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International Student Ministry Inc Assessment

This website assessment is for International Student Ministry site at http://isminc.org/. It was completed by Luthernet Website Services in order to help those who run the program see what can be done to spread their message more efficiently.

Framework
This is a Wordpress website. It may not be the newest version, however, and it's recommended that it be updated. Wordpress generally works well for a website like this one. The theme made me think it might be a bit older (as does the copyright), but Google sees it as mobile-friendly.

Mobile-Friendly
This website is mobile-friendly. The logo is a bit big on mobile, but the website works.

Other Issues
The main issue of concern is a very simple one. The copyright says 2013, which implies the website is older and not updated. Simply add the code to make the date change automatically or delete the copyright, since most people are not stealing your content--more people are turned off by the older date. It's also a concern that news ended in 2014, which again ages the website.

The newsletters are downloadable, which can be what you want, but it might be nice if those articles are also indexed by google as articles. In fact, there's almost no news in the News category, while the newsletters keep on coming out. That makes it a closed loop, with people who bother to subscribe being the only people who see the news, while those who are in search of a ministry like this turning to websites with searchable content.

It's a wise choice to use a contact form to cut down on spam. However, with an older installation of Wordpress, it's also a good idea to test it if you have not received an email in a while. I just found one of my new sites had a conflict and the contact form was not working. That's a big deal if it happens for a long period of time.

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