You’re a busy person. You don’t have oodles of time, money and technical expertise to put into your synagogue website.

And now you don’t have to.

Talance is launching a new service called Synagogue Sites 1-2-3 that makes it a breeze to have a website that truly communicates with your congregation. This is no electronic brochure.

>> Get more details and pricing here.

Here’s how it works:

1. Pick your favorite design

Get started with a clean, super-powered website hosted on the Drupal content management system (CMS). It includes tools for improving search engine optimization, a Microsoft Word-like text editor and six months free Web hosting.

2. Customize

Send us your logo (if you have one – we can help if you don’t), your two favorite colors and a couple pictures to include on the homepage. You can also pick from any of these Web tools for free:

• E-Newsletter
• Interactive Calendar
• Blog
• Advanced site search
• File storage
• Listserv
• Membership forms
• Members-only section
• Photo album
• Registration form
• Shabbat times calendar
• Weekly Torah Portion (from MyJewishLearning)

You can keep updating from an extensive list of advanced Web tools.

3. Relax

We do all the set-up and configuration to get you up online fast – in just five working days.

Special Bonus: Are you a Synaplex synagogue? Mention it when you sign up, and receive 20% off through September!

Learn more and sign up today!

It helps to see what other organizations are doing right to guide your own Web strategy. Here are six stand-out examples from non-profits that have a presence with websites, Twitter and Facebook.

Websites

10ThousandDoors.org is a gutsy move by the United Methodist Church to be a truly interactive experience. The whole site is innovative, but the Talk page is a new breed of discussion boards that has really opened up sharing and communication.

Take the Walk has a great counter on its homepage. They tally the number of miles supporters have walked to support fighting AIDS in Africa. The placement is perfect: front and center. This ensures the site is geared toward pulling in new supporters.

Twitter

Ashoka started promoting their e-book through Twitter and quickly built up a following. This multi-tasking post is smart, because they thank their followers, help everyone feel included and continue the promotion all in one Tweet.

The town of Richmond, VA, had a double-header of a good idea. First, they started a city wiki (others here), and then they set up an automatic Twitter feed that publishes any updates to the wiki. It gives you a real-time, accessible view of any changes that happen at the town level.

Facebook

Peta launched a Facebook Cause to raise funds and donations to protect animals. They’ve raised nearly $60,000 and have enabled others to recruit more supporters and raise funds on their behalf.

Synagogue 3000 claimed a great web address so they’d be easy to find on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/synagogue3000) rather than the ugly and hard to remember stream of numbers that Facebook adds to the end of your URL when it assigns one to you. Click here to set yours.

[Photo credit: Spaghetti and Meatballs (explore) by jshj, on Flickr]

Inclusiveness is always nice to have in any project, Web-related or otherwise. Give everybody a voice, and everybody’s happy, right?

Wrong.

In fact, having too many voices feeding into your website can create chaos for your users. The problem is that everybody has their own ideas about what belongs on a website, and those ideas might compete with one another. Plus, there’s only so much room on a homepage. You can’t cram everything on.

Add to this the fact that some of those people jockeying for their ideas to appear on your website know absolutely nothing about creating a manageable experience for Web visitors, and you’ve got one snarled, political plate of website spaghetti.

If you’re at a non-profit, there’s a good chance a little light bulb is going on over your head right now. You’ve been there. Too many people trying to take control of the site. Sadly, this is a problem non-profits frequently have, since many organizations are managed by committee. That might (or might not) make sense for day-to-day operations, but it never works with websites.

Nip this problem in the bud. Take these steps to make sure your Web project starts off with a clear vision and a clean outcome.

Include everybody – at the start.

Our solution is to send out a “needs assessment” at the very beginning of a project. This survey, distributed to a whole bunch of people, gives everybody a chance to say what they think is important to have on the website and makes everyone feel included.

Form a small committee.

Hand those surveys over to the core website team to scan for insights, ideas and important issues. And, of course, to sort out the muck. But importantly, this body is small, and has only one head.

Appoint a strategist.

It’s helpful that the leader of that team be uniformly concerned with the experience your website visitors have, the marketing and business message of your organization and have some idea of the way technology works. If this isn’t possible, at least choose a person humble enough to take direction from a hired Web strategy consultant. That’s money well spent.

Request for proposals rarely fill me with joy. More often than not they’re a source of confusion, business-speak and unfinished thoughts, which we have to sort through and make sense of so we can send a reasonable bid to an organization that wants a website.

But last week I received an RFP from a non-profit that may have performed a Vulcan mind-meld on Talance. It was as if they had seen our new-client questionnaire and had preemptively answered all the questions I have at this early stage of a project. It filled me with delight (because I’m sad that way), and I know that it will make the project run smoothly, no matter who they choose to build the site.

What made it so great? Here are a few stand-outs that you can incorporate in your next RFP to help your project move smoothly from inception to completion:

1. Think it through.

The clearest RFPs benefit from discussion and planning beforehand. Make sure you talk with your team to form clear ideas of what you want your website to be, and then communicate your wishes through the RFP.

2. Write clearly.

Some people think “RFP” and pull out their cryptic businessese thesaurus so they can load it with fancy words nobody really gets. Pretend you’re explaining what you want to an idiot. Trust us, we Web developers get more out of it that way.

3. Plan your objectives.

You cannot hope for a site that reaches your goals unless you know what they are before you begin. If you want to be the go-to guide for volunteering opportunities, write it down and make sure that every decision you make from that point forward feeds back into that goal.

4. Order your objectives.

Some objectives are must-haves, others are nice-to-haves. Rank yours.

5. Go window shopping.

Everyone has seen sites they love, whether they be your competition or a mega-commercial site like Amazon. Start keeping track of sites you like, and make notes on what you like about them.

6. Know your branding.

Unless they’re new, most organizations have gone through some kind of branding exercise in the past, where colors, logos and other standards were developed. If you’re not aware of what these standards are, start asking around. We just had to redesign a website whose colors and logo were completely wrong in an earlier version, because no one checked. Translation: expensive.

7. Name your widgets.

If you want any special functionality, like slideshows, animations, photo galleries – anything – write it down.

8. Technical needs.

If you’re bound to maintain your website in a particular format, you like a CMS like Drupal or you don’t have the staff bandwidth to do updates, cite these constraints. Also note if you need Web hosting.

9. Name your budget.

I know, I know. You don’t want to come right out and say how much you want to spend, but your Web developer really needs at least a ballpark. We receive calls from clients who have $400 to spend, and those who have $40,000 to spend. We can’t help everyone, but it saves everybody a lot of time if I can tell them up front whether we can or not.

10. Make a schedule.

Decide when you’ll accept RFP questions, submissions and make decisions. Also note any ideal launch dates.

11. Contact information.

Sounds elementary, but make sure your prospects know how to reach you if they have questions. We received a bizarre system-generated RFP a couple weeks ago that had no personal contact information and was so hard to read we couldn’t even consider responding.

Laying this groundwork is incredibly useful for Web development companies like ours, but your staff will also thank you if you take the time to plan. Bonus: your funders will love you for eliminating money-wasting mistakes early on.

[Photo credit: WinTrash by fabiux, on Flickr]

If ever there was a time to feel sorry for trash cans, now is it. I know we’ve been kicking them a fair amount at Talance HQ, and certainly our clients are. What’s unleashed this sudden aggression on the waste bins by our desks? Internet Explorer 8.

With existing websites, there’s always a lag between when a new Web browser comes out and when you can get all the kinks and wrinkles ironed out so your site displays accurately everywhere.

But there’s an added problem when new versions of browsers debut. They’re inevitably buggy and have all kinds of problems that are yet to be discovered. That takes time. Internet Explorer 8 has made so many changes with the way it renders webpages that it could take a very, very long time to iron out problems. Recognizing all the problems that people are having with IE8, Microsoft added the Compatibility View button, which (in theory) lets you switch back to IE7 if a website isn’t displaying correctly.

This is a good reason for Web users – like you – to put off downloading any new browser software until some of these problems have been discovered and fixed, but it’s still a problem when it comes to website building.

What’s the solution? Well, nothing really good. Largely, you’ll have to wait until problems in IE8 are fixed and ask your Web developers to start taking a look at your site to make sure it appears correctly in the new browser. Just be patient, take your time and look at it as a reason to refresh your website.

[Photo credit: Adopt a Pet, Live Longer! by sayheypatrick, on Flickr]

You may already have a Donate page on your website where you make it possible (and easy) for people to support you. But how many people click through to your Donate page compared to other pages of your site? I’m willing to make the sad bet it’s not at the top of the list.

Some pages, though, are stars. They consistently receive more visitors than other pages. This might be the Dog of the Week adoption page or your contact information page. People either love or need what’s there, so they come back, day after day.

While you should stay true to the main focus of these pages, start to think of them as a way to reach out to potential donors by putting a call to donate on these busiest pages of your site.

To find which pages pull in the droves, tap your Web analytics service, such as Clicky or Google Analytics. Most have a section that lists the top 10 or more pages in terms of traffic. Pick the top pages from this list and ask people to support there.

It helps if you can elegantly work in the plea for funds with the focus of the page. If it’s the Homeless Dog of the Week page, for instance, you may want to include something like:

“Can’t take Buster home? Support him and his doggy friends by donating $20 right now by clicking here.”

That’s it. Stand back, keep checking your traffic and donation box, and see if your income doesn’t increase. Make sure to come back and tell us how it went.

Getting your website to work for you doesn’t have to mean a complete overhaul. Here are five small updates you can make without suffering.

1. Add a feedback form

One of the very best ways to get more use out of your website is to give its visitors a way to interact. If you add a contact form to your contact page (here’s an example), you’ll open up opportunities for accepting comments. It’s welcoming, will help limit spam, and can increase the amount of feedback you receive from your site. A pretty big payoff for something so small.

2. Make menus consistent

Clicking through the pages of your site should not cause motion sickness. Yet some websites have inconsistent navigational menus. Sometimes they actually jump around. Sometimes the options change. Sometimes they don’t even work. Make them consistent and reliable, and you’ll find more people will be clicking around.

3. Limit what’s on your homepage

You wouldn’t stuff all your house’s furniture into the foyer, would you? Same thing with all the content on your website. Put your front-page stories on the homepage, and tuck the rest of the information where it logically belongs.

4. Add some links to and from your social networking accounts

Many organizations have well-used Facebook, MySpace or Twitter accounts, but you’d never know it from the website. Do some cross-linking, and add some links on your site. (Note: Join for the Talance Facebook Fan Club, and we’ll give you some lovely social media icons.) People can learn more about what you do, and they can subscribe to your accounts and receive updates and reminders.

5. Launch a blog or microblog

Even if you update it just once a week, a blog is a great add-on to a website. It increases your chances of telling the world what makes you so great, and it keeps people coming back for more.

In preparing for an upcoming presentation on how to create functional websites, and it’s got me thinking about all the dysfunctional sites I’ve seen recently. There’s no single feature that makes a website completely unusable, but there definitely are trends.

Below, divided into three categories, are the chief gaffes you should follow if you really feel like creating a website that doesn’t work.

Market Positioning

Build your website without thinking what you want. “Yes, we need a website!” is a lousy reason for a website, yet it’s the one too many people follow. First, make a list of all your organization’s goals, and then think about how technology might help you meet those goals. Then from that you can start to think about shaping your website around your needs.

Don’t think about who’s looking at the site. If your audience is made of 50-year-old women from the Midwest, why would you create a zippy website built to attract college students? If those people are interested in volunteering, why would you load the homepage with information on grants, staff bios and news releases? Think about what the people coming to your website want or need to see, and then give it to them.

Design

Use lots of clipart. Ooph. Steer clear of crummy clipart. Go for real pictures, even freebie stock photography, rather than goofy cartoon drawings. Check out the Creative Commons images on Flickr or Stock.xchng for good resources.

Include pictures of empty rooms. What’s welcoming about an echo-y chamber? Put some people in there!

Use flashy splash pages. They look like ads and have the same effect. People click off splash screens and never get to the meat inside. It’s like going around with two hats on. The top one doesn’t matter and makes people think you’re nuts.

Use a microscopic font. You know how on TV ads, they put all the stuff they don’t really want you to read, but are required by law to display, in teeny text at the bottom of the screen? It’s because no one can see it, and they ignore it even if they can. Small font does the same thing to your website, but the whole website.

Honestly, tell me how readable this is.

Usability

Shroud donation processes in mystery. Heavens, if people want to give you money, make it easy for them. Here, take this big bright Donate Now! button and put it on your homepage. (Right-click and choose Save As.) A gift from Talance to you.

Glom onto every widget you can find. A real danger with the proliferation of widgets and plug-ins and add-ons is that you have a website that looks like a carnival. All flash, no focus. Choose wisely with anything you add onto your site, and make sure it follows your directive of achieving your goals.

Add 50 items – or even 10 – to your menus. People’s eyes cross when they see more than seven items in a menu, so stick with that magic number.

Put the most important info at the very bottom of the page. People look at the top left of web pages to pick up the most important information. If there’s something you really want people to read, put it up there and not down below.

[Have a question you’d like answered? Use the comments form at the bottom of this page or click here. We’ll review your question before posting (don’t be shy about asking!) and get back to you with a response.]

A reader asks:

I’ve heard from so many places you shouldn’t put anything below the scroll. Is it really OK?

There are so many rules in Web design that you really shouldn’t break. It’s a shame that the Do Not Scroll rule has gotten so much long-standing traction.

Back when we all started designing web pages, we noticed that people tended to look at pages in one glance, and then move on to a different site. The theory was they wouldn’t make the modicum of effort to use the scroll bar to look at the bottom of the page.

This fed the idea of packing as much information at the top of the page as possible, often with nothing at all below. It lead to a raft of websites that could fit on postage stamps, a favorite new refrain of “Keep it above the scroll!” and a deep-seated fear of putting anything on the lower part of the page at all.

Then there came blogs.

Blogs are all about scroll, with the most recent postings at the top of the page and story after story trailing down the page. I’ll bet you, reading this right now, will give this blog a good scroll so you can see what else we’ve written about recently.

Yes, people do tend to look at the upper-left-hand corner of the page more carefully than other places on your website. But it really is OK to put information at the bottom of the page. It’s sure a lot better than fitting everything you can into a postage stamp.

Take a look at these glorious examples of pages that contain loads of information well below the scroll, pulled at random from the Web browsers open on my machine:

From Last.fm

From Oprah.com

From Weather.com

From SlideShare

[Photo credit: "covering the eyes" by Secret Seasons, on Flickr]

Here’s a harsh reality you must face when you’re thinking about the design of your website: nobody likes to look at computer screens.

Yes, we all do it all the time, but that doesn’t change our physiology. Most people suffer from screen fatigue simply because monitors flicker and render an image that’s grainer than print. Think about how many times you’ve gotten a headache from spending too long looking at a computer screen or blinked your dry, irritated and watery eyes. Happens to me almost every day. That’s why I sit by the window; frequent eye breaks.

That’s also why we can’t help scanning websites. Our eyes seek out big fonts, bullet points and images to help us make quick identifications rather than focus on tiny text. It means that sometimes we frequently don’t take in enough information to get the full picture – we just glean what we can quickly.

Good web designers will think about these usability issues when designing a site. Make sure you think about what you need to do to present your site so it’s easiest for people to read.