June 2006 Newsletter

A New Website for FORWARD

FORWARD - the Foundation for Woman's Health Research & Development - is an organisation committed to eliminating gender-based discriminatory practices such as Female Genital Mutilation and Child Marriage.

We are delighted that FORWARD chose BRAINBOX to redevelop its website.

The "Before" Picture

The old website had a number of problems:

• A rather dated look.
• Haphazard organisation.
• Lots of HTML errors and broken links.
• It was very difficult to maintain.

But it wasn't all bad news:

• There was quality content - and lots of it.
• It had a good search engine ranking, due both to its maturity, and to the quality of its incoming links.

We knew we could transform this website!

Putting it back together

Following our BRAINBOX Web Development Process, the website was attacked from three angles: technical design, content development, and visual design.

Technical Design

Behind the website is a Powered by BRAINBOX Content Management System. The system allows the administrator to control the content of every page on the website.

Content Development

Credit where credit is due: Sarah Fisher - FORWARD's Information and Communications Officer - did an amazing job of whipping the content into shape. Every page - remember there are well over 100 of them - was reviewed, updated and classified.

Human visitors and search engines alike are going to appreciate the content.

Visual Design

We were lucky enough to have access to Gabrielle Pool's fabulous African and Tribal art. (Gabrielle's website is well worth a visit.) We made full use of it by using a different image - and colour-scheme - for each section of the website:

Just the beginning

So there we are: FORWARD now have website that...

• looks great
• has well-organised, high quality content
• is designed to modern web standards
• is easy to update
• is easy for users to navigate
• is highly Accessible.
• is very search engine friendly

Help us with your feedback

If you haven't already done so, please take a few minutes to look around the FORWARD website.

Please then spend another minute to let me know what you think. If you'd prefer, let FORWARD know directly.

Your opinons will help us to give FORWARD an even better website.

The Joy of Content Management: The Lifecycle of a News Item

The handling of News Items is just one example of how the "Powered by BRAINBOX" Content Management System works hard to make the most of your content.

Creating the News Item

To create a news item, you need to enter just five things:

• A title
• A "body" - the full text of the news item
• A "teaser" - a brief summary of the news item
• A publish date - the date the item is to first appear on the website
• An expiry date - the date the items it be removed from the website

Once those details are entered and saved, the Content Management System takes over: in most cases the content editor will never touch the news item again.

The Cycle Begins

When the publish date arrives, the news item appears on the website as a new web page. As well as the information presented on the page, there are two pieces of behind the scenes "meta data":

• Title meta data - this appears in the browser top bar, as well as in search engine results.
• Description meta data - this can also appear in - and has a strong influence on - search engine results.

One News Item, Many Links to that News Item

The creation of the news item web page is only one thing the Content Management System does:

• For as long as it's the most recent news item, the item is featured on the Home Page.
• For as long as it's one of the two most recent news items, its title and "teaser" appears on the main News and Events page.
• When it is displaced from the main News and Events page by more recent items, it moves to its permanent home in the News Archive. It appears in the date-ordered list with its title, the publish date, and the first 30 words of its teaser.
• When the expiry date finally rolls around, the news item is removed from the website.

Getting back to Google - Part 5

If you've been following along over the last few months you'll know we're making a concerted effort to improve our search ranking on Google.

I spent a lot of time on various search engine forums earlier in the month trying to work out why pages from the BRAINBOX website had dropped out of the Google index.

(You may remember from last time that the way to find out which pages Google holds in its index is to search for "site:www.websiteaddress.co.uk")

Here's what I learned:

• It's clear that Google has been changing its algorithms (as it does regularly) and many sites have been "demoted" as a result. Many have also been promoted.
• It's generally acknowledged (though not by Google, of course) that "site:www.domain.co.uk" searches have been returning "unusual" results of late.

In a way, these findings are a reminder of what we should always do when it comes to search engine marketing:

• Do the right thing: build quality websites, create quality content, and attract quality links.
• Be patient.

For the record, Google currently has 14 of our pages in its index. An improvement, but a far cry from the 56 that MSN has in its index.

How many Home Pages do you have?

"One, of course" I hear you say. But are you sure?

We recently evaluated a dozen websites - and 10 of them had four Home Pages. Here's how this can happen:

1. Let's say your website address is http://www.yourwebsite.co.uk/. Let's call this your primary Home Page.
2. But what happens if you go to the non-www version: http://yourwebsite.co.uk/. If this works (without redirecting to you primary Home Page), then you have at least two Home Pages.
3. It's likely that somewhere on your website there's a link back to the Home Page. Click it, and see which address it goes to. If it is something like http://www.yourwebsite.co.uk/index.htm, that's Home Page number three.
4. The trick is likely to work with the non-www version: http://yourwebsite.co.uk/index.htm. That's Home Page number four.

Here are the four home pages we've found:

1. http://www.yourwebsite.co.uk/
2. http://yourwebsite.co.uk/
3. http://www.yourwebsite.co.uk/index.htm
4. http://yourwebsite.co.uk/index.htm

So what?

There are two reasons to avoid this kind of duplication - both related to search engines:

1. As you may know, links that point to your website help determine its "importance." If there are 100 links to your Home Page, it will achieve a certain level of importance. But of the 100 links are spread across four Home Pages, the effect will be diluted.
2. If you're unlucky, the search engines may conclude that you're up to no good with your multiple Home Pages. Your website may be downgraded - or banned.

Four Home Pages? That's nothing!

The worst case we've seen is 16 identical Home Pages:

Any advance on 16?