Ideas for improving digital ministry experiences
After debating your church’s need for a website, you decide it is the next best step. So now what? Although I primarily write individual articles focused on connecting church goals to web technologies, I feel compelled to write a tutorial-themed article. In this first piece, I will take you through the planning stages of creating or revising your website.
Continue reading “Starting your Churchâs Website: Clueless to Colors”
When you think of church ministries and websites, you probably thought of one church with multiple ministries all in one website. It is a rare gem to find multiple churches partnering with one ministry; along with a good website to support it. So how do you handle this sometimes politically charged task of creating and managing a site that has multiple hands in it? Letâs examine some possible approaches to this delicate matter.
If you build it, they do not always come. The novelty of the web has worn off and the fact that your church has a website will not make you unique anymore. So how can you bubble to the top of search engine rankings? I talked about some pro-active measures you can take to get yourself known, however there are plenty of strategic decisions you can make that will give your site the high ranking it rightfully deserves.
If you visited the original website, you may remember when I changed the color scheme of my header image / logo . I took away the colors for the sky and ground. Why? I was doing too much and was not providing enough focus. This blog is about growing church websites. So I drew attention to just that, a growing plant. Much like fasting and isolating yourself for prayer helps you focus; taking something away from your church’s web pages can help users focus.
Continue reading “Donât Be Afraid To Take Something Away”
When discerning the future of your church, many people would suggest asking yourself “What Would Jesus Do?”, or WWJD? When designing your webs site, you need to consider it from your user’s perspective. One question they are undoubtedly asking is WIFM?, or “Whatâs In It For Me?” Your website should always be communicating the value that your church and a Christ-centered life can provide them.
If you are a church that was founded before the late 90âs, you probably have some printed material that you wanted to move to a website. However, your church website is not just an electronic brochure you can hand people. As many studies have suggested, the majority of website content is skimmed, not read. Because of this, the content you may have developed for a printed brochure is not suitable to copy and paste to your website. Plus there are many limitations brochures have that websites do not. In this article, I will compare and contrast content strategies for both mediums.
In two previous articles I discussed web meetings and who to invite, and what to do. However one touchy subject not yet covered is that of a HIPPOs or Highest Paid Personâs Opinion. Even though pay may not be involved, you may have HIPPOs in your church; be it someone on a committee, or even your pastor. Although their ideas are often good, you do not want to limit yourselves to that one influential person. I will describe some ways to solicit conversation from some of your mild mannered members, as well as ways to even the playing field so all ideas get a fair consideration.
Continue reading “Web Team Meetings Part 3: Dealing with HIPPOs”
Just having a church website is not enough today. You need to be proactive in your quest to get your church seen and heard on the internet. So what methods can you use to accomplish this? I propose covering three bases, of search engines, mapping services, and social media. These three are often very entangled, so spearheading efforts on all of them at once is often very easy and can generate awesome synergy in getting your church website known to the rest of the world.
Continue reading “Get Your Church Known”
In a previous article, I talked about who should be part of your core website team for your church. Yet what should you do once you all get in the same room together? The first few meetings will probably involve creating the churchâs overall web strategy, which connects your business goals with how the website will help you obtain them. Subsequent meetings will involve more tactical objectives, including individual projects. But the key to obtaining and eventually measuring success will based on how disciplined you are with both your discussions and documentation.
Church websites often start with one person who knows a little HTML, and the guidance of âgo make us a websiteâ. However as more people in the church get involved and interested in what the website can do, decisions become very complicated. So how do you form that winning team? A few key players in your church can meet and help your website exceed the expectations of everyone at your church.
If you are a church looking to move to a multi-site approach, your website will need to change. Also, if you are a multi-site church, do not rely on using single-site church websites as the inspiration for your design and architecture. Multi-site churches are different and need to present a mix of unity and diversity to effectively reach their intended audiences. Finding that balance is easier than you think when you consider the marketing approaches taken by companies with multiple product lines.
Continue reading “Multi-site Church Web Tips”
Your church has an awesome looking website and published great content… so where is the tidal wave of new members? Perhaps people are finding your site and are very interested, but they cannot connect with you. The primary conversion point on most service oriented websites is the “Contact Us” page. By optimizing that page with multiple options, you remove the barriers that hold some people back from reaching out to you.
Continue reading “Creating a Great Contact Us Page”
