Monthly Archives: December 2013

The Community Web Consultant Website

If your third sector organisation needs to develop or review its online presence, the ‘Community Web Consultant‘ website is your first call.  I am an experienced community development worker and this site can help you find the most economic and effective way forward.  What you see on the site today is only the beginning of the story.

The Blog

I wrote about the blog Community Development Online last Friday.  This will build into a reference for your web presence, written with the community and voluntary sectors in mind.  The best way to follow it is to sign up for the email list.  The form is on the site at the top of the right hand column.  If you do this, you will receive three things:

  • every Tuesday, a summary of the last week’s blog posts.  This means you can review what I’ve written about and read anything that interests you.  You need return to the site only when there is something that interests you!
  • you will receive a free email sequence “Real Community Development”.  This series of emails introduces some key issues in community development; it contains nothing about websites but plenty of ideas and challenges to community development practice.
  • sometimes, I’ll send you an extra email about new developments on the website.  I’ve got lots of ideas for making life easier online  for community and voluntary organisations.  I hope we can share ideas on the website and together we develop online tools to help groups get the best from limited resources.

 Community Web Consultancy

Community and voluntary groups often waste scarce resources paying for websites that don’t work for them.  They can’t afford commercial rates and so their sites are either developed by experienced designers, who don’t understand the sector and because they have a business to run design a low-cost site that is basic, or else they find a volunteer who doesn’t always understand what works.  The upshot is sites that do not work properly and can be a liability.

We need to approach developing a web presence on a shoestring in a different way.  Wasting scarce resources on sites that don’t work is hardly satisfactory.  If you have time to invest, then you can learn the basics, perhaps calling in professional help when you get stuck or want to try something new.

An assessment is a good starting point and you can find out what it involves on my website.  I’m planning a host of tools to help you develop your web presence and maintain it in-house as far as possible.

If after you’ve read about assessments, you’re not sure whether it is right for you, I’d be happy to take a look at your current website.  I can do this in a very short time and offer some ideas about where it is going wrong (and where it is going right!).  A site review might help you work out why your site does not attract support.

One last thing.  I do charge for some services.  If I say something is free, it is free and subject only to the usual constraints in law, eg copyright,  you are welcome to use the free material on the site.

If you can’t find what you’re looking for, tell me.  The site is nowhere near complete and so I will be delighted to add material to help you if I can.  We desperately need to develop online communities that will help us re-build our real life communities.  If we’re going to do this we need to learn how to buy and sell online.  Stay with me and find out what I mean.

It would be brilliant to hear from you.  Let me know what you think and what you would like me to write about.  And don’t forget to sign up to the blog!

Finding Your Site Using Back-Links

This second Thursday post about how to encourage visitors to your site us about using back-links.  The full list of approaches to increasing traffic is in the earlier post “How to Help the Right People Find Your Site” and last time I discussed direct entry.

Back-links can be a powerful way to drive traffic to your site and they are effective locally as well as globally.  So, what is a back-link?

A link on your site, can take your visitor to another page on your site or to a page on another site.  When you link to another site, the site owners can find out about it and to them it is a back-link.  So, back-links are links from other people’s sites to yours.

They are useful for two reasons:

  1. You will get visitors directly through back-links.  They visit the other site and follow the link to yours.
  2. Search engines follow back-links and so the more you have, the more likely you are to be found by search engines.  (I’ll write about search engines in another post in this series).

Things to Consider When Seeking Back-Links

  • They are best if they come from relevant sites.  Some people look for any opportunity for a back-link but if they drive visitors to your site who are not interested in your offer, they have no value.  Some people spam websites and blogs by trying to get comments onto them to increase their back-links.  This is something to watch out for if you have a blog but don’t do it; it has no value whatsoever to your business, as well as being a nuisance.
  • A good back-link would be from a site that shares your market but not your product.  So, if you are a baker, you might have links from other local traders.
  • The anchor text is important.  This is the text highlighted and linked to your site.  Search engines read this text and if it says something like “Fred’s Bakery for Excellent Bread” (where Fred is your business name) then this will increase the value of the link.  It also encourages visitors to follow the link.  Sometimes you may be able to suggest the anchor text to the linking site.
  • Reciprocal links are a vexed question.  This is where they link to you and you link to them.  On the one hand, this could increase visitors to both sites.  Where you have the same market, eg two shops in the same row of shops, it might make sense. However, it seems search engines ignore reciprocal links.  If you’re not dependent on search engines (eg if your trade is mostly local) then reciprocal links may not be a problem.

Quality of Copy

One final point.  If your site has good copy, other sites will link to it for that reason.  So, blogs might review your site or your business.  Or some sites may link simply because they think your copy is a good read.  How have you encouraged other sites to carry links to your site?

If you have good copy regularly updated, you may find email lists helpful.  And these will be the topic of my next post.

How have you built back-links to your site?  Use comments to share your tips for good practice.

Donations: What Still Needs to be Done?

If you have followed this sequence of posts, you will know how your copy should cover your charity’s

so now you need to make the case for your readers’ continued support.

This is the core of your message.  Your next step will be a request for a donation, so you need to make this convincing.

Describe your new initiatives.  Be specific.  Link to what has gone before where it is relevant.  You might ask for more support for a specific project or for a spin-off project by the same people or for support for a similar project elsewhere.

So, be

  • clear about what you are going to do;
  • specific about what needs to be done;
  • sure offer a breakdown of costs if you can; if people can see what their £25 or £100 donation will purchase it can help then see the value of their contribution;
  • sure to outline your projected outputs and outcomes and
  • absolutely clear about the outcomes as these show the transformation you’re aiming for.

Outputs are the specific things you are going to do with the money.  If you say you’re going to build a school in a particular place, then your donors will expect to see a school in that place within your timeframe.  They can be difficult to quantify, eg research might not promise a specific output.  There might be a cure for a specific type of cancer one day but you may not be able to guarantee it will happen this time.  With something like this you can be specific about the research you will carry out – a cure would be a possible outcome.

Your outcomes answer the question, why?  So, what will the school do for the people who use it or work in it?  Outcomes are in their nature not entirely predictable.  So, a school is likely to help people find better jobs.  But the ideas the pupils and staff come up with once they start work will not be predictable.  People donate towards outcomes not outputs; they want to see the difference your outputs will make to real people.

If you are not sure what your outcomes will be, this need not be a disadvantage.  It adds intrigue to what you’re doing.  In the next post I’ll show you how you can use this to your advantage.

So, have you some interesting outcomes to share?  How have you demonstrated outcomes on your website?

Introduction to the Awareness Ladder

So far I’ve introduced you to several types of page you might find on a website.  Some are obvious and typically found on most websites, whilst others are often hidden and you find them according to how you enter the site and what you do while you’re there. Last time I wrote about how to assess your website needs and in this and future posts I’ll offer a few more guidelines.

I’m going to use a model for a website structure based on the awareness ladder.  I’m indebted to Ben Hunt for this approach although it is probably not his invention.

To build any website, you need to understand your market and their awareness of what you’re offering, whether it is a product, a service or a cause.  Broadly it works like this:

A frogStep 0 – I do not have a problem

People who are not aware they have a problem may still have it!  If you want to approach them you need to show them they have a problem.  So, the problem is a plague of frogs.  These people haven’t looked out of their window or else they don’t think a plague of frogs is a problem.

Step 1 – I have a problem and have no idea whether there is a solution to it

These people are experiencing a plague of frogs as a problem.  They may have a phobia about frogs, or fear treading on them but whatever it is they know they have a problem.

Step 2 – I know there are many possible solutions

These people have done some research and found a number of possible solutions.  They may arrive at your site as a part of their research.  They may have found frog poisons, frog food, brushes for sweeping them out of harm’s way,  frog recipes, fences to stop them getting onto their property …

Step 3 – I am aware of your solution

These people have read about your solution.  Frogs eat slugs and snails and so your solution is to keep them in a special frog pool with anti-cat and anti-heron devices.  However, this person is not persuaded your solution is the best!

Step 4 – Now I’m convinced this is the best solution

… because you’ve brought together all the evidence you can that your solution is the best.  You’ve shown that when a garden is a haven for frogs, all the slug and snail problems will be a thing of the past.

Step 5 – I’m willing to pay for your product, how do I do it?

Home and dry.  You have a customer for your patent frog pool formula!

These 6 stages could be a framework for your website.  So, what do you do next?  Any ideas?  Have a go by commenting if you can’t wait until next time!

Burngreave New Deal: The Accountable Body

Today, the second of six lessons learned according to the evaluation of Burngreave New Deal for Communities.  My purpose is to ask: how is finance deployed in communities?  Last time I looked at Community Based Partnerships and this time it is the Accountable Body.

The government insisted upon an accountable body to make sure Burngreave NDC spent its millions properly.  Local delivery agencies were accountable to NDC, NDC to the accountable body, which in turn was accountable to the Regional Government Office.  Whilst the programme needed to be protected against fraud, does taking precautions insulate the scheme from risk?

 ‘there is a need to establish from the outset the role, remit and boundaries of the accountable body, and expectations of the contribution of the community and partner agencies’

After 10 years someone noted it would have been a good idea to clarify expectations at the beginning!  What on earth did they think they were doing?

A Foregone Conclusion?

The accountable body was a foregone conclusion.  It was the local authority.  I’m not aware that it was any different in any other of the 39 New Deals.  Was there any other serious contender?  What if the health authority had done it?  Or the police?  Or Burngreave Community Action Trust (BCAT)?

I’m sure BCAT at the beginning would not have been able to do it.  Did anyone ever ask, what would BCAT have to do to become the accountable body?  Of course the way most people would have looked at it is this:

“We have £50 million pounds.  Who can be trusted with £50 million?  The local authority; we can always trust politicians and council officers.  BCAT?  They can’t even agree among themselves.  Don’t forget it’s £50 million pounds, a lot of money for a community group.”

You will have gathered I’m sceptical about injecting £50 million into any community.  But if you are going to do it, wouldn’t it be an idea to ask for a moment about what it is for?  Yes, it is a lot of money.  We all know it is a lot of money.

But from where I’m sitting now, it’s all gone.  We have almost nothing to show for it.  Some lives changed for the better, no doubt about that.  But we have no legacy, nothing to show for all that expenditure.

Could It Be Done?

Imagine if someone had said, ‘Look we chose Burngreave because of BCAT.  We know they can’t handle the full programme now, so how do we develop their capacity so that as soon as possible they can be the accountable body?’

If you’re going to chuck money away, you might as well chuck it away magnificently.

Instead, they tied it up in the usual structures.  It was safe even though it didn’t need to be safe.  Oh for politicians with vision, who trust the people.

And yes, I know to make BCAT the accountable body, would tie it up in red tape.  The problem is £50 million does not sharpen vision.  With money like that, you lose vision because the money is all you can see.

Does anyone have examples of community organisations entrusted with huge sums of money with no prior commitments?  How did it go for them?

Next: Project Management  (you’ll love this one) (honest)