A Short Play about Jesus' Last Supper
From the Viewpoint of the Women Who Served Him

Church Website
Observations & Suggestions

Overview
I have personally visited over 10,000 church websites since the Spring of 2010. In my endeavor to get the word out about my Last Supper Play, "Beneath the Upper Room." (see SPAMMING FOR JESUS) I pledged NOT to buy or rent any e-maillists or hire a marketing firm to do the mailing. Anyone or any church that recieved an email about my show had their email address listed on their church website. I know this because I visited each and every one of them. No exceptions. In this world of spamming and viruses and webbots, I wanted to find a way that got the job done-- yet did it in an ethical way. The observations and suggestions you find on this page are the direct result of spending hours, days, yes, MONTHS pouring through thousands of church websites. I think it's fair to say: I've seen 'em all! Good sites--poor sites, frustrating sites--intuitive sites, innovative sites--boring sites. I can't tell you how many times I called my pastor to vent about some sites asking "why do they DO that??" (or ocassionally: "Hey, this is cool-- we should do that...!"

Also, keep in mind that I visited all these sites with the objective of finding specific information--as do most visitors to your site-- and my success or failure to find that information is reflected in my findings. As I came across a site that seemed appropriate to my list here (good or bad), I referenced it on this page-- so there may be no obvious "flow" of information, it's just a list. Above all, I reserve the right to be completely wrong.

If you have any questions about this page, feel free to contact me at the address on the Contact Page. I do have some experience in web design/maintenance, but I am by no means an expert. I just have the audacity to put my opinions in writing. (heh-heh-heh)

Observations As I said, I've seen 'em all. I've seen really wonderful websites that showed all the wonderful things that churches are up to, how they provide for their congregations, their communities, and the world. They provide helpful information and make it easy to find more information and/or help. I've also seen websites that were so poorly designed and maintained that I really think it would have been better had they not bothered.

Chances are good that your church has someone who likes to dabble in web design or you found a company like E-zekiel that provides easy to use templates. You can even design your site using Expression Web, Dreamweaver, Joomla, MS Word or any leading word processor. It's easy to get a site up and running nowadays-- the hard part is finding a good design, providing the right content, and keeping it updated and vital.

Suggestions

  • Fulfill Your Purpose. Why do you have a site? To inform your congregation? To show the world you are there? As a commercial for your church? As a medium to promote your Pastor's book or sermons? All the above? Whatever it is, let that be your guiding principle in determining your website design and content.
  • Don't Hide. Post your email address. If you use only one, that's fine-- post it on your Main Page and throughout your site. Make it easy to find. Please don't rely on only a sterile Contact Form. If you're concerced about spam and webbots-- there are plenty of ways to disguise your email addresses nowadays. (here are some suggestions).  Most visitors to your site are local-- make it easy for them to contact you! Few things are more frustrating for a web visitor than to want to contact someone from your church with a quick email and not be able to find one.
  • Check Your Website Often. After you update your site, actually go to your site and view your changes. Oftentimes you will find a formatting problem that didn't show up in your html editor. Check each link, check the colors of your text to make sure it is readable and not some jarring color that is like fingernails on a chalkboard to the eyes.  Sometimes the "prettiest" colors don't go well together on a web page.
  • Optimize Your Photos/Videos. You don't want a 45MB .bmp file as a graphic on one of your pages-- it will take FOREVER to load. Any good graphics editor can help you reduce the resolution of your photos for the web. Generally speaking, any graphic (use .jpg files) over 100K in size is over-kill. And make sure you check your photos online to see if the size matches your site's borders.
  • No Automatic Music. Oh, my!  Never be so rude as to have a song open automatically with your site. If your visitors like to have music playing while they visit websites, trust me, they'll play from their own playlist. More times than not, your site's music is set at a level that will blast your visitors ears when it suddenly comes on. However-- you may certainly OFFER to have music play-- but please make it a decision THEY can make by pressing a "play" button, not one that you made for them.
  • Honor Other's Copyrights. Do not allow your site to promote theft and/or internet piracy. Don't assume it's okay to post photos or music or video that you or someone in your church did not personally (and legally) create. Someone ownes that material and may rely on the income they make from that material to feed their family.
  • No Cookie-Cutter Sites. There's nothing wrong with using a template from which to develop your site-- but please don't let it look as such. I can't tell you how many churches use the exact same pages, sometimes even content that they get from their template. Make it personal to your church. Add photos, add descriptive text content-- show them what they'll see when they walk into your building.
  • K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple, Sally! (heh-heh-heh) Don't have a site that has all kinds of Flash special effects and moving graphics and sound effects and video splashes....  -- what's that all about? If you're a graphic design website, that's a different story-- but a church website should be easy to navagate and give people the info they need to attend your church (in my humble opinion). If you have a web designer who is bored, have them develope a secondary site for the Youth or for your Praise Band with all that fancy-schmancy stuff.
  • Conform. While it is wonderful that you personalize your site and make it reflect the style, personality, etc. of your church-- don't forget that your typical web visitor is used to certain website elements in order to efficiently manuever your site-- Contact Page, Staff Page, Calendar, etc. Remember that even though most visitors to your website are members of your congregation, they don't spend a lot of time just exploring-- they're usually online looking for something specific. Make whatever they are looking for to be easy to find.
  • 3-Click Rule. Resist the temptation to put everything you know about Religion on your website. Nothing should be more than 3 clicks from your main page. A winding web of pages after pages is very frustrating to someone visiting your site. Also, make sure that each page has a simple way to return to your HOME page without their having to use the BACK button.
  • Update your Site Often.  Don't keep out-of-date information.  Pictures from past events are great-- but you don't need to keep pages advertising your 2008 fundraiser.  When people see lots of out-dated information still on your site, they wonder if you take as much care in your church services as well.
  •  Meager Main Page.  Don't fill up your main landing page (the page your visitors land on when they enter in your website address) with details.  Use your Main Page as a table of contents and have links to all the information.  It's great to have contact info and some photos along with your main menu, but resist the temptation to put lots of stuff on that main page.  Keep the "3-Click Rule" (above) in mind!

    © 2011, Kevin M Reese.  All Rights Reserved.