If your church website is embarrassing, fix it. Terrell Sanders of Main Street Enterprises and the guy behind the MinistryCOM conference offers a new ebook, Get UnEmbarrassed: 10 Secrets to Effective Church Websites. It’s a quick and free (email sign up required) ebook that offers 10 practical ways to make better websites:
- Use a simple, classic design.
- Design for content.
- Consistent style does not mean boring.
- Start small, design to grow.
- Design for guests.
- A picture is worth 1,000 words.
- Your webmaster should be a writer.
- Publish frequently, in bite-size pieces.
- Don’t get locked into proprietary systems.
- Keep it fresh.
It’s basic but solid advice for churches with lame websites hoping to make them tolerable. It’s a great resource to pair with our Church Websites 101 series for all the web advice you need.
Paul
August 29, 2012
Building a website to advance your church and to advertise it(for the lack of a better word) is a great way to build the Church. Check out “Church Growth” by bishop Dag Heward Mills. http://www.daghewardmills.org/shop/search.php?search_query=church+growth&x=0&y=0
Paul Clifford
August 29, 2012
In addition to writing church tech books, and doing training, I design church websites based on wordpress.
I’ve been following a thread on linkedin called “post your church or ministry website here.” I’ve been amazed by:
1. How many people say their ministry name, but don’t post a website or post only an email.
2. How many websites are like “mycoolchurch.webs.com” or “myministry.wordpress.com” since domain names are SOO cheap.
3. How many sites look like they were coded in 1999.
4. How many make it hard to find contact information.
5. How few will respond when you kindly offer to help; so far none.
I guess deaf ears.
Paul
Church Worship Chairs
August 30, 2012
We’re not a church but a church-related site (we sell church chairs) and this is some good bullet-point advice. Especially #9! Getting locked into a proprietary system can mean nightmares for your church website. With so many free Content Management Systems out there it is silly to get locked into a company’s paid software! GREAT ADVICE!
Andy Bondurant
September 7, 2012
I’m about to help my church design a new site. Thanks for the tips – these are great reminders for any site!
GP
September 11, 2012
Really? I’ve worked with free CMSs and am not thrilled. I’ll take Adobe’s BC “all-in-one” approach any day over 5 or 7 different “open” system that turn out to be a nightmare to make work together. Just sayin’