Successful websites know who their customers are and why they visit, and they provide a responsive and attractive display to those viewers. Customers don't visit our site because we spend time creating it; customers deserve maximum benefit from the time they allocate to us.

     Students, parents, community members and alumni are customers of school and library websites, and content must meet their needs. They want to know what's going on and how they can get in touch with teachers, counselors, principals, and other district personnel. To discover specific needs, ask the facility's phone receptionist what the most requested information is for each customer type. Then group that information to provide answers quickly.

     Provide staff email addresses directly or one level down from the homepage. Parents and students know their teachers and don't want to click through several pages before they can send an email. For a large faculty, listing teacher email addresses alphabetically may be more effective than by subject or grade level. (Use Subject, Grade, or Core Team pages for links to teacher webpages, not for email addresses.)

     District information pages have customers beyond the school community who don't care how a department is organized. They want to know who can answer their questions and how to get in touch with them; phone numbers may be more important than email addresses. Again, speaking to the person who fields phone calls will help assess what information is offered and how it should be organized.

     Link to District-generated webpages for calendars and athletic schedules. Why duplicate district information on every school or library site? Intra-district links promote interactivity and create interest in the Community.  Web users know how to use a browser, so insert a short message under the link inviting visitors to return to the school or teacher page by using the Back button.

     Use a teacher template for key information about each teacher. Coordinated with the rest of the website, a teacher template guarantees name, subject/grade, phone number, room number, conference period and email address is shared with students and parents. From templates, teachers can use Netscape Composer to fill in and personalize a template.

     Teachers can use their webpages for instructional purposes. Determine what students are most likely to need once they leave your classroom and provide reinforcements or enhancements. Student and parent queries can  pinpoint information that needs to appear on your website. Provide an email address on every instructional page and add subject information to the mailto link to determine which areas need the most supplementation.

     Planning what to provide and how to provide it will save time and effort later. It's difficult to update a website that wasn't set up properly. All websites change over time, but make changes due to changing customer needs, not because the site didn't meet their needs in the first place.

     Those "in the know" ignore graphics and gimmicks. Their advice: determine who customers are, then give them what they need as efficiently and effectively as possible. School and library websites don't generate money, but profit from building student success and a strong educational community. People move to or stay in communities based on the ease of getting information from teacher/library/school/district webpages. That's called success.