References for Belchamp Walter's History
In a review of my history pages I have started a list of all the references that I have used so far.
The main list of references should be (and is being developed) on the main history page.
I have made many attempts at this and many of these attempts have made the navigation of the site more confusing. Much of this was due to that the pages were "work-in-progress" and it is difficult to present pages on the Internet that the visitor will not assume that it is the finished product.
Auditing
The update and development of pages requires the constant audit of pages by the webmaster as if he/she was a visitor that had found the page as a result of a search.
As it is assumed that my pages are more likely to be found by someone using a mobile phone the pages are reviewed using a mobile phone. This insures that the mobile user has enough navigation to find other pages on the website. This has not always been the case. In addition I have also corrected an error where the "Top" button was not working for a tablet (w3-medium) display.
The monitoring of server logs
These are invaluable to see what pages are accessed and if there are any errors on those pages. In some cases images have not been uploaded to the server. In others the pages actually need to be updated with new information and the navigation improved.
Analytics and Search Console
Along with the server logs these Google tools are useful to see what pages are accessed and where the visitors venture on the website.
Things missing on the list of references
As time goes on I am finding more and more instances where there is either information missing or there seems to be no way to find it, even though I know it is there!
Because I started off using the church guide as my primary reference and then found a lot more information in Thomas Wright's book, the result was often confusing for the casual visitor. I admit that I also found it difficult to find pages that I know I had written but were difficult to find on the menus.
I think that I am actually getting somewhere and my conversion rate seems to be improving. My measure of "conversion" is slightly different from the classic e-commerce notion of sales generated by visits.
There should be a link to the main history page in the links section of all history pages. Not just a link in the menu system as I am still not sure that many Internet users know how to use them! This is not only my menu system, from what I can see there is much confusion across the board. Things have to be really simple for most users. A site search would be nice but it would be a lot of work and at the end of the day I am not sure that it would be used. Clear menus are the way to go.
More notes
Over the years I have been running this website with information on the local families of Belchamp Walter I have received many emails from the family members who are featured on these pages.
External links are now having the shimmed links removed as I have determined that they will be preceived as being too anoying. The whole point in the first place was to prevent the visitor from leaving the website never to return and still allow me to visit the links should I wish to. The present presentation is that the links are presented such that the visitor can see them but cannot "click away". The links are accessible if the visitor knows how to copy and paste (applying the edit of removing the extra spaces)
The list of references is a nested unordered list. It is only 2 deep at the present time as I think that this is maximum that can be used so that it renders on a small screen.