Phases

Phase 1: Get Organized

Use the Web Planning worksheet (page 4) and go over it carefully, discussing issues with others who will be involved with developing the site and providing content for it.

Assign roles and responsibilities: choose a Web manager¹ and designate at least one maintainer².

Decide what the first content pieces will be that you will publish on your web site. Start simple. Do them well; then expand.

Web manager¹ obtains a web site account

Decide what software will be used to develop the web site.

Microsoft FrontPage

Microsoft Word or Publisher

Other WYSIWYG web editors (e.g., Macromedia DreamWeaver, Allaire HomeSite, etc.)

Set a time frame for having a web site ready to publicize. Be realistic--allow time for the "learning curve".

Phase 2: Development

Design a site map.

Storyboard your pages, breaking up your content into chunks and prioritize them by what order you want to get them up on the web site.

Design your front door (home page) and subpage templates.

Using your templates, build your web site, one section at a time according to the priorities you set earlier.

Evaluate your site and perform user acceptance testing (ideally with 5 users of varying Internet abilities and experience):

Are pages consistent among each other (footer, graphics, etc.) so that it is clear that all pages belong to the same web site?

Is the navigation intuitive and easy to use?

Does the overall look reflect the image you wish to present?

Does the overall look appeal to the target audience?

Will it look good on all browsers and all screen resolutions?

Phase 3: Maintenance

The Web manager¹ assigns ongoing tasks to individual maintainers².

Describe how much time maintainers will spend updating the pages regularly. Schedule this time into the normal workweek for maintainers.

Continue to add content to your site gradually, enhancing what is already there and adding new sections, documents, newsletters, etc.

Check your web site regularly for broken links and dead ends.

Check web server statistics regularly to see what pages are used the most.

Phase 4: Marketing Your Site

Links from other web sites

META tags needed on home page

<meta name="description" content="Twenty-five words to describe your web-site.
This descriptions shows in search engines under the page title.">

<meta name="keywords" content="Christian, missions, peopleteam, people team, unreached people group, 10/40 Window, Last Frontier, missionary, Muslims, Hindus, Catholics, Islam, lost, people, population segments, people group, gateway cities"> list as many key words as you can, listing them by priority.

Search engines and directories

Altavista: http://www.altavista.com/cgi-bin/query?pg=addurl

WebCrawler: http://www.webcrawler.com/info/add_url/

Excite: http://www.excite.com/info/add_url/

HotBot: http://hotbot.lycos.com/addurl.asp

Lycos: http://home.lycos.com/addasite.html

Northern Light: http://www.northernlight.com/docs/regurl_help.html

Yahoo: http://howto.yahoo.com/chapters/10/1.html

LookSmart: http://www.looksmart.com/aboutus/partners/subsite2.html

Snap.com: http://nscp.snap.com/LMOID/resource/0,566,-516,00.html

Go.com: http://www.go.com/AddUrl?&pg=SubmitUrl.html

Google: http://www.google.com/addurl.html

Non-Internet ways of marketing your web site

Announce your site via e-mail to colleagues.

Include your URL in the "signature" of all e-mail that you send out.

Include URL on all printed materials you send out, including newsletters, press releases, news articles, letters, memos, and especially the inserts included with printed information requests.

Mention your Web site during presentations and refer attendees there for more information. Provide URL on handout.

Have the URL printed on your business cards

Include the URL on answering machine message