Amdow Web Design - Community Website Awards

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Community Website Award Scheme

Due to an increase in workload and a reduction in staff, it has become necessary to suspend the review of websites for the Website Award scheme. We will, however, continue to add any suitable community websites to our Community Website Directory.

We cleared the backlog of submissions by adding them all to the directory by the end of March 2003.
New submissions are now being added to the directory within two days.

The purpose of community websites

A community website can, and should, serve several different functions:

To provide the local community with local news and details of events.
To provide the local community with local information such as the addresses and contact details of local doctors, dentists, bus company, places of worship, parish and district councils, member of parliament, radio station etc.
To provide a directory of local businesses with email addresses and website links where they exist.
To provide local residents with the history and geography of the community.
To provide all of the above for visitors (real or virtual).
To provide a means by which anyone can communicate with the local people e.g. a guestbook or feedback form.
To provide a focus for the community.

Not all of these functions will be achieved by every community website, particularly in it's early days.
Some websites go much further with the provision of webpages within the site for those businesses without their own website. Some include local quizzes, cartoons, births, deaths and marriages pages (we have seen one that includes wedding photographs), photo galleries of local views, forthcoming films at the local cinema, theatre events, "where are they now" pages for former residents and much more.
The possibilities are almost endless but the amount of time available to the webmaster often dictates the limits.
One of the most important elements of a successful community website, besides the commitment of the webmaster, is the contribution of information from the people of the community:
Without the secretaries of the local organisations telling the webmaster about their forthcoming events, they may not all get included on the website in time.
The History page always requires a lot of research, but, if the local historical society or librarian contributes an article, this makes the job much easier - and often more complete and accurate.

Starting up a community website for your village or town

If you are considering a website for your community, first ask yourself a few questions:

Do I have enough spare time to create the website ?
Do I have enough spare time to maintain the site once it is up and running ?
Does the community already have a website that I don't know about ?
Do I have sufficient knowledge to create and maintain the site ?
Is there someone reliable who could help me ?
What will happen if I go on holiday ?
Will I get sufficient support from the local people ?
Where do I go to find the local information I need ?
What shall I call the site and what will be the web address ?
Where can I get adequate webspace for the site without spending a lot of money ?

Answering these questions will confirm or deny your ability to start the website.
Hopefully it will also provide you with a lot of the information you need to get started.

The next step

Having made the decision that the community needs a website and you are able to provide it, you need to enlist the support of some influential people in the community - the vicar, local councillors, school headmaster, secretary to the chamber of commerce, secretary of the WI, captain of the local golf club etc.
These people should be encouraged to get their congregation, school children, local businesses, golfers etc. to provide you with the information you will need. At the same time they can spread the word about the benefits of the website.
In the meanwhile obtain the web address and webspace and prepare the general layout of the site - best done on paper first.
If possible get someone to design a community logo. This might be good for a project or competition at the local school. (Good job you have enlisted the support of the headmaster.)
Once you have sufficient information, you can start creating the first few pages and get them onto the World Wide Web.
If there is a local newspaper, write to them about the website and ask them to publicise it. You can also knock out a few small posters containing an announcement of the website going 'live' - include the full web address. Get the local shops to display them in their windows and get them put on the church and village noticeboards.

Once the site is up and running

If you have not already included one, add a feedback page requesting comments on the site as well as any suggestions for improvements.
Do not get offended if you get adverse comments, there are some people who delight in knocking the efforts of others.
Where comments or suggestions are sensible, it is good practice to reply - even if only to explain why some things cannot be done (yet).

Search Engine Listings

Spend a little time getting your site ready for submission to search engines. You will find some useful advice, free of charge, at SelfPromotion.com which also provides one of the easiest ways to submit you site to the main search engines. Commercial software is also available like SubmitWolf PRO. (There are link buttons to these at the foot of this page.)

And finally ......

Don't forget to submit your site to us for inclusion in the Community Website Directory.

If you have a website you want to promote, you should check out SelfPromotion.com. It's a resource for do-it-yourselfers where you can learn to prepare your pages for the search engines, then use a sophisticated url submission robot to submit your webpages to all the important search engines and directories. You'll also find tutorials about website promotion, submitting to yahoo, and much more. Best of all, you can use the site for free -- if you like it, pay what YOU think it's worth! The guy who runs it has reinvented tipping!

SubmitWolf PRO - A professional URL submission program that can dramatically increase the traffic to your web site. It can list your URL with over 500,000 search engines and directories within minutes.