Can anyone recommend any good templates to use for a basic squadron website in Google Sites? My eyes do not like looking through the small previews Google Sites provides.
We must be on the same wave length besides being in the same Squadron. I was just thinking about Google for the web page as well.
If you search for Civil Air Patrol, a very nice one comes up that was made by the Dallas Squadron. My squadron uses it.
No offense, but they're all pretty terrible.
We're still working on ours and when we get it finalized we can share it back out but it's primarily based on a theme/template called "Project Wiki" (browse Templates/Themes => Public => Featured ...it's probably one of the top 3 or so). It's not great but is workable.
Keep in mind that we're only using Google Sites as an intranet site. Our public facing webpage (ie our "sales brochure") is still in progress but being built using real web development software...in many ways, though the site is much simpler.
WordPress is the best CMS to use for building a site. Being an opensource blogging platform, the amount of free plug-ins you can utilize is amazing. We ended up buying a WP theme a couple of years ago to standardize all sites within our wing. Worked out pretty good. Theme was purchased from www.PageLines.com (http://www.pagelines.com)
www.okwgcap.org (http://www.okwgcap.org)
www.edmondcap.org (http://www.edmondcap.org)
www.capokc.org (http://www.capokc.org)
www.tinkercap.org (http://www.tinkercap.org)
www.normancap.org (http://www.normancap.org)
www.lawtoncap.org (http://www.lawtoncap.org)
www.altuscap.org (http://www.altuscap.org)
www.stillwatercap.org (http://www.stillwatercap.org)
www.capshawnee.org (http://www.capshawnee.org)
www.woodwardcap.org (http://www.woodwardcap.org)
www.durantcap.org (http://www.durantcap.org)
www.muskogeecap.org (http://www.muskogeecap.org)
www.capstarbase.org (http://www.capstarbase.org)
www.counciloakcap.org (http://www.counciloakcap.org)
www.brokenarrowcap.org (http://www.brokenarrowcap.org)
www.grovecap.org (http://www.grovecap.org)
www.enidcap.org (http://www.enidcap.org)
Then a place holder for SEO purposes:
www.tulsacap.org (http://www.tulsacap.org) - We have three units in the Tulsa area and they're geographically divided or in the case of Council Oak -- all seniors/flying
Quote from: A.Member on May 30, 2014, 06:55:27 PM
No offense, but they're all pretty terrible.
They are basic websites, which is all any CAP unit, wing, or region needs.
They are professional and clean.
And most importantly very simple to create and update, which is something Wordpress
nor for that matter most CMS' is/are decidedly not.
Quote from: RickRutledge on May 31, 2014, 03:51:47 AM
WordPress is the best CMS to use for building a site. Being an opensource blogging platform, the amount of free plug-ins you can utilize is amazing. We ended up buying a WP theme a couple of years ago to standardize all sites within our wing. Worked out pretty good. Theme was purchased from www.PageLines.com (http://www.pagelines.com)
Then a place holder for SEO purposes:
www.tulsacap.org (http://www.tulsacap.org) - We have three units in the Tulsa area and they're geographically divided or in the case of Council Oak -- all seniors/flying
SEO for CAP units? Are you competing with some other air patrols?
Quote from: Eclipse on May 31, 2014, 04:11:35 AM
SEO for CAP units? Are you competing with some other air patrols?
Why not?
Did you click the link? Search for
tulsa civil air patrol, and you'll get the SEO page. Gives you all the Tulsa units in one tidy package.
Quote from: Eclipse on May 31, 2014, 04:11:35 AM
And most importantly very simple to create and update, which is something Wordpress
nor for that matter most CMS' is/are decidedly not.
I disagree. The amount that you can do with a platform like WordPress is amazing. It is super flexible and easy to manage. You're not restricted to a small amount of tools dictated by wix or webs or joomla or any of the other platforms. Plus, if we decide to re-design (to keep up with the jones' and focus on how much of our audience is browsing on mobile devices) the platform can handle a re-design without having to repopulate the content from scratch. But, hey, potato poe-tot-oh.
Quote from: Eclipse on May 31, 2014, 04:11:35 AM
SEO for CAP units? Are you competing with some other air patrols?
I have an SEO engine built into all of the sites. Keeps our news toward the top on google and the engine scrapes commonly used phrases such as flying, airplanes, cadets, military, etc. off the site and plugs them into the search engine algorithm without much intervention from me. Our traffic has been solid since we installed it. Plus, we vertically integrated it with our social media and on-air (PSA) campaigns which has resulted in our traffic remaining solid. Our new unit in Woodward has benefited greatly in terms of converting people from the web into members. He now has the one of the largest units in the state and they've only been around for a year. This kind of thing is difficult to do on most other platforms without some out of pocket expense.