Local Business Website Assessments

I know, this blog is for schools, churches, and non-profits, and that's why I am not adding business website evaluations to the mix. I am, however, letting you know that we can do those as well, so if you happen to be here because of your church but are wondering about your business, let us know.

Here's a link to the business website examinations we've done. Same format, just different customers. We're starting out where we currently reside: Lenexa, Shawnee, Overland Park, Olathe, Kansas City area. However, we will likely visit the Milwaukee greater metro area, too, since that's where we're from. The good news is that we can do this for you wherever your business is, and we're always unbiased, unlike if you were to ask your current web guy. 

The Website Assessments to Avoid

The problem with me trying to help schools, churches, and non-profits with their website design is that many of them probably get dozens of spam emails doing the same kind of thing each week. It doesn't matter that I've already done the assessment, or that I've (in the past) already built a potential website, or that I'm Lutheran and honest. People just see my contact as another spam email. Sad.

Here's an example of a spammer sending an email to ME:

Hi,

This is Azad and I am a web design and SEO expert with some pretty impressive skills (not to toot my own horn).  I was just checking out your site and it's great, but it can definitely be better and I would like to help you to improve it.  My goal isn’t just to build you a website, but help you realize your vision for your business. Would you be interested in getting a proposal for a site redesign or for SEO services?

Let me know if you're interested.  I'd really love to work on your site.  Hope to hear from you soon.
Sincerely,
Azad

Digital Marketing Expert

 These website emails are form letters, never mention a real company name (spam is illegal), and often promise more than they can do. Oh, they're almost always foreign companies, too, since American companies can't get away with doing it. I'm not saying that there aren't decent human beings with excellent computer skills in India, China, or Russia. In fact, my old hosting company failed to protect my websites from some of these experts (at least their counterparts who hack). 

Azad might be a very good guy. He might cost your company half or a quarter what I would cost. (And I'm half than most web guys in America). The problem is that his way of contacting you is wrong and using his skills might not be what your board wants done. And if Azad doesn't do a good job, you have no one to complain to and no way to give him one star to warn others. 

Of course, it all still leaves Luthernet, Brave New Church, and Passive Ninja with the problem of contacting you. Even if I've created a valuable website evaluation, people will ignore my emails. When I would sometimes email one small suggestion that was totally free and effective, people would simply not respond. And it's because of Azad and all his friends. I am sorry for them, but you really have to read through some of the emails when you get them. It doesn't take a lot of effort to figure out which ones are spam and which ones can help you. 

Here's a video that shows how we transformed websites just to try to get customers. We want to work, and we're good at it. 

Christ Preparatory Academy Assessment

This FREE website assessment is for Christ Prep at http://christprep.com. It was completed by Brave New Church Website Services in order to help those who run the program see what can be done to spread their message more effectively using the internet.

Framework
This is a Wordpress website. That's a good content management system. My resources show that it's currently a Wordpress 3.9 site (2014). That's a problem because updating the website to the current version of Wordpress is usually critical for security, but it's also generally not that difficult. Here's the list of missed updates for the Christ Prep website: https://wordpress.org/news/category/releases/ .

Since it's an older website and the admin page is readily accessible, hackers may try to get in and mess up the generally nice website. The website's speed might also be a result of using an older version of Wordpress. I guess it's not a big surprise, however, since Kroma Marketing (the web builder) has a website with a 2014 copyright.

Mobile-Friendly
This website is mobile-friendly, so that's good, and it means that a framework update might be the only concern. However, it's possible this older theme is not compatible with a newer version of Wordpress.

Other Issues

The only reason I looked more into this website was because it was slow to load. As you can see from the Google Pagespeed test, it get's a 48/100 on mobile. I have to admit that some of my own websites that I use for personal blogs don't do a lot better than that, but here's what the web developer of the Christ Prep website has to say about it:

That chance typically lasts about 5 seconds with your website. Having an outdated or poorly designed website can be a detriment to your business both on and offline and may possibly turn customers away.

It's ironic because the website I found is not updated and won't even load in five seconds. And the web developer's own website gets a 25/100 score on Pagespeed, which pretty much makes me think they're no longer in business, especially sporting a Wordpress 3.5 website from 2013.

I have to admit that I do not love website speed tests. I think it's OK if a beautiful website loads slow sometimes. But there are some glaring concerns in this particular case.

Some of the speed issues might be about the images in the slider. One was 2.3 mb. That's a lot of data usage for an image I was able to resize to 615 kb without any real loss. I know from experience that image sliders can kill a website's speed.

Read my book A Simplified Guide to Church Websites: Purpose, Planning, and Presentation