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Options for type of site

Your website can be very simple or more complex depending on the sort of presence your organisation wants on the web.

The options below are listed in terms of increasing size and complexity.

Page on community directory

The most basic web presence you can have is a page on someone else’s directory.

Local governments in regional and rural areas, for example, often provide a community directory website where local nonprofit organisations can maintain information about themselves for the public.

There are no costs to the organisation in this sort of arrangement. Usually the organisation will have password access to allow it to make changes to the page. See more on Getting listed in directories and portals.

Minimalist ‘brochure’ site

This is the most basic website with only a home page. This may be all that is needed for organisations such as neighbourhood centres, local sports clubs or aged care providers that want to establish a web presence but with little need to use the site for promotional, revenue collection or information dissemination purposes.

Such a site should include:

• your contact details (phone, fax, email, street and postal addresses)
• hours of operation
• a description of what you do.

Basic static site

This is a multiple page version of the basic brochure site. You can store a reasonable amount of information on the site for visitors to download in a series of linked HTML pages – HTML is the coding language of web pages. You can even set up a navigational hierarchy for the pages. The site is known as a flat or static site and doesn’t require any upfront capital cost in specialist content management software.

Updating an HTML site, however, is relatively labour intensive compared to a site driven by content management software. You will need to keep the content up-to-date manually and every time you make a change you need to check whether the changes affect the information on other parts of the site. Someone with experience in HTML coding will need to be responsible for the updating.

A standard template for pages on your site can overcome some of the structural and work-flow disadvantages of a static site that requires individual page creation. A template-based design is pretty similar to organising your folders in Windows Explorer.

Options for building a static site

You can use a web page creation application such as Dreamweaver or Frontpage . Although no coding is necessarily needed if you use one of these software packages, you will need to purchase and learn the package.

Do it yourself. If someone in your organisation is reasonably IT savvy and is interested in learning how to do it themselves, it’s very achievable. There is a wealth of resources on the internet to help you build a static site. You will need to grapple with the mysteries of HTML coding, but you can do that without becoming an HTML expert. Have a look at the source code in a page on a simple static website by going to the ‘View’ menu on your browser and clicking ‘Source’. This will give you an idea of how the back end of a web page is structured. There are many HTML editing guides available on the internet. The final stage will be learning how to publish the page onto the internet.

There are also a lot of small web developers who have the skills to build you a static website for reasonable budget. Ask your peers for suggestions or contact the coordinators of website design courses of TAFE and other tertiary institutions.

Standard site with content management system (CMS)

The hardest part of building a website is updating it once it’s built. Outdated content can affect the credibility of your site and your organisation.

If you’re going to be adding or amending content regularly, you need to look at using a web content management system (CMS). This will avoid the delays and bottlenecks of having to rely on a technician to make even minor changes to your site, and will allow you to make changes yourself without any danger of affecting the design or technical structure.

CMS is software designed to allow non-technical people to manage content on a website. It allows you to add, amend or delete content without needing to have any technical expertise. It also allows one piece of content to be used in different ways, for example a news headline might appear at the top of a story, as well as on the home page.

A website that uses a CMS will cost more to build than a simple static HTML site; but the cost and effort of updating it will be less.

Note : we will refer here to ‘CMS’ even though the more correct term is ‘web CMS’ since there are also non-web-related CMS systems.

The complexity and features of different CMS can vary enormously. They can range from multi-million dollar document management systems designed to manage a large organisation’s internal documents as well as web content, to free ‘ blog ’ software, designed to publish a simple online diary.

A CMS:

• allows non-technical people to add, change, update, and otherwise manage content on a website;
• reduces the time it takes to publish your content: you don't duplicate work, you don't lose content, and you spend less time managing content.
• sets up rules for what content will look like once it’s published, and for the types of content you’ll have. You’re essentially creating templates that will make publishing a whole lot easier and save time and effort. The downside is that it’s hard to change the templates once they’re set, so you need to plan carefully.
• separates content from design of a website. That allows you to change the content without affecting the (more complicated) design. It also allows you to change the design or colour of a site, and implement that without affecting the content.

Do you need a content management system?

If the answers to the following ten questions is mostly ‘yes’, you should think seriously about using CMS.

Do you need to update or add content to your site on a regular basis?

If you already have a site, do you get frustrated having to wait on techies or others to get content added or amended? Is your valuable IT person constantly distracted by having to do small text changes to your website, or publishing new articles?

Do site visitors have trouble finding what they need? For example, can you see the latest news headlines on your home page, or do you need to poke around the site to find them?

Does it take ages to fix a simple error on a web page?

Do tasks and content get lost in the shuffle with the processes overly complex, hard to understand, or full of gaps?

Do people spend a lot of time doing simple things, or duplicating efforts? Or perhaps two people doing the same thing unnecessarily (or one person has to do it twice in two places).

Do you need to be able to review what others want to add to the site, without having to slow the publishing process down?

Are you tired of the process of having to email text around to finalise what goes on the site?

Is there inconsistent design and navigation across the site?

How important is web content to your organisation’s work? If web content is not a high priority for you, you should leave the idea until it becomes so. A web CMS will require funds to install. If you can’t see where you can get the funds from, you’re not ready for a CMS.

Different types of web CMS

There are different CMS with different price brackets and structures.

1. Software you rent and use via the internet

Some internet service providers, like Telstra or Optus, provide customers with facilities to build their own small websites. Alternatively, a range of special purpose ‘hosting’ sites also provide software to set-up a small site for a monthly rental. An example is the SiteBuilder tools at Yahoo’s GeoCities and Wanadoo . A search on the internet for ‘hosted websites with site builder’ will bring up dozens of options.

The disadvantage of these options is usually limited functionality, and expensive usage charges if you get more than a modest amount of traffic to your website.

There are some higher-level CMS services that also use this model. Costs usually involve a set-up fee as well as a monthly rental.

2. Software that has to be installed on a server

This is the most common model used for websites. The CMS is installed on computer space on a server (a computer that handles requests for data, e-mail, file transfers and other network services from other computers), or virtual server (a small slice of a large server) that you usually rent from an internet service provider (ISP).

There are a huge variety of systems under this broad category ranging from free blog software to multimillion dollar systems for large corporations.

Systems suitable for smaller or medium-sized websites range from software developed by website development companies around Australia, to open source systems like Mambo . Systems designed for small organisations may present some limitations as the site grows; you need to ask about ‘scalability’.

Other systems, like Squiz’s MySource or Microsoft’s Content Management Server, are designed for larger sites and will involve considerable cost to deploy, even where the software is free.

Note: Open source software is free and there are some very good examples of open source CMS. However, the bulk of the cost in setting up a CMS is in the labour required to get it working and configured for your needs; the software itself will usually be only a modest component of the overall cost.

3. Software packages that sit on your PC

Recent years have seen the release of PC-based software that claims to allow users to ‘manage web content’. Some of these packages are highly regarded and may be suitable for smaller websites. The cost of the software will be closer to $1000 than $100, and the hidden cost is the time needed to train up in using it to create a website. They also have to be installed on a particular PC and can only be used from that PC, whereas most other CMS can be used anywhere you have a browser available.

Five tips for choosing a CMS

1. Be clear about the types and amount of content that will be on your website

For example, which of these types of content will you (realistically) have?

• description of services
• news items
• longer articles
• advice sheets
• full-length papers
• lists of resources
• audio-recordings, of speeches for example
• training videos
• images, including photographs, diagrams, graphs, and artwork
• events calendar

How many documents will you publish over, say, a year, including news items that might go up every week? Don’t be over-ambitious. If you think at first that you’ll update every month, then every second month is probably more likely.

Estimating numbers can be difficult, not least because if a website becomes easier to use you may find yourself adding more content than before. But getting some sort of sense of the ideal scale of material on the site will make a difference to the type of CMS you choose. A system capable of managing thousands or millions of documents will have many more features – and greater cost – than a system that just needs to manage a hundred documents.

Once you’ve done some research, settle on what you need your CMS to do – this list will make up your ‘system requirements’. If you find yourself getting caught up in too much detail, step back and focus on the outcomes you want. Once you’ve chosen a CMS solution you can still make changes, but remember that any change will cost.

2. Work out the number of people who’ll be managing content on the site

The more you can successfully share the task of managing content, the more likely you are to keep the website updated.

But:

• who, realistically, is going to be adding content?
• are they all working within your office, or are they spread around the community?
• does someone need to approve new content before it goes live on the website? (This would be the equivalent of approving newsletter text before it goes out.)

You also need to work out whether any of your content is likely to be so sensitive that it requires legal checking before publication on the site.

3. Consult with people in your organisation about requirements

It’s a good idea to keep your staff informed and ask them for input, rather than wait for feedback afterwards.

4. Ask your peers

Find out what systems organisations with similar needs to yours are using and if any of them are particularly happy. Ask them about support as well as the CMS they use.

Find expert advice. Look for someone who understands the sort of organisation you are as well as understands the options available to you.

If you want to just search the internet for web CMS, here are a few pointers:

• Just because the vendor calls it a CMS, it doesn't mean it is. Look carefully at the features the vendor talks about. If you don't see what you need right away, pass.
• When you find a CMS website, try to assess promptly the tier in which the vendor is operating. If it's out of your range, move on.
• A slick vendor site does not necessarily mean a high-quality CMS. Check features and if they're not what you need, keep looking.
• If you find a really handy white paper, take note of the author. Often, white papers are written by CMS vendors, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but you need to know.

5. ‘Simplicity rules’

It’s easy to get bedazzled by the wide variety of features available in different CMS. But the important question for you has to be ‘Is the system really easy to use?’ not what it might be able to do. The simpler a system is to use the more likely it will be used. This is especially the case in organisations that rely on (changing) volunteers or staff who have minimal technical skills and who are not going to have the time for anything more than modest training.

Look for a CMS that does the things you have identified as essential for the day-to-day running of your website, but which also makes a feature of simplicity of use. Test for yourself if it’s really simple to use or not. If you find yourself confused or uncertain, think how others will feel.

Free website for arts nonprofits

Nonprofit arts organisations can now get a free website, courtesy of the Collections Australia Network (CAN) portal.

CAN is the Australian Government's public gateway to ‘collecting institutions’, including small to medium regional museums, galleries, libraries and archives (known as CAN partners).

A feature of the portal is that it provides CAN partners with their own template website, with online tools to allow them to publish and manage information about their own collections events and exhibitions. Published information becomes part of Australia's official online collection.

Collecting organisations simply ‘apply to be a partner’ by clicking on this link in the top, right-hand corner (in the blue rectangle) of the CAN homepage http://www.collectionsaustralia.net .

CAN partners also have access to dedicated news, event, exhibition and job-posting discussion lists.

Essentials to look for in a CMS

• Ease of use and efficiency; easy to create and maintain content; no technical skills required.
• Multi-user authoring. That means more than one person can use the system at the same time
• Workflow. Content can be drafted, and stored for review and approval by others
• Accessibility. Meets accessibility standards such as those developed by the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative
• Cross browser support. The pages generated by the system must be viewable in all major web browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc)
• Metadata for indexing and searching. This should conform to a standard such as the Australian Government Locator Standard (AGLS). Each page generated by the system should have an individual page ‘title’. This is very important for being picked up by search engines
• Training provided
• Warranty period
• Usage statistics. Make sure you can get data on numbers of site visitors, most popular pages, daily usage, and search engine usage
• Scalability. Can the system support your site if popularity grows, or would that need extra expenditure?
• Does not use ‘frames’. Frames are an old web technology that is no longer recommended. Frames prevent a site being indexed properly by search engines, and are very difficult (if not impossible) for people with disabilities to use
• Fully password/User ID controlled – can manage users and define access privileges
• Define publish, expiry and review dates
• Allows online forms
• Fast loading pages
• Integrated email, including subscribe/unsubscribe
• Publishing process linked to automatic email distribution and alerts
• Reference sites provided
• Allows you to publish easy-to-remember web addresses (URLs), such as www.yoursite.org.au/about/staff.html. This is important for when you promote a web page in a brochure, and for improving your search engine rankings. For example, website pages with long and confusing URLs will generally come up lower in Google’s results than short meaningful URLs related to the page content
• Open Standards Compliance. Open Standards allow information to be shared and information to be found. Support for these standards has been a core requirement in the development of AIMS4 in recent years. W3C.org standards are the key ones – including XML, XHTML, CSS
• IT constraints. Is there other software that has to be installed before the CMS will work? Is there special hardware required?
• WYSIWYG (‘what you see is what you get’) editor. Word-processor-like interface for styling content
• Forums and public submissions
• Supports XML

Computer needs

CMS are usually managed through a standard browser, like Microsoft Explorer or Mozilla Firefox. Your computer systems will need internet access and a writing software. That’s about it.

How to find a CMS

Work out a budget (and find the money!)

A basic website built with a web CMS is likely to cost anywhere between $2000 and $35,000, depending on size and features.

Find potential suppliers.

As mentioned above, start off by asking your peers. Don’t restrict yourself to people you already know; if you come across a similar organisation’s website you think is particularly good, email them and ask what CMS they’re using, if they think it’s OK, and who their website supplier is.

Have a look at sites that list CMS. If you are looking for a CMS in the Low Cost tier, check Open Directory Project , the CMS Directory , the CMS Matrix , The Google Directory , and the Yahoo Directory .

Advertise in the papers. You’ll be advertising for someone to (re)develop your site with a CMS. You’ll need to provide your list of requirements as part of the project brief, as well as be clear about the size of your organisation and the scale of the project.

Ten questions to ask (courtesy of TechSoup.org)

1. What will be the costs for setting up your site? These can vary widely. Some suppliers will demand a large upfront software payment but bundle in support and training for the year. Others will separate the content management software from any design work that you require. One way of costing the project is to estimate the entire cost over a two-year period.
2. What are the costs per year? Look at what any ongoing charges cover. While it may appear cheaper to make a single payment you are bound to need ongoing support. Will you need to pay extra? What happens if you want to alter the structure of the site? This is usually outside the scope of content management because you are effectively rebuilding your site. Beware of low fixed fees – you may be relegated to the lowest level of support if you are generating no revenue for the supplier.
3. Are you paying for the creation or development of software? Make sure that the system you are choosing is genuinely a stand-alone system and not something that has to be highly ‘customised’ for every job. Have a look at the same tools running several different client sites. How different are they? Can you see how these tools could help you manage your content?
4. Will the look and feel or functionality of your site be restricted in any way? Content management separates content from presentation through the use of templates. Some systems provide a restricted templating system that may not suit your proposed design. Have a look at several sites that have been produced using the same system. If they look very similar it is likely that your site will have to look similar too.
5. How does the system deal with images? Pictures and images are important to the look and feel of any site and you should find out how you will be able to use them. Is there a library of images that you can use and add to? Does the software resize images for you? How much control do you have of how they are used within the layout of a page?
6. Are you locked-in? You are making a big commitment. Find out how easy it is to move to another supplier or content management system. Make sure that you can reuse all of your data and your design without starting from scratch.
7. How easy are the tools to use? This is vital! How much training and support will your contributors and editors need? Running complex sites is a major undertaking and will require sophisticated tools but these should be straightforward to use. You will need to balance ease of use against the flexibility offered to you by the tools.
8. Does the system impose restrictions on how the site is hosted? Where and how your site is hosted are important considerations. Are you free to use Apache, Microsoft web servers, host it yourself, use your existing ISP or are these decisions made for you by the content management system? Remember to include the full costs of hosting in your plans.
9. Will you get the benefit of updates to the system? Content management systems are still evolving and you should make sure that new features and services are part of the agreement.
10. How will the system affect the way you work? This is perhaps the hardest but most important question to ask and is often ignored by the suppliers. If you are planning a large complex multi-section, multi-contributor site, you will need to think about the people and processes to keep it useful and up-to-date. Your chosen content management tools must support these people and processes rather than the other way round; this is not simply about technology. Discuss these issues with your suppliers and find out how they will help you integrate your new site into your organisation.