De-stinkify your church Web site

A couple days ago, I made the accusation that most church Web sites flat-out stink, and I gave three tools to start the process of evaluating your church Web site and discovering God’s intent for your Web site. I know it sounds a bit cliché, but you better believe that God works through the Internet to reach lives.

I’m still not ready to talk about publishing platforms.  Most pastors that I talk to want me to jump past all the other stuff and head right to “what do I need to buy.”  The problem is that you can’t buy a successful Web presence - it’s an ongoing investment.  It’s a strategy.  For most, if not all, growing churches, the Web site is the central hub of information.

So, how do you de-stinkify your current church Web site.  By the way, if you scored under 10 on WebsiteGrader.com, take heart - so do most other church Web sites.  Now, do something about it.  Here are some action items for your consideration.

  1. Determine your target audience.  You need to know who you’re marketing to before you throw stuff onto the Web.  Lifechurch.tv’s Tony Steward details this way better than I can in this post.
  2. Plan out your site’s core content and navigation before you enlist any techie geeks.  Don’t just post every piece of information imaginable.  Bobby Gruenewald suggests that we design our mobile site first, before we do anything else.  This forces us to cut the fluff and stay on target.
  3. Realize that while techie geeks are necessary for the technical aspects of a Web site, you cannot expect them to own the site and run solo with it.  The geek is not a skilled writer or marketer, he is a skilled designer or developer.  Here are some tips from Jason Reynolds.
  4. View the Web as a central communication tool for your congregation and community.  It shouldn’t be a one-man-show or a place that’s neglected.  The Web is not your business card.  Allow it to be the hub that other sources pull from.  For instance, in the weekly bulletin, direct people to the Web for more information rather than giving a phone number.  This saves time for the person responsible for the event by not having to respond to so many calls about an event.  That time can be re-invested in their ministry.  The shift to the Web being the central hub of information will not happen overnight, but you must work to patiently make this ever-important shift.
  5. Encourage the entire staff to have ownership.  Everyone should be a contributor.  Jason Reynold’s  post (above) encourages all ministerial staff to write three articles per week for the Web site.  Kevin McCord’s also weighs in here with his post on Web presence.
  6. KISS - Don’t have a Web site developed that takes a rocket scientist to update.  Make Web maintenance easy enough for Betty Sue and Reverend Mike.  MeanDean’s got a list similar to mine concocted here.

That’s enough tips for now.  More to follow.  Bottom line, if your church Web site stinks, you need to fix it.  It’s time.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 at 8:45 pm and is filed under Web. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “De-stinkify your church Web site”

  1. Jason Reynolds Says:
    October 23rd, 2008 at 9:31 pm

    Loving this bit: “The problem is that you can’t buy a successful Web presence - it’s an ongoing investment.”

    The beauty of the statement is that it represents so well that it takes sacrifice to do church websites well, and we aren’t just talking money. In fact, with enough investment of time, talent, and focus, you barely need money. Great post and thanks for the backlink. Look forward to checking more to reading more of your stuff.

  2. Mickey Says:
    October 24th, 2008 at 10:35 am

    Any way to help WebSite Grader find the right content? We scored a 79, but it docked us for not having a blog (we do, linked from the home page) and not having an RSS feed (we have a handful of them, including the blog). Any way to get a proper score? Should I rework some code to make it easier for WG to autodetect the blog?

  3. Matthew Says:
    October 24th, 2008 at 12:36 pm

    @Jason - thanks for the comment! You’re absolutely right, it’s not just about money. Actual monetary investment can be very small if the investment of time, talent and focus is there. Good insight.

    @Mickey - I’m not entirely sure how they find the blog, but you need to add some tags to your header. The link tags add the pretty orange icon in the address bar of the Web browser. This is going to look ugly, but this is what ours looks like. Nice score, and great Web site!

    <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="First Baptist Church - Belton, TX RSS Feed" href="http://www.fbcbelton.org/feed/" />
    <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Sunday Morning Sermons Podcast" href="http://feeds.fbcbelton.org/FirstBaptistBeltonSermons" />
    <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Sunday Evening Sermons Podcast" href="http://feeds.fbcbelton.org/FirstBaptistBeltonEveningSermons" />

  4. Kevin Says:
    December 22nd, 2008 at 11:29 am

    We hit a 75 at visitoasis.org, but the stuff they want us to fix is so minor I bet I could raise that pretty quick. Thanks for the link!

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