Further Improvements on "A Mason's Journey"

Yes, I’m taking us back to my website for closer look my latest improvements on "A Mason's Journey" and at several additions and the changes that I’ve made since February. The truth is that I’ve added a new function or feature every week since the beginning of March and all of the changes I’ve made are intended to provide value and interesting material to visitors who may be curious about masonry, interested in my books, or perhaps are conducting historical research on the craft. It has been a lengthy effort, and it turned out be a much bigger project than I originally intended, but I believe it has been worth it. My website is now the lynchpin that unites my papers, my blog, my books, and my research, and it integrates them all into one “logical whole”. Here are the changes and additions along with my thoughts and reasoning behind them.

I implemented a “member wall” and some of the pages on my site are now behind this wall. There is no charge or fee to become a member, this merely provides me with some insight as to who is accessing certain material.  When you are challenged with a pop-up asking for you to log in or create an account, simply fill out the form to join and you’ll be good to go.

I converted the old “Noah’s Quest” page into a new page called “Book Shelf”. It lists and describes all of my books and provides a link to their Amazon page so those who are interested can purchase them. I also updated the “Frequently Asked Questions” list with questions out of my email box, and I included my responses to each.  This page, along with the FAQ, is on the public-facing side of the site.

I have also added (and continue to add) several other new pages to my “Reference Index”. The index is my own online catalog of historical books and documents that I’ve loaded onto the website for researchers and curious brothers. Several years ago, I purchased an archive of eleven thousand books and documents dated from the early 1700’s to the early 1900’s and it provides valuable insight to the working of the craft and into the various debates and controversies that our ancestors wrestled with three hundred years ago. These books and documents can be downloaded from the reference index for your personal research and use.

Those who have read the Noah series books might be amused to see that I’ve created a page in my “Reference Index” called “The Noah Edward Lewis Education Center & Library” and brought to life the fictional concept that was born and appeared in several of my Noah books. It is designed to host material that supports Noah and the several trials he experienced throughout the course of the series, but I’ve opened it up initially with a batch of material that specifically supports Noah’s trial in “Noah’s Legacy: Rituals & Sacred Memories” and it currently includes more than twenty unique masonic books dating back as far as the mid-1700’s and show us that the questions Noah faced in “Rituals & Sacred Memories” are no different than those that have challenged the craft for at least the last three centuries. The education center & library page is currently “public facing”, but on May 1^st I will be moving it behind the “member wall”.

I’ve added a new page in my reference index for “The Independent Order of Odd Fellows” because of the historically close fraternal relationship between freemasonry and the IOOF. While browsing my archive of books this week I discovered several more books on the Odd Fellows and I will be loading them onto the page over the next couple weeks.

I’ve created an “Art Gallery” where I am hosting various masonic pics, photos, tracing boards, charts, posters, aprons, and memes and the collection also includes “Independent Order of Odd Fellows” material as well.

Finally, behind the scenes and out of sight, I’ve been updating the SEO data for the website and for the individual pages to make the site easier for the major search engines to discover. I am heartened to see my numbers going up since I began this part of the overhaul because it tells me these updates seem to be working (knock on wood).

What’s next:

I’ve summarized all of the changes and improvements I’ve made so far, but I’m not done yet! Next, I will be re-aligning and renaming the page currently called “Library”. This is the page where I currently host my own papers and presentations. I will be renaming this page “My Papers” and moving it under the “Reference Library” page. This should be the next step, so expect to see this within the next two weeks.

I am also planning even more work on my “Reference Library” including the addition of several new pages that will be coming very soon:

Ø  Masonic Law

Ø  Masonic Symbolism

Ø  Masonry and the Catholic Church

Ø  Masonic Ritual

Ø  Secret Societies

Ø  Theosophy, Mysticism, and Kabbalism

Ø  The Liberal Arts & Sciences

As I’ve sorted and sampled the books and documents in my archive collection, I’ve found several books in each of these categories, enough to warrant a separate reference index page for each and I look forward to getting these pages created and populated for use by brothers who may be researching or may simply be curious!  

I will also be creating a section under the “Noah Edward Lewis Education Center & Library” to host the papers I’ve written that directly fed and supported “Noah’s Quest” and “Noah’s Legacy”. This will allow readers to quickly find the original papers of mine that ultimately formed the basis of “Noah’s Quest”.

My project to update, modernize, and add features to my website has been a lengthy one, to be sure; but it has definitely been worth it. My goal is to make the site useful for my brethren, interesting for the curious, and educational for our budding masonic scholars out there. Now that the numbers seem to be ticking up, I will continue to monitor the traffic on the site and its performance until next year when it comes due for my annual renewal; at that time, I will make the decision as to whether the level of traffic is worth the level of the maintenance required and the annual cost! Fingers crossed and let the evaluation begin!

Please come by and visit the website and, if you like what you see, please share it with other brothers! My future decision on continuing the page will be based primarily on the traffic levels and use, so if you enjoy the material I’m publishing, please visit often and bring some friends!

Travel on worthy brothers, and please click here to visit: “A Mason’s Journey”!

~AMJ