St. Monica Web Site Redesign

(December, 2009)

In the report the Communications Task Force presented to the Parish Pastoral Council in November 2009, the Web site was described as follows:

Problem: Parish website is “static” and doesn’t invite repeat visits and regular usage.

  • Solution: Much time was spent on discussion of the website and various ways to improve it and make it a more effective communication vehicle. The following specifics were identified and solutions offered:

* Content doesn’t feel “fresh”

  • Having the same office/people who adds content to the bulletin being able to immediately add the same (or even expanded) information on the Web will be very helpful. Encouraging ministry leaders to keep their page up-to-date is also very important.

* Not easy enough for ministry leaders to add content

  • We moved from the Content Management System (CMS) of Xoops (outdated) to WordPress. There are hundreds of churches running their sites on WordPress and momentum is building. It allows even rudimentary technology users the ability to add text, photos, and documents.

* Design seems boring

  • The new site uses newer templates and more attention is paid to making the home page more attractive. WordPress also has many plug-ins that are available to make the content more interesting.

* Difficult to administer

  • Both the server software and the CMS (Xoops) were out-of-date and are very difficult to upgrade. WordPress is much easier to administer and the price is right (free). This is compared to the $420 we currently spend on hosting annually.

Some of the highlights of the new site.

Administration

1. WordPress – It is built on the latest version of WordPress 2.8.6., using MySQL as its database (both WordPress and MySQL are open source software. i.e. free). WordPress is WAY easier to manage than Xoops. And even though WordPress was created as blog software, a handful of plug-ins turn it into a fully functional Content Management System (CMS).
2. Hosting – It is hosted by Arvixe.com on a shared Linux server for only $264 a year. The compares to the $420 a year for outdated and inadequate hosting at iQuest.net.
3. Domain Name – Father Todd liked Steve’s idea of using stmonicaindy.org instead of stmonicaindyparish.org. St. Monica has started publishing the new Web address.
4. Ministry Pages – Each ministry has its own page and will receive a username and password so that they can easily edit their page at any time. It is key that ministry leaders understand the importance of keeping their page(s) up-to-date.

Design Details

  1. After trying numerous themes, the theme called “iNove” was finally chosen. Partly because of its clean look, but also because it allowed for multiple page layouts, a widgetized sidebar, and a navigation bar.
  2. A photo of the church taken by Kim Ort was tweaked it to fit the size of the theme for the heading. The heading and navigation bar show on every page of the site.
  3. The navigation bar has the following topics:
    • Parish Information – This heading also drops down to provide direct access to submenus.
    • News – All news posted by the parish office will be listed here. Subscribers to the RSS feed will also get all these posts.
    • Ministries – The 80+ ministries are listed here.
    • Spiritual Growth – Prayer requests, list of prayers, Catholic-related organizations, and daily reflections are currently listed here.
      • The prayer request message board was using old, buggy software. I installed a new WordPress plug-in that has the message board integrated with WordPress (same look and feel).
    • Bulletins – Listing of current and past bulletins.
    • Homilies – Listing of current and past homilies.
    • School – Direct link to the school’s Web site.
  4. Since all the pages are stored in a database, the search box is very powerful for quickly finding any content on the site.
  5. The mass schedule and daily reflections sign-up box are listed in the sidebar on the right. The sidebar shows on the right on nearly every page of the site. But notice how the news items don’t show in the sidebar on the home page, but they do show up through the rest of the site.
  6. The text on the home page is just me copying and pasting some existing text from the old site. If someone wants to write more compelling text, it would be great.
  7. The Latest News area of the home page is the attempt to try to keep the site feeling “fresh”. The title of each post links to the “News” page, and a short except is automatically pulled from post to give readers a better idea of the topic.
  8. The “Share/Save” button on the bottom of every page provides a TON of options for visitors to share the page on social networking sites, e-mail to friends, have a print-friendly version, or bookmark the page as a favorite.
  9. The footer at the bottom of the page lists basic contact information,a clickable Google map, and driving directions.

Complaints should be directed to the designer; Tom Schenk.

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