Web Sites for Professional Genealogists

Web Sites for Professional Genealogists Jordan Jones GenealogyMedia.com NC APG Meeting / 17 Oct 2007

Why Build a Web Site? Genealogist or Not
Professionalism: Web sites are signs of professionalism, in genealogy as elsewhere in the culture. Web sites are now as essential as business cards.
Marketing: Web sites provide effective marketing at low prices, including the development of mailing lists of prospective clients.
Education: Web sites can educate your customers and lead to a more rewarding experience for both parties.

ProGen on Web Sites
ProGen (pp. 218-219) suggests asking the following questions before deciding to build a web site:
Cost: Can you afford it?
Location: Where will your page be located?
Programming: Will you do it, or will you hire someone else do to it?
Links: Are you willing to spend the time looking for other pages to link to, and vice versa?
Content: What content will your site contain?
Commitment: Are you committed to the site?
Market: Are your potential clients using the web?

How a Website Fits into an Internet Marketing Plan
The website is your hub. Business cards, bills, reports, and letters should point to it.
Other strategies to consider:
Google AdWords (paid).
Drive people to your site based on their searches.
E-mail Newsletters (free or paid, $15-$30 a month).
Opt-in with links on your site.
See www.constantcontact.com .
Social networking and free resources (free or paid).
Librarything, LinkedIn, Flickr, del.icio.us, Blogger.
Samples
Providing research results or guidance can demonstrate the quality of your work.

How to Build a Web Site
Plan
Design
Implement
Operate
Optimize
This process repeats. While optimizing, you’re likely to start planning again.

1. Plan
What do you want from the site?
How will you organize the information?
Will you need technologies beyond a simple webpage?
This depends on how interactive you want the site to be.
More and more technologies are coming “pre-packaged” as free or inexpensive services, which require little or no software development. Google is at the forefront here. See labs.google.com

2. Design
Scope – How much information will you have in each category?
Chunking – A rule of thumb: Provide no more than 2 pages of scrolling.
Map the site visually on paper.
Visuals – Design for clarity, and provide plenty of white space.
This is often hired out, $20-40 an hour, or available for a small fee from your host.

3. Implement
Choose a host based on features and price.
$3-$15 a month.
Do you need database servers, a high amount of data transfer? Probably not as you get started.
You can hire out the development, $60-$150 an hour, or for a set price by your host
There are tools for all levels of web developer:
Novice – Apple iWeb, pages.google.com (free) and page building tools from your host
Intermediate – Adobe Dreamweaver, Netscape
Advanced – Java, JavaScript, MySQL, PHP, Apache developer’s tools and toolkits

4. Operate
Day-to-Day – Most day-to-day operations should be managed by your host.
Customer Tracking and Error Logs – Use your site log to monitor comings and goings and errors caused by your site or links into it.
Many hosting companies will provide analysis of your logs for free.
See also www.clicktracks.com (paid) and www.google.com /analytics/ (free).

5. Optimize
Link and Site Management
Use tools such as those available at www.w3c.org (free) to crawl your site in order to:
Verify links.
Find slow pages, graphics, or software.
Find errors in coding.
Use development testing tools and browser plug-ins (free and paid) to walk through your site, looking for errors whenever you make changes.

Costs
Hosting: $3-$15 a month (depends on service)
Web Design: $20-$40 an hour
Web Development: $60-$150 an hour
Package Deals: Some hosts will provide some or all of the above items for a packaged rate
E-mail Marketing: $15-$30 a month

Recommendations
Every professional genealogist should consider having a web site
Start with a single-page “billboard” website that announces your services and contact information, but is small enough to maintain on your own.
Web sites should be as up-to-date as possible.
If you’ve got more content than you’re willing or able to maintain, then you’ve got too much.
It is best to start small.
As you learn about the technology, you can add functionality and content.

References
Addison, Doug. Web Site Cookbook. (O’Reilly, Sebastopol, CA: 2006)
Mills, Elizabeth Shown, editor. Professional Genealogy: A Manual for Researchers, Writers, Editors, Lecturers, and Librarians. (Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, MD: 2001)

Additional Resources
adwords.google.com – Search-based marketing
www.librarything.com – Social networking, books
www.linkedin.com – Social networking, contact management
www.flickr.com – Social networking, photography; image storage
www.blogger.com – Web logs
del.icio.us – Social networking, web links
www.oreilly.com – Technology publishing company
labs.google.com – Technology sharing, including many free services
pages.google.com – Free web page development
www.clicktracks.com – Follow visitors to and through your site
www.google.com/analytics/ – Web site analytics
www.w3c.org – World Wide Web Consortium
www.w3.org/2002/03/tutorials – World Wide Web Consortium tutorials
www.constantcontact.com – E-mail marketing

Web Sites for Professional Genealogists

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Web Sites for Professional Genealogists Presentation Transcript