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....
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