest of recent years, I’m surprised not to read this idea more often. Certainly I hear it frequently. For example, on Sunday a usually quiet member of my church said, “Here I’ve found close friends, meaningful volunteer work, and a place that helps me focus on my spiritual growth. The conversations that I share with this group go much deeper than the usual chatter.” Exactly.

To judge by my friends, such vital, soul-nourishing congregations are everywhere. And they come in wide variety of forms…. mainline Protestant, Evangelical, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and more.

Yet participation overall is dropping. Why? Doubtless the reasons are many and complicated, but two leap out at me.

The first reason is the Internet. The Web in particular is reshaping our cultures and our lives. We’re bombarded by information and entertainment as never before — and now, with the advent of social media, the net is reshaping the meaning of community.

In essence the Web competes with organized religion. Where congregations could be engaging the Web to augment and extend their reach, instead they shy away.

Of course, that’s what this site is all about — helping congregations overcome the barriers (real and imagined) to the Web.

At times, however, as I natter on about how much church means to me, I wonder if I don’t sound disingenuous. The truth is I never forget the shameful, shadow-side of religion. It’s not typically relevant to what I’m writing about, but today it is. This shadow is the other reason I see for attrition.

Specifically, the second reason is that many congregations are dysfunctional. While the scandals of the Catholic church dominate the headlines, this crisis in morality seems to be rampant in all faiths. It’s certainly not rare in my denomination.

But what’s most toxic and disturbing to me isn’t the initial abuse (ministers are mortal), it’s the all-too-common response of denominational-level leadership. So many do their utmost to ignore it. Ironically, at the same time they wring their hands over the loss of membership.

Why, I wonder, can’t they connect the dots?

Nevertheless, I still believe that active participation in a healthy congregation is the easiest way to be a better, happier person. The key word, of course is healthy. I also think it’s not that hard to find such a wellspring of personal meaning.

It’s a matter of looking for a congregation (or similar faith-based community) that works well for you, assessing its health, and then, if it measures up, really giving of yourself. It’s similar to looking for a good doctor, and once you find one, paying attention to his or her advice.

How Do You Assess the Health and Vitality of a Congregation?

It’s easy to be seduced by first-rate sermons and compelling programs. But those are superficial, and while I hope your congregation’s sermons are tip-top and the music is stellar, pretty is as pretty does. Such things are not a reliable measure of its true nature.

Instead, here are four questions I use to gauge a congregation’s health.

1. What motivates the senior leadership? Watch and listen. Can you tell if it’s power, money or sex? It’s often hard to spot such things, but at times it’s flagrant, and when it is, the answer is clear.

2. Are ministries shared, with active involvement and leadership from lay people in a wide variety of roles and responsibilities?

3. What systems are in place for coping with issues? Are there good policies in place, particularly for protecting children and others with less power. If there are good policies, are they actually upheld?

4. Ask hard questions. Once you’re involved, sooner or later something will concern you, even in the best of congregations. A normal response is to just let it go, but in fact, it’s a great opportunity to assess the true health of the community. Ask the appropriate senior leader your question, but be as kind as you can be (don’t ask it in public, for example) and be prepared to not like the answer you get. Are they defensive or open to your concern? If they have bungled something (and everyone does) do they apologize appropriately? It’s usually painful to get a wrong answer, but it’s important to know first-hand if things are not as they appear to be and get out sooner rather than later. Life is too short. And if your question is really tough and they answer well, it’s solid gold.

Finally, I said active involvement is the easiest way I know of to be a better person. Needless to say this not the same as easy. But the rewards in my experience are frequent and unexpected. They usually aren’t big things, but they come from many directions and are undergirded by the abiding grace and compassion that I believe are at the heart of all faiths.