Find at Harmony Marketplace

Essentials in
Get Famous

Singing for Life

Radio Toolkit 2.0 released

Great non-barbershop contests and shows for Barbershoppers

BHS Anniversary Press Kit

Sample Proclamation

Enter the Contemporary A Cappella Recordings Awards

Singing for Life: Questions and Answers

Singing for Life: Planning Timetable

Media Lists Available

Three simple messages describe barbershop harmony

Glossary of Barbershop Terms and Acronyms

Chapter Program Manager Job Description

Pattern News Releases

It’s Not Too Early To Start Making Your Plans for Singing Valentines!

Interview guide

Getting more free publicity

Marketing barbershop performances

Get Your Chapter's Web Site Up and Running for 35 Dollars or Less

Performance as Public Relations

Barbershop Web Site in a Box

Barbershop Web Development

PROBE presents awards

Put the PR in Performance

Listing Your Chapter in the Telephone Book

You are here: Run Your Chapter > Get Famous >

Barbershop Web Development

Daniel Garcia outlines the basics of developing a site and offers references for tools and sites that work.

Updated: 9/16/2002 2:19:00 PM

Introduction

The Internet (what is it, where did it come from and where is it going)
Getting connected (how to get on-line and what to do once you are there)
Communication (the magic of e-mail and how to keep your guys informed)
Barbershop on the web (resources, content, how to find the information you need)

Inter-Chapter Communication

Email (who has it, who needs it)
Email List (electronic group communication, Yahoo Groups: http://groups.yahoo.com/)
Weekly Newsletter (electronic documents, public and chapter)

Planning a chorus web page

Where to begin (brainstorming ideas)
Creating goals (project plan, identifying your audience)
What to put on it (gathering content)

Development

Site Hosting (where to host; free vs. fee)
Page development (Software and tools to use)
Building the site (understanding how all the elements fit together)
Publishing the site (how to put it on the internet after its built)
Members Only (Content)

Advertising

Announcement (where and how to announce your site)
Search engines (get your site listed)

Advanced Techniques

Using multimedia (adding sounds and video)
Interactivity (using JavaScript to spice things up)
Creating dynamic, data driven sites (utilizing a database)
E-commerce (selling on your site; Do's and Don'ts)

Additional Resources

Web Tutorials
Useful books

Q and A

Specifications

The web site will contain approximately _____ web pages.

The web site will be tested with the two latest versions of Internet Explorer and Netscape

browsers on Mac and Windows based PC systems. The layout will be optimal in the latest version browsers but may not be fully functional or identical in layout in older version browsers. This will cover approximately 96% of the current average browser usage.

The web site will contain the following areas:

Descriptions of standard web pages:

Common Navigation Systems:

Graphical navigation bar with rollovers at head of each page.
Page header text navigation bar under the graphical navigation bar.
Text navigation bar at bottom of each page.
Site map page.
Help page.
Quick guide page.
Index pages (a page of simple links to sub pages within the site)
List traversal of series pages (pages designed to be read one after the other)
Hyperlinks to other pages.
Shallow tree (3-4 clicks max).

Consistent navigation across all pages.

Website Design Tips

Update your site to retain repeat visitors. Periodic updates are essential so plan an update schedule. The less frequent the updates, the more general the content should be and can use more DHTML randomizing techniques. Also reduce the number of outside links to prevent broken links.
Surfers will generally wait no more than 20 seconds for a page to load and usually will only remain for 20 to 60 seconds. Home pages and index pages must load quickly. Large downloading pages and cutting edge technologies should be buried a level in the site rather than kept on the home page or primary index pages. For example, a full screen photograph should be accessed by clicking a much smaller 2nd image and faster loading thumbnail. A large Java applet should be accessed by clicking a link Tell the surfer what to expect and how long to wait.
Know your intended target audience. Studies show that visitors want fast loading pages and useful information. The least important features are "bleeding edge" technologies, flashy animations and non-functional eye-candy (unless that is what you are selling and what your buyers are looking for).
Learning web programming is easy, the hard part is learning to do it right. Be sure to view popular websites to see what works and what doesn’t.
Never play music files the user has no control over; Music tastes vary, and most surfers will hit the back button rather than the volume. This may count in your log as a hit but you will have lost the surfer forever.
Flashy animations and eye-candy usually are only interesting once. You must rely on fast loading useful content. Allow visitors to bypass your Flash animations and splash screens.
Do not use frames unless you are an expert. Frames cause more problems than they solve.
Each page of the site must be consistent and intuitive to navigate. More and more web surfers are computer illiterate. Make your site easy for anyone to understand and use.
Many of the best sites on the Internet are content laden - useful information which is freely distributed. Include information relevant to your audience (i.e. how-to articles, tips and tricks, industry related news, etc.).
Website traffic starts slowly at a new site, builds, plateaus and then declines. To get the best results from your website, you must market constantly and update regularly to build traffic and prevent it from declining. Encourage return visitors.
Your site must be designed with your visitor's needs and capabilities in mind. Pages must be fast loading and content must be useful and relevant. Slow loading, flashy eye candy, animations and music are usually not impressive to visitors unless you are selling tools to create these effects. If you must use them, make them optional. This gives visitors the choice of using these options. The surest way to lose visitors is to force them to wait or listen to your musical preferences.
Make links in your site informative. Let your visitors know what to expect and give them a compelling reason to want to follow hyperlinks on the site. List the download time and size of large photographs or other files.
Design the website to allow for future growth without requiring major changes to the navigation systems.
Be careful of using frames to frame other sites pages or content within your site. It can be construed as a copyright violation. Even linking into some sites interior pages has been known to get the linking site in trouble.
Study and emulate other successful techniques and tactics. Do not copy other people's work but be unique, stand out and do it better.
Do not add visitor or customer contact information (names, e-mail addresses, etc.) to your contact lists without their express permission. Do not grab visitor's e-mails from their browser since this is commonly considered a violation of privacy.
People process information in specific ways. Design your site to mirror this process. They read from left to right, top to bottom. Most eyes will automatically gravitate to the top left corner, top header line, left or right top sidebars, bottom trailer and the bottom right hand corner. Write bold headlines to grab attention. Shapes are usually recognized first, actual words last and the mind narrows its focus on each page. The eye is drawn to sharp contrast and distinct patterns. Use animation, large fonts, red highlights, sparingly and only to draw attention to something specific. Remember that a large number of web users are new to computers and the Internet. Scrolling a web browser, changing screen resolution, installing a screensaver and clicking a graphic with a hyperlink are common tasks to web designers but may be difficult for people who have simple, basic computer knowledge. Who will be more successful the designer who accepts the limitations of his audience and works with them or one who dismisses computer novices?
Encourage other sites to link to your. Making graphic and link information available to other sites will encourage and facilitate a partnership.
Another important marketing tool is linking your site with search engines. Create pages optimized for search engine placement. The final results will vary over time. Search engine rules, rankings and listings vary over time and are out of your control.
No matter how good a website might be, it must be visible, accessible and readily available. You must get the people there. A site which only has links in a search engine, will probably fail to generate significant traffic.

Search Engine Submissions

Exhaustive Top 10 submission:

Yahoo! - http://www.yahoo.com

Find 2 categories for the site, lookup similar sites. Submit from one of those category pages and then enter the 2nd one. Submit only 1 URL, may take 4-12 months to get listed.

AltaVista - http://www.altavista.com