Navigation is one of the biggest web design factors to consider for a website. Where is the navigation going to be? Will it be on top, on the left, on the right, vertical, or horizontal? Your visitors need to be able to easily find their way around your site. They also need to be able to follow clear and concise links that get them where they think that link will take them, more importantly, where they want to go. Wikipedia says,

[b]readcrumbs typically appear horizontally across the top of a webpage, usually below any title bars or headers. They provide links back to each previous page that the user navigated through in order to get to the current page, for hierarchical structures usually the parent pages of the current one. Breadcrumbs provide a trail for the user to follow back to the starting/entry point of a website (Wikipedia).

Breadcrumbs are so important because they allow a visitor to easily find their way back one or even multiple pages without going all the way back to the original link from the main navigation menu. Some website features, or applications, allow a visitor to go several levels (drill down) into the website. This "drill down" technique is very useful and user friendly, but creates a need for breadcrumbs, to allow for easy backwards navigation, or navigation out of an application. No matter whether your breadcrumbs are implemented on your site statically or dynamically, or use a scripting or programming language, like PHP, Perl, or ASP, to name a few, they definitely need to be there.

Resources

• conVerge Church - This page has an example of a breadcrumbs implementation.
• useit.com - Here is a great article by Jakob Nielsen on the use of breadcrumbs.
• About.com - Overview of the what, why, when, and where of breadcrumbs.
• Wikipedia - Wikipedia entry for breadcrumbs navigation on web pages.

I use mostly PHP to create my websites. I often have a need for a simple piece of code that would make my life so much easier, but I don't know how to write it easily or efficiently. This is when I turn to the code snippet directories. These directories list all sorts of code snippets for many different topics/categories in many different programming languages.

• byteMyCode - byteMyCode is a great website for code snippets because of the way they have designed and laid out their site. They make it very easy to find what you are looking for. They also offer easy category browsing, as well as a powerful search function.
• Snipplr -Snipplr calls itself Snipplr Code 2.0. They provide a lot of snippets for many different programming languages in an easy to search and browse web 2.0 style website.
• PHP Builder - This website contains not only a vast amount of code snippets, but also articles, full applications, and news pertaining to PHP.
• </Dream.In.Code> - Another list of quality code snippets which contains a large range of topics and programming languages is </Dream.In.Code>.
• DZone Snippets - This website has good quality snippets, but is by far the hardest website to navigate. The navigation style doesn't seem very intuitive to me, so I often check this site last. There are good snippets here if you have the patience to navigate the site.

Code snippets are a great time saver and a great way to learn some new tricks. Once you use some of the snippets, be sure to give some snippets back and save another webmaster/programmer some very precious time. Where do you get/post your snippets? Post them in the comments!

Having a regularly viewed website is a goal for most bloggers and websites on the internet. Driving traffic to your site is not always easy and even harder to maintain. The content needs to be fresh, relevant, and worth reading. Well, how do you know if your website/blog is gaining visitors or being viewed regularly?

Reporting Suite

• Google Analytics - Google is the best in so many categories, and I believe Google Analytics is the best free reporting tool available on the web. It tracks so many aspects of website traffic and allows you to analyze the data and make useful information, like charts, graphs, and other reports, out of it. Having all the data in the world doesn't do you any good, if you can’t understand what you are seeing. Google takes the data and reports it as information through dashboards, graphs, and charts, taking the data to the next level. This is a great tool, and it is free!
• Alexa - Alexa is a graphical tool for comparing website ranks and statistics. It provide site overviews, traffic details, and related links. This is one of the best site comparison tools out there because of its easy to use and nice to look at interface. They offer a toolbar for faster tracking as well as other free and premium services.
• Compete - Compete is similar to Alexa in that it too provides graphical ranks, statistics, and information for one or more websites. Compete offers search analysis statistics as well.
• FeedBurner - This is a full suite of reporting and tracking tools for your RSS/Atom feeds. The free tools are more than enough for starting out and there is a pro-version available as well.

Link Popularity

• popuri.us - This is a fast and easy tool for checking backlinks, Google PageRank, del.icio.us, Alexa rank, and more.
• UrlTrends - This is another tool for checking search engine ranks and backlinks, and also provides more graphical results as charts and graphs.
• Xinu Returns - I have no idea how to say this website’s name, but it is one of the cooler websites I've used to check my website rankings and backlinks.

How do you track your website rank, backlinks, and statistics? Let everyone know by posting your favorite apps in the comments.

Update

• AWStats - This is a great tool that I neglected to add to the original post. AWStats needs to be installed and configured on your server to track statistics. It provides a lot of the same type of information that Google Analytics does.

Whenever a new technology comes out, there is always a lag for adoption and implementation. In my case, when RSS/Atom feeds came out, I too did not adopt them immediately. Before Google Reader came along, I didn't use feeds, let alone implement them into my own sites. After researching what an RSS feed really was, I realized that I didn't only have to learn RSS, I needed to learn XML. I continued to put it off until I realized exactly how much information I obtained through Google Reader, I thought: "I haven't actually viewed most of these websites in several weeks or maybe longer.” This was the beginning of my crash course in RSS and XML.

When you really take a look at how much information is published through feeds, you can see the need for implementing them into your own site. I, as well as many others, I presume, no longer go searching on the internet for news and website updates; I wait for them to come to me through feeds. As a Christian webmaster for a local church, my intent for having a feed isn't to drive visitors to the site in hopes to sell more adds; I am not saying that blogging for business is wrong. I just see feeds related to church and ministry’s sites as a way to keep the church community engaged and aware of what is happening in the church. The ultimate goal of an online presence is to keep people connected outside of the church walls; RSS feeds are a great way to help.

The number of sites using feeds to keep their visitors up-to-date and connected with their site is growing exponentially. FeedBurner, for example, claims that it tracks 934,797 publishers of 1,657,885 feeds. That's right; they track over a million and a half feeds. That is just one site! There are other websites like FeedBurner that have statistics that are just as incredible.

The need for RSS/Atom feeds definitely exists. It is highly recommended that you take the initiative to implement feeds to keep your visitors connected. I have listed some helpful resources below. As always, comments are encouraged.

Resources

• Feed 101
• RSS Specifications
• Step-by-Step: Make RSS Feeds
• FEED Validator

Here is my "Best of" list. I know there are tons of “Best of” lists floating around on blogs, but I have never read one that was for Christian webmasters looking to improve everywhere they can. This list is as much for me as anyone who reads it.

1. Christian Web Masters Forums - This website has a blog as well as forums that cater to Christian webmasters. The forums are the best part of the site, although the blog has some good posts to learn from also. The forums include many different aspects related to being a web master, from programming in certain languages to setting up and managing a web server. This is my favorite Christian webmaster resource.
2. 60+ tips for effective church sites - This list of tips provides great insight into what makes a “good” church website and what makes a “bad” church website. There are many concepts listed that will help you have an organized/clean appearance, as well as tips to help you create a useful website, in order to keep people viewing your website, rather than driving them away. Even though this list is intended for church websites, a lot of these principles can be applied to other websites as well church website and what makes a .
3. Christian webmaster help resources: Tips, tricks, and links - This list is from gospelcom.net; it is like the previous resource, but more generalized rather than specific to church websites. There are resources for CSS, hosting, SEO, graphics, and more. Resources 2 & 3 are both from gospelcom.net and are just a few great posts from them. I would encourage you to browse the rest of their website and gain as much from them as you can.
4. Godbit Project - This website features articles that stress the importance of church and Christian websites’ compliance with W3C standards. The Godbit Project also provides a large forum for users; it has over 23,000 posts. There is a lot of good content here; you might have to look around the forums a little first though.
5. Church Marketing Sucks - This blog defines its mission as being “to frustrate, educate and motivate the church to communicate, with uncompromising clarity, the truth of Jesus Christ” (Church Marketing Sucks). The blog has a list of article categories, which is too long to list. There is so much great content on this site. This site has more general reading about topics than specifics regarding being a webmaster. However, the articles are great reads and have a lot of valuable information nonetheless.

Be sure to leave comments with any other resources that have been helpful in your ministry as a Christian webmaster!