Home / Uncategorized / Church Websites 101
More and more people are using the internet to find information. Everything from phone numbers and maps/directions to where to eat dinner. This includes using it to find a place to worship and connect with God. It is for this reason that a church web site is perhaps the most vital piece of any evangelism project.
Your church’s website is an entry way into your congregation for many people. What it looks like and the information it contains tells a potential visitor a lot about your community – so it should be done well.
If your website is in need of an update or your congregation doesn’t have one, here are a few resources to get you started:
First, does the congregation have anybody gifted in technology and web design? If not, then it is probably best to spend the money to have the site designed for you. Two possible resources are the fine people over at 3Spot (http://www.3spot.com) and Cloversites (http://www.cloversites.com/).
If there is somebody gifted in this way, then grab them and put them to work! And if you are looking for resources to make the job a bit easier, here are a few.
The web site has to have a place to call home – we call these places and the companies that provide them hosts. One inexpensive and helpful host is 1&1 (http://www.1and1.com). They have several different packages to choose from depending on your specific needs(the ‘Home’ package seems to be sufficient for most congregations).
Once you have a host, an easier way to create a dynamic site is to use Wordpress (http://www.wordpress.org). The software is opensource which means many different people are working on it and provide it free of charge. Additionally, it’s easy to update the look of your site by downloading various themes (sort of like templates). Most themes are offered free of charge (http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/), but there are a few themes that are offered for a one-time fee and often include support by the creator(s). These themes are commonly referred to as premium themes and for novice web designers may be worth the money. One can easily find these themes by Googling “premium wordpress themes.”
Now if you’ve got a site and want to add content, you must begin with the question of who the site is for. Because the site is most often the entry point for visitors, it is probably best to tailor it to a first-time visitor. No “insider” information, but only items that will help somebody who has never connected with the congregation before. This includes, but is not limited to:
Make it simple, clean and easy to use. I don’t want to have to hunt for information any time I visit a site. But also don’t try to cram too much on one page. In many ways it is an art… for a few useful tips of what NOT to include, visit this site - http://tonymorganlive.com/2005/05/14/10-easy-ways-to-keep-me-from-visiting-your-church-because-i-visited-your-website/.
Many congreations struggle with what kinds of photos to include and where to find them. One tool to use is the Flickr community. People post their pictures and some even license them under the Creative Commons License which allows people to reuse their stuff. To find photos with the CC license, then check out http://www.flickr.com/search/advanced/ and select the Creative Commons box at the bottom of the page before searching. This is the method by which this site finds and uses photos. Most of these require that you give credit to the photographer – for an example of how to do this, then see the bottom of this post.
For examples of church websites that are well done, take a look at:
If you have any questions, please feel free to post a comment here or send an email to webmaster@dcyoungadults.org.
June 10th, 2009 at 11:33 am
A good resource http://www.greatchurchwebsites.org for looking at ideas for church website design, help with various issues. The tech workshop at the Young Adult Conference was excellent!