How to Build a Church Web Site

Make a plan before you plot a website.

Planning is the basic ingredient for building a church website. To decide what type of website a church will create, the plan must include assessment of the target audience, identification of the purpose the site will serve, and a procedure for assessing if this purpose has been fulfilled. You must take an inventory of your church's Web-related needs and decide what is important and relevant enough to be included on the institution's website.

Instructions

The Plan

1. 

   Planning is key.

   Make a list of the reasons your church needs a website. Determine why the church should spend the time and money to develop an online presence. Carefully list everything you would like to see and read on the website. Graphics and the visual appeal of the site will support the rationale for the site and match the personality of your church.

2. 

   Determine the target audience of the site.

   Find the purpose. Is your church's site an electronic bulletin, newsletter or a portfolio of your programs? Do you want your online presence to provide something your audience cannot get anywhere else or will the content be duplicated in the Sunday bulletin?

   Good content is essential. Do not let the design confuse the message and purpose of the site. Do not allow the design to betray the persona of your church. The purpose of the site should parallel the purpose of your church.

   Visual rhetoric is as important as verbal message; each should strongly support the other. If your church is very traditional on Sunday morning, an edgy website with Christian rock music playing in the background betrays the ethos of your church. On the other hand, if your church is non-traditional and you have a picture of a steeple and white clapboard church on the homepage in conservative colors, your visitors might be surprised by the praise and worship band instead of a choir when they first visit. The website must match your church's purpose.

3. 

   Careful design and good content--a good plan will drive web traffic to your church's site.

   Make a plan that will carry out the purpose and meet the needs of your target audience. Draw out the menu navigation. A site mock-up or thumbnail design can be a careful graphic design or a sketch on a piece of paper.

   Match your plan to the list of things you wanted to include in your site. Properly organize the content into menu buttons and sub menus. Arrange your entire site under your navigation--on paper or on the screen--not on the Web server.

4. 

   Good support from a web server is worth the extra cost.

   Put the plan online. Gather the tools you will need to design your website. Using a website design program or your website's free design tools, begin putting your plan online. Another choice would be to use a content management system to make it easy for many people to contribute to the site. This might be helpful for a church when those managing the site may change from year to year. Lots of good content will make it easier to find your church in Google searches.

   Find a server you can afford, but one that has great customer service. A Web server that is easy to contact and work with is worth the added cost. You will want excellent support when you are stuck with a Web problem beyond your technical ability.

5. 

   How your target users navigate is important.

   Test the site after it is up on the server. Select someone in your target audience to test the website's user friendliness. Working with a Web server, you do not have total control as to how the content and graphics are displayed. Learn to work within these limitations.

   Ask your testers questions to assess the success of your plan. See if they understand the purpose of your church's website. Simple things they can answer would be to see if they could find various things you listed. See if they gained anything new from going to your site that they could not get on Sunday morning. After the test, make adjustments to your website to match the purpose and the site assessment.

Tips & Warnings

• Find a web server that is affordable and has great customer service.

• Do not place anything online until your plan is complete. This will save hours of reworking your website.

References

• Lynda.com: Web Design Fundamentals