It may have been a few weeks, but I'm back with the fourth installment in our free website critique series as we take a look at Victory Harvest Church (VHC from hereon out) of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Again, I'll be taking the same approach as the previous entries in the series, and I would encourage you to leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Appearance

• What's done well?
  • Banner Image – I like how the church name and the wheat field image tie together.  It leaves an impression on the visitor.
  • Cleanliness – The presentation of VHC's website is almost a minimalist approach.  Not that it's bland, because it really is a very aesthetically pleasing site, and it really works well.  You're just not inundated with information, but everything you need is readily accessible.  It's just a nice balance of form and function.
• What needs work?
  • Banner Image – Yes, this feature falls in both the plus and minus.  For one, the text is a part of the image (making it unreadable by screen readers and search engines).  Secondly, the image is HUGE, taking up almost the entire screen on a monitor in 800×600 resolution (which, I know, is not the current design standard, but I do want to emphasize just how big it is).
  • Just A Little Plug For Yahoo! – I see this a lot, but I find it simply inexcusable for an organization to use e-mail addresses that don't match their domain name.  I know those are harsh words, but it just appears unprofessional.  It would be like getting a letter from your insurance company with the claims agents personal return address label one it (ya know, the ones with the puppy pictures).  Even if your web host doesn't provide any e-mail accounts with their service, there are free services like Gmail for Your Domain that allow you to set up e-mail addresses under your existing domain name with relative ease.
• Suggestions
  • First, see if there is a way to reduce the size of your banner image without losing the impact of it.
  • Second, use standard HTML text to overlay the banner image so that it is available to screen readers and search engines. 
  • Third, set up e-mails that work under your domain name.

Organization

• What's done well?
• Plain & Simple – It's not fancy.  It's not complicated.  It just works.  It's the KISS principle embodied.
• What needs work?
• Coming Soon? – Can't say that I'm a fan of the Coming Soon! pages.  If a page is not completed, then it should not be linked to on your site.  Feel free to comment it out in your code if you want to keep the link handy, but keep it out of public view.
• I Didn't Even Know I Was Leaving – As you probably remember, I'm not a fan of links that look like internal links that take you to another website.  This time around it's the link for “Victory Academy” that got me.  These links should not be a part of your main links, but maybe broken out into a “Partner Organizations” category that would indicate you are leaving the current site.
• Suggestions
  • Remove the links to unfinished pages until they're ready to “go live”.
  • Like I mentioned above, try to make it clear when a link on your site leads to another site, even if it is affiliated with your church.

Utility

• What's done well?
• Here's What's Going On – How I love seeing service and event information on the main page of a church website.  It might be the primary information that one is looking for when they visit a church website, and it helps to have it readily available.  Nice work!
• Making Use of Tools – The use of the Google Calendar and it's clean integration into the site is very nice.
• What needs work?
• All Dressed Up And Nowhere To Go – While the use of the Google Calendar is nice, how come it appears empty?  I had to skip ahead to late May just to find something.  It's probably a good idea to also add your reoccurring events (service times, bible studies, adult education classes, etc.) to the calendar as well.  Otherwise it gives the impresion that not much is going on at the church.
• Where Am I? – I did finally find the location of the church buried in the introduction paragraph and on the Contact Us page, but I question why isn't the entire church address on the site's main page.  It's addition could definitely help when it comes to search engine performance, especially if someone searches for “church in baton rouge”.
• Suggestions
  • Add your reoccurring events to your Google Calendar to make it clear that there's stuff going on at your church.
  • Add your address to at least your main page.  It could easily be added to all pages in the footer section.

While Victory Harvest Church's website doesn't pack a lot of the “WOW!” factor, it is a well-designed, appealing and functional site.  There are a few features which I'd clean up, but overall it's a respectable presence on the web that does a nice job of presenting the church.  It appears that there's more to come, and I hope that those features can be integrated without losing the current balance of the site.