How Do People See Your Church Through Your Website?
In my quest to get 20 churches to sign-up with our Web Portfolio Builder program, I have literally been to about a thousand church websites. Some websites are relevant, up-to-date, very informative and easy to navigate . It didn’t take me awhile to find my way around and I easily found the email address of the person whom I need to reach.
But I have also been to websites that I just didn’t know how to get around. I was confused in navigating the website and if I was a regular visitor I would have normally left the website the moment I couldn’t find my way through.
This is just one of the issues I find in old outdated church websites. I couldn’t stress enough the importance of a good navigation. Every user who visits a website does have to take some time to “adjust” in your website but it shouldn’t take them a lot of time that they just want to walk out of it without finding what they needed. It really is like going into someone else’s house and not knowing which way is which or driving to a place you have never been to before and you’re just completely lost.
Below are four major qualities of a great church website - hoping to help churches understand that through your website, you give visitors a glimpse of what your church is all about - and you can either make them visit your church in person or just walk away and forget about it all.
1. Easy, Direct to the Point Navigation
Is your website navigation organized and easy to understand? Would your visitors be able to find their way through without going through so many hoops? Would the visitors be able to reach any of your staff easily?
2. Updated Content
Is your website updated regularly? Does it offer information about events going on in your church? Does it offer a clear information about what your church is all about? Does it offer a way for visitors to get to know what is in the mind of your Pastoral staff about any issues through a blog? Are all the links working? Does a visitor have a way of searching through your website through a keyword?
3. Relevant Graphics
How relevant are the graphics in your church website? Does it give people the right image of your church? Would they be able to get the “feel” of your church through your website? Does it show photos of actual events and people from your church?
4. Generous Spiritual Growth Resources
Does your church website offer an archive of articles or past sermons? Does it offer podcast, audio or video streaming of worship services?
Here are some DON’Ts in a church website:
1. Don’t use INTRO pages. Intro pages in my opinion are a thing of the past. It’s great to have flash intro pages but nobody hardly ever finishes viewing a flash intro anymore. I personally skip through it and just get right in to the website.
2. Don’t use FULL FLASH. Flash websites are great and often very amusing. But believe it or not, there are still some people (the oldies but goodies) that use dial-up that wouldn’t normally be able to load a full flash website as fast as a dsl would. It is important to make your website available to different users.
3. Don’t use flashy glittery backgrounds. Surprisingly enough, I found some church websites that still use those glittery backgrounds. Leave those kind of backgrounds for MySpace pages. Not only are they immature but they do not necessarily portray what your church is all about.
In building websites for churches, Exirus Creative makes sure that we implement those 4 major qualities. Not only that we will make a visually appealing interface for your church website but with the knowledge of web usability, we make sure we develop your website with the end-user in mind.