Getting Ready for 2007-08

June 21, 2007 - Scouter Gord Welling

On June 21st, our web site received a major face lift to get ready for the 2007-08 Scouting year. Webmaster Gord Welling explains what has been changed and the reasons why.

So why the change?

An excellent question. I recently received a comment from one of our leaders that the site navigation needs to change to make it easier to find everything. Looking at our previous home page, I can see how trying to find pages related to Beavers or Cubs or Scouts is not visually obvious.

I also received a request from a parent to add a search feature that searches just our site. Finally, I realized that we would be transitioning into the 2007-08 Scouting year, and last year's articles, announcements and activity lists would be "old news". I started to look at what modifictions we could make to coincide with our new Scouting year and decided on three main goals:

• Make the site navigation menus visually intuitive and ensure that a user does not have to click more than three times through menus to get to a desired page.
• Add a search feature to selected pages on the site.
• Ensure that activities, news, and announcements for 2006-07 are retained but are seperated from 2007-08. The design should permit the easy transition in future years.

In addition, I wanted to make any technical adjustments to ensure that the website was compliant with the latest internet specifications to ensure that search engines would properly index the site.

Site Changes

After considering the redesign criteria, here is how our website was changed:

• Menu changesThe main menu below the banner graphic at the top of each page was modified to contain "News", and the links to each youth Section (Beavers, Cubs, Scouts, Venturers, and Rovers). We retained the links for "Activities & Training" and "Badges & Awards". This ensures that you can find information you are interested more easily. The links for "Our Group", "For Leaders" and "For Parents" were moved into the left-hand column menu inside the "Home" section of the website.
• Site Search: You will notice that if you are at the home page, you will see a "Site Search" text box below the "Home" link. Site search has been added in the News Archive pages as well. We may add site search to all pages in the future.
• Scouting Years: Both the "News" archive and the "Activities" archive have been revised to now list items by Scouting Year. This change allows us to build up an impressive collection of material over the years.

Home Menu Changes

We also revised the left-hand menus for the "Home" portion of the website. This menu structure is available as soon as you visit the home page. The "Home" section menu was subdivided into four main categories to provide easy access to site material:

• About Us Each link will open additional menu selections providing access to background information not directly related to the youth Sections:
  
  
  • Welcome provides the links overview pages like Welcome, Scouting in Canada, Baden-Powell, Scouting in Alberta and Scouting Centennial.
  • Our Group will reveal the complete set of pages about our Group and Group Committee, including resources and responsibilities.
  • For Our Leaders and For Our Parents provide links to pages dedicated to leaders and parents including parent guides and resources.
    
    
• Schedules provides a quick look-up link to the current (2007-08) schedules for each Section and the Group Committee.
  
  
• Get Involved provides links to pages for visitors, such as "Bring a Friend", "Contact Us", "Join Us", "Early Registration", and "Check Us Out".
  
  
• Site Info contains the links to our website privacy policy, instrcutions on how you can contribute to the site, the site map, and "Credits" which list all those individuals and organizations that contribute to our site.

Changes to Our Section Pages

We revised each of the Section menus to ensure that we provided links to pages that are useful to the youth, parents, and leaders:

• Section Menu includes links to Section Program, resources, climate change, uniforms, and earning badges. This list of links may be expanded in the future to include links to camping, safety, and other pertinent topics. Also included are links to the current year's schedule and activity lists of the previous year.
  
  
• Parents Menu a one-stop list for parents that provides access to parent guides, check us out, registration, the Scout shop, and our frequently asked questions.
  
  
• Get Involved provides links for parents to learn about volunteering and becoming a leader or registered parent volunteer.

Google Search Results

I am pleased to report that after about two months on the web, our little web site is ranking as either number 1 or number 2 for scouting related searches for St. Albert.

I have recently tested "beavers st. albert", "cubs st. albert", "scouts st. albert", "venturers st. albert", "rovers st. albert" and "scouting st. albert" and we are either first or second in each Google search result list.

Suggestions or Comments

Well its been a lot of work, but I hope you enjoy the new look. Please take time to navigate through the site and take notes on what can be improved. You can send your comments along to me by email to Gord Welling.

And ... we are always looking for new articles or announcements.