Hi lakekit.net Members, and also those who have expressed interest in the website network this summer. I hope your summer has been filled with good times. Below is (1) an update on our lake organization network, (2) some food for thought (ideas), and (3) a feedback (advice) request.
Status of Our Network
We have 12 members. Our 12th member is The Waterways Association of Menominee and Shawano Counties at wamsco.org.
Five members have switched their xxxxxx.lakekit.net address to a domain name of their choice such as xxxxlake.org. This change requires a registered domain name for about $10 per year.
The Pike Lakes Chain of Lakes is in the process of becoming our 13th member. They are actively learning and adding content during their their 30-day trial period.
Most members have been working on their sites, at a variety of levels. Two members are inactive. Several new organizations have indicated an interest in membership. A few more members would be welcome yet this year. Please let me know of organizations you think may be interested in joining.
Ideas to Consider
Moving the site title into the header image can be a good idea with images that have a uniform area. When using the Weaver Xtreme theme, go to Dashboard –> Weaver Xtreme Admin –> Main Options –> Header –> Site Title/Tagline –> Title Position –> Enter X and/or Y values –> Save Settings. Moving the title into the header image may require changing the title text color to better contrast with the image background. While at the Site Title/Tagline area, click on the color box at Site Title Text Color and select a new color, then Save Settings.
Have you established goals for your site? Knowing what you want your site to accomplish helps you focus on what’s important to your organization. For example, maybe initially your goal is to give organization members easy access to planned events and to provide a source for documents associated with the organization. Later you can add other goals such as lake management, volunteering, organization description, history…
Many members still “Discourage search engines from Indexing this site” at Dashboard –> Settings –> Reading. This means that users will need to know the site address to visit your site. Unchecking that box means the search engines such as Google will eventually collect the address of your site. Then someone can likely find your site if they just enter the lake name in the search box. Unless you want your site to be difficult to find, consider unchecking that box as soon as your site reaches a useful state. Then add more pages as time permits.
Your Input and Advice is Important
The lakekit.net site is home base for our network. There you can find help and member information. I am planning to review this site later this year and make improvements. What improvements would be helpful to you?
The main goals for this network are to minimize website costs and site administration tasks, all while providing website building tools that fit lake organizations needs. I hope these goals are being met. If not, please suggest ways to improve.
If you are one of the sites that has not made enough progress to make the site available to your organization, please let me know if you need help. WordPress can be either simple or complex; its your choice. For most of us who are not professional site designer/developers, keeping the site simple initially is key. Also, if some members who have become expert site builders would like to help those who have not made much progress so far, maybe I can connect the two of you.