Websites
 

well i have some ideas for you, like update it often, and put up a calender of sorts...
tons of pictures, but put names up.
and have several links: to the NPC, or the national website.

I can't think of any off the top of my head, but I know our international site has all the links of each collegiate chapter. Alot of the AOII sites use flash, or dhtml. Might have a look at those. Our internation site addy is http://www.alphaomicronpi.org and look under collegiate in the drop down menu. Might check out individual national sites and just check out each individual site.

I personally have always been impressed by our Epsilon Phi chapters website. University of Florida KKG It looks professional, and information is easy to find. (And just gotta put a plug for our big sister chapter!)

Oh, and something I've always liked- if you do a history section, try to put some chapter history on there. It irritates me when the history section is just the blurb from the national's website and nothing else! Good luck on the website.

Some advice from someone who has done consumer research on website design:

Update at least once per week if not more often. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. YOU WANT PEOPLE COMING BACK FOR MORE. Create an announcements section for this purpose. Praise a sister daily. Remind people of events. DON'T let you site sit stagnant. I can't tell you how many sites I see for sororities that were updated over a year or MORE ago, or who have a calendar from August 2002 and that is it. You can tell who the webmaster was; she graduated!!

Choose someone to be your webmaster who has some experience Even a little HTML experience goes a long way. Maybe a computer science or graphics design major would be appropriate. Most importantly, someone who is genuinely interested in doing it.

Figure out what you site is for. Is it for PR? Sisters only? both? Keep this in mind. You are appealing to two totally different audiences. Create a password protected area for sisters.


Take and post good quality digital photos Organize them into sections like Recruitment, Sisterhood, etc. Photos give you and your group life.

Pick a style and stick with it. Avoid making your site look like a Computer 101 class project where you tested out every font in the font menu. If you are Kappa for example, choose a Key theme and carry it out for a unified look.

Invest in some quality clip art or find good stuff online using PowerPoint clips online. Blinking, flashing and trailing cursor comments to be avoided unless you can say they don't look childish.

Avoid guestbooks Instead put a message board up for sisters only. I've seen too many guestbooks flooded with really poor taste comments that could've been deleted if the chapter webmaster was paying attention.

Avoid music Nothing worse than surfing the web at work and getting a sudden blast of your groups favorite song loud enough to hear four cubicles away.

If you are web un-savvy, try a free service like Geocities. They offer a pagebuilder software that is very easy to use and looks nice. You will get pop up ads, but that is the price for free service. If you already have free service via your school server, try out MS Frontpage. It has a little learning curve but the person responsible for your site should be able to handle this. If you are really skilled, you could go all out and do Flash programs using Shockwave of write some Java scripts or try a profession package like Dreamweaver.

That's all for now....

Hey, you might consider a dynamic site, they are much easier to keep udated than straight HTML. I recently went from HTML to a dynamic site because it's so much easier to manage a photo gallery, which is what I use my page for mostly. For my personal web page I use PHP PostNuke. I was the webmaster for our chapter, but because of disagreements between me and the executive board on what should be on the web page (yikes, long story - but seriously, who wants a web page with ONLY history and pictures...), I allowed someone else to take over (though, I have yet to see a new site)...but ANYWAY...my point is a dynamic system gives you a lot of options. Basically what it is, is a shell to work from and customize. It is very easy to update because all the information is stored in a database on the server...that means you can make changes through a special admin menu on the page - from any computer, anywhere...as long as you log in as the administrator. Each chapter memeber would have their own log in name and sections can be closed to the public...on that note, some sections can ONLY show up for sisters (or officers, or whatever group you want) so other people won't know it even exists. On my web page right now all I have is a photo gallery and a few other things, but you add just about anything you can think of - including message boards. I know it all sounds confusing, but it really is quite simple once you get it set up.

The only thing is you must have access to a server that has MySQL installed and PHP managing capabilities - most free school servers will not have this, but you can find a hosting company for a good deal - a lot give student discounts.

You saw a name , Jon Sagara, Who I am Proud to call a Brother. Contact him!

He has the best web site for LXA Chapters. I try to find some for him that he does not have to help him out!!!!


Gosh, I wish I knew how to do this stuff, as I have some great Ideas but not the knowledge!

It is way above my poor old brain!

Damn Kids!!!!:D

Just try Stanford Greek System, I really like theirs, especially the IFC.
http://www.stanford.edu/group/IFC/chapters.shtml

Or MIT, eventhough most of them are hi-tech websites
http://ifc.mit.edu/members.php

Good luck ;)

I would look at AOTT, ADPI, and DDD websites at UF they are very classy: www.ufpanhellenic.com

WOW

those websites are gorgeous!

These sites are great. I couldn't help but notice that all three of them were created by the same professional design studio. Any idea how much each chapter paid/is paying for the original layout and maintenance?

There is nothing at all wrong with hiring a professional to do your site for you but I wonder how many of our chapters can afford them.

Looking at other sites is a great way to get new ideas and help get the creativity flowing. Good luck Blondegirl and make sure to link your site here so we can see your finished product!

I've seen a lot of Greek sites in my life and honestly 90% (if not more) are horrible on many levels... most don't even update their site more than once a year and thus are completely useless. As many other people have said, keep your site up to date; use a dynamic script when possible (see www.hotscripts.com for some free scripts) and remember, content is key.

Here are a few FIJI chapter sites I like for various reasons:

http://www.ixfiji.com

http://www.student.richmond.edu/~fiji/

http://www.fsufiji.com

As long as you're checking out MIT, check out the sororities too.
http://web.mit.edu/panhel/www/

(Just don't look at AEPhi's, it hasn't been updated in a while... I may have to take back over as webmaster :rolleyes: )

One thing to work on is make sure you don't have glaring errors that offend other sororities...like saying "Alpha Phi is one of only three international sororities." I got that from the gorgeous MIT APhi site....but Gamma Phi, AGD, DG, KAT are all international, and that's just off the top of my head.

One of the best Phi Sig sites I've seen is from our Zeta Pentaton Chapter at University of Texas, Pan-American and the webmasters are John Sanchez and Mike Lopez. the addy is http://www.phi-sigs.com

yo everyone check out www.psichapter.net. it takes a few minutes to load but it's HOT

Here's my chapter's website! Delta Phi Epsilon- Alpha Gamma Chapter

I love the the Gamma Lambda chapter website at UTK - but just because I made it :)

http://web.utk.edu/~alphaxi

University of Virginia's Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life

Check out all of the sites. ;)

Clemson's Panhellenic website is great and very professional. We are even modeling our Greek Life site after it.

Things to keep in mind
 

Your tips were great, but I disagree with two of them.

In regards to guestbooks -
you can get a free guestbook (ie from dreambook.com) where the webmaster has to approve new entries to the guestbook. This prevents spam.

In regards to music -
If you decide to put a song on the site, make sure it is not on auto-play. There are chapters with cool songs (ie the DJ $crilla songs), but for reasons you were talking about, make sure that the visitor has to click a play button first.

Byebye! :)

The Tau chapter of Alpha Gamma Delta has a new and updated website! It's at www.agdtau.tk

Lambda Lambda Chapter of Sigma Chi at The University of Kentucky
 

Lambda Lambda Chapter of Sigma Chi. The University of Kentucky

The University of Kentucky Interfraterniy Council
 

The University of Kentucky Interfraterniy Council

ETA: Needs to be updated.

The University of Kentucky Panhellenic Association
 

The University of Kentucky Panhellenic Association

Needs to be updated.

some examples
 

My thoughts on what makes a great website:

Needs great high quality pictures, crisp colors, and good content. Content needs to appeal to all potential audiences - Potential Members, Current Members, Alumnae, Other Greeks, Parents, Administrators, and the Community --- you never know who may be looking at it!
List your accomplishments prominently.
Have a password protected site for members and alumnae.


List of my favorite APhi Websites

Iota - University of Wisconsin-Madison http://alphaphi.rso.wisc.edu/
Sigma - University of Washington http://students.washington.edu/alphaphi/home.html
Tau - University of Oregon http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~alphaphi/
Psi - University of South Dakota http://www.usd.edu/~aphi/
Omega - University of Texas http://www.texasalphaphi.org/
Beta Nu deuteron - Duke University http://www.duke.edu/web/aphi/index.html
Beta Omicron - Bowling Green State University http://www.bgsu.edu/studentlife/greeks/alpha-phi/
Gamma Iota - Texas Tech University http://www.techaphi.com/
Gamma Kappa - California State University - Long Beach http://www.csulb.edu/greek/alphaphi/
Gamma Omicron - Drake University www.drakealphaphi.org
Delta Mu - Purdue University http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~alphaphi/
Zeta Beta – Loyola Marymount http://aslmu.lmu.edu/alphaphi/
Zeta Pi - Case-Western Reserve University http://home.cwru.edu/alphaphi/
Zeta Upsilon - Washington University http://www.rescomp.wustl.edu/~aphi/
Eta Omicron - Virginia Tech http://www.vtalphaphi.com
Iota Theta - Wilfrid Laurier http://www.wluphis.com/
Iota Iota - The George Washington University http://www.alphaphionline.com/iotaiota/

I rather like ours...maybe it's because I designed it.

www.gmuphisig.org

Greek systems
 

University of Illinois- Greek Life
U of I- IFC
U of I- PHC
U of I- PHC Recruitment

UC San Diego- PHC

Re: some examples
 

The chapter here just updated their page. It looks pretty slick. We may rival them in Greek Week, but I gotta give them props for the layout.
http://www.aphicsus.com/

ETA: The other cool site for the gals is www.phisigcsus.com. I think.

Re: Music
If it's part of your little intro... fine. But if it plays on your homepage and it takes forever to load, no one will hear it and it'll just take up bandwidth. But I agree with the "stop/start" buttons.

Re: Guestbooks
Ours gets spammed A LOT. I have to delete something EVERY DAY. Is there a code or something I can put somewhere to block it?

Re: Re: some examples
 

Unfortunately, I am not computer techno savvy so I do not know any code to help you block spam. However, I have seen public guest-books on various websites that are monitored. Not sure if any were for GLOs but I do recall that most were professionally and or well designed.

I seem to recall that they had some sort of disclaimer that said something like "All messages posted to the guest-book (message board) must be approved. Any messages in poor taste will not be approved etc." So basically, a designated monitor(s) has to approve the message before it is posted in the guest-book.

Frankly, I don't know how this works. It may be similar to Yahoo Groups where the monitor(s) receives an email notice that a message has been posted in the guest-book and is awaiting approval. And/or the monitor(s) may need to check the site to see if any messages are awaiting approval.

In any case, there might be something similar with your guest-book that allows messages to be approved before they are posted. If not, and you are able to do so, change guest-books to one that requires/allows messages to be approved. Or instead of a guest-book on the website, have a direct link to a website that hosts message boards *and* allows posts to be approved before they are posted.

Yeah that's what I figure I have to do... it's just that I'm an alumna so I'm trying not to have my inbox flooded with SPAM requests. :(

Since our guestbook isn't as popular as it once was (I'd exceed bandwidth almost every month because of it) I may move it to our password site. And then let the girls carry on in MySpace like they have been.

Keep the ideas coming... I'm sketching out a re-design... again.

One question for the webmasters out there: I am venturing into CSS. Currently I use tables on my chapter's page and they SHIFT everywhere, depending on the browser.

Is there a way to lock your table in place... or only make one section of the table expand without messing with your sidebar navigation? Or need more clarification...

PM me if you want.