How to Build a Great Church Website on a Shoestring Budget

No matter how small your church, you can create a great website for your ministry.

Having an Internet presence might have been a frill or an option in the recent past, but today it's a necessity for any organization, including churches. Tight budgets are common in churches, but you can build a great church website on a shoestring.

Things You'll Need

• domain name
• hosting
• HTML editor
• vision
• plan
• consistent content
• free software

Instructions

1. Decide on the main purpose of your website. You may want a site that provides basic information about unchanging items like the church location, mission and service schedule. Or, you might aim for a site that provides dynamic content, such as the topic of last week's service, sermon notes and announcements. Write up a plan for where you want to see this website go.

2. Purchase a web domain name and hosting. The domain is the name that a Web visitor types into the address bar of a browser, such as mycoolchurch.org. A long domain name that spells out the name of your church looks better on church stationery and publications and is easier to remember than a cryptic abbreviation; Baltimore's Mount Calvary church has a domain name, mountcalvary.com, that's more user friendly than, say, mtclvbalto.com or mntcly1842.com would have been. Hosting is where you store your site on the Internet. There are many companies to choose from, such as GoDaddy.com, myhosting.com, Yahoo Site Builder. Choose the one that fits your budget and needs. If you're really on a shoestring, you can use a free hosting site, but you probably will have to allow advertising to appear on your site.

3. Decide whether to use a professional Web design service or rely on church volunteers. This depends on how thin your shoestring is. If you have a bit of room in the budget, you can hire a service that specializes in building a Web presence for churches. MyChurchWebsite.com, for example, is a firm that will create and maintain your website for a setup fee of $3,500 followed by monthly rates as low as $49 per month at the time of publication.

4. Choose a visual theme. Any great church website must have a professional look. It also should match the vision of your church. If you need inspiration, there are thousands of good templates to choose from, and many are available for free.

5. Decide on your website builder. The leading industry standard is Adobe Dreamweaver, but this is expensive and is best used by those who are already well versed in Web building. On a shoestring budget, you can get by with a free solution such as Nvu. Take some time to familiarize yourself with HTML, CSS, and other Web languages. Unless you are strictly following a template, you will need to know something about these. Many Web tutorials are available for free, or you can learn by reverse-engineering what others have done.

6. Decide on an image editor. The industry standard is Adobe Photoshop, but it is also expensive and a tool meant for use by professionals. Photoshop Elements, also from Adobe, costs under $100 at the time of publication and is designed to be easy to use. Free alternatives also exist, such as GIMP. Use your image editor to create the graphic content for your site.

7. Add your content. Make the really important information stand out. Service times, address, phone numbers, email addresses - these belong on the first page. It's a good idea to post a photo of your church building, too. Make sure the pastor or pastors are listed. Provide a Contact Us page with more detailed information, such as the names of the board executive committee, the music director and so on.

8. Create your own content. If someone in the church has a good camcorder, make exciting videos and post them on YouTube. This will attract people to your website. Record sermons and choir presentations and make them available as MP3s. If you have an outreach to the community, take lots of pictures and put them on pages explaining the works you do. Establish a Facebook page and invite people to be a friend of the church with a Facebook button on each page of the website. All of these ideas will push you up higher in search engines.

9. Consider adding a blog. Free WordPress blogs work great and are simple to use and customize. Make sure to update the blog frequently with news, sermon notes, YouTube videos, and other content. It should be your church's content; only put something on your page if you made it yourself. No one goes to the church website to see the verse of the day or the weather report.

Tips & Warnings

• Save money by using free software whenever possible. GIMP is a powerful image editor. NVu is a passable alternative to Dreamweaver®.

• Save money by using cheap software. If Adobe® Flash® is out of your league, try something cheaper like Coffeecup® Firestarter®.

References

• Free Website Templates
• MyChurchWebsite.com

Resources

• Mars Hill Church
• Calvary Church of the Nazarene
• NVU
• The GIMP