What makes a good church website?
By now, most people will have had direct contact with the Internet and the World Wide Web. For the purposes of this note I am assuming readers already have an email account via an Internet Service Provider, and are familiar with ‘browsing’ websites via the World Wide Web. This note is aimed at readers who have yet to take the plunge and create a website, or who have had a go themselves or via others in your church or organisation, and would like to take a fresh look and perhaps build something better.
What can a website do for a church?
With a little imagination it become a way of telling your unique story, sparking curiosity, attracting visitors, advertising events, sharing your parish news - and your sermons - with the world. It can even lead to people joining the church – most people moving into an area these days will research local amenities on the Web. Setting up your own website sounds difficult, but it has never been easier, thanks to the ready availability of easy-to-use online web-creation services. Leading Internet service providers already include a web hosting service in the deal. The chances are that this will also include access to a simple website creation utility with a choice of styles. Some of these styles are pretty garish, aimed at young people or hobbyists, but it is worth checking. Alternatively, there are some easy-to-use website-building software packages available Other options: Regional newspaper websites such as The Northern Echo may offer free web pages to churches. ‘A Church Near You’ offers free web pages for parish churches in England: www.acny.org.uk Local tourism offices may include free listings of churches of visitor interest, and can advise on entry to the tourism database that feeds into the national tourism information network, VisitBritain and enjoyEngland.com.
What do you need to get started?
Strategy: Work out what you want to do now and what you may want to do in the future. Better still, involve some others from your church. Involve a young person! Think about whether you want to go it alone, or to do something as a group of churches. Domain name: A dedicated domain name (Website ‘address’) is not essential, as your service provider will probably include an address for your web site, and in any case most people are likely to reach you via an online ‘search’ service such as Google. However, it does give you an address that reflects your name, and shorter than ‘http://uk.geocities.com/yourname@btinternet.com’. Domain names are unique, so if one church has already bought ‘www.holytrinity.org.uk’ then any other Holy Trinity church will have to use a different name. The chances are a local geographic reference will work, e.g. ‘holytrinity-happytown’. Website: Web pages can be used to provide information about the church. This can be a combination of newsletter, visitor information, the history and special features of the church, service times, sermon transcripts (better still, audio downloads), and any other information it may want to put out. Email: A church will almost certainly want an email address as a point of contact. This may be the Vicar’s personal email address, or a church account (clergy may move on). These days you can set up extra email addresses, e.g., via Hotmail or Yahoo! – and have these directed to another mailbox, so consider having more than one, e.g., for enquiries about events, childrens’ clubs, etc. You will need the help of someone who is reasonably computer-confident - most churches will have at least one, often a young person - who can actually put the material you have collected into a website. This is not at all difficult for anyone who is familiar with home computers - there is no special computer language to learn. If you would like to build your own site but wish to understand the process better, check out short courses or evening classes offered by local colleges. A handy free online tutorial is available here: http://www.w3schools.com/web/default.asp
Planning your website
Web pages need designing, like any other publicity material. The design is a little more complex as they are interlinked, not one after the other as in a book. The advantage is that people may look at the
material in any order that they wish. It is worth bearing this in mind when thinking about how people may find their way around the pages, and how this might be made interesting and a pleasant ‘virtual visitor’ experience that will entice them to make a real visit! Content needed: Information for a “Home Page” - name of your church, where to find it, Your core aims - “Who, Where, What?” - keep it simple! Photographs of your church, people, activities, etc. Get a really good photographer to take these – perhaps someone in your church knows a good amateur, or could sponsor a professional to capture your church for the crucial home page image. This can make a huge difference to the impact of your site! Text about history, special features of the building, famous characters, links with the local community or other parts of the world etc. - in fact just the sort of thing you may have already prepared for a guidebook or displays. Text about regular activities, special events, church groups (e.g. choir, bell-ringers, Bible study) things which can be regularly up-dated and give an idea of what’s happening live, so to speak, at your church. It can be useful to draw a sketch map of the site, draw the pages as boxes with a title and arrows showing the links between the pages. The boxes can contain a short description of the page contents. This example shows a small church site:
‘Index’ or Home Page Main contents ‘menu’ Introduction Good photo of church
History/story Special features of the building, events, cultural heritage or people, etc
Services Times of services
What’s on Events and diary dates
Contact us Email form Phone numbers Office hours
Mission Projects
Family Activities
The ‘index page’ is the first page that a visitor lands on when they go to your web address. Some websites use this as a kind of ‘cover’ page, with little else in it but the church logo or photo, name and possibly some banner text, requiring users to ‘click’ again to reach the ‘home page’ - the first page with significant content. It is now considered better for the ‘index’/’home’ page to be one and the same, offering a short introduction to the church, and acting as a direction finder for the rest of the site. Other pages suggested in the diagram are self-explanatory, but consider what is most relevant for your own situation, aims and activities. The ‘contacts’ page is important of course, and you should consider providing more than one contact with phone number as well as an email message form (do not have visible email addresses in the page, as this will attract unwelcome use by ‘spammers’ – see ‘tips’, below). Stating the hours when there is someone in the office may help to manage expectations! Some of the information, such as event dates, will need to be kept up to date on a regular basis. In any case, it is a good idea to plan regular (e.g., once a month) updates to keep the site fresh and interesting. Be careful if the contact details contain private phone numbers or email addresses. You will need the permission of the individuals concerned to put the details on the page; remember this is going to a global audience. This will also bring you under the Data Protection Act. You should seek advice on what you need to do and the implications for your church administration.
Top twenty tips for church Web sites
1. Who is your website aimed at? Most church sites unwittingly exclude people through choice of language and content - avoid ‘churchy’ jargon! Think about how you communicate with different target groups: church members, uncommitted local people, visitors interested in heritage, events, or other special features. Church is people: if church is historic or has other visitor appeal, you will want to use a good photograph on the home page. But use at least one good image of people too. Ensure you have
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permission to use pictures where a face is clearly identifiable. Do not include full names or personal information about children. Get a good photographer to take photos especially for the project, and have these available in web-optimised digital formats (usually 96 dpi resolution). Demonstrate a welcome for people with disability. Explain what facilities are available for people with disability, and ensure that your website complies with usability guidelines for sight-impaired users, including appropriate use of the ‘alt’ tag for graphics. Never use an introductory ‘splash page’. These are irritating to most users. Splash pages can also reduce your ranking in search engines, as they lack readable content. The homepage should not be much more than one screen in height, i.e., visible without needing to scroll. Do not cram too much information into it - just sufficient graphics and text to explain at a glance who you are and what is available elsewhere on the site. A 3-column layout is often the most suitable for a church site. You can get ready-designed template coding for pages – already set up with headers, columns and footers to use in your own HTML editor. Web creation software packages are available for £27 or less, and provide readymade templates ideal for church sites. Read reviews before choosing. Every page should display the same overall appearance, with the same navigation options in the same place. Pages which lack consistent style will confuse users. A navigation menu should appear on all pages - web design packages usually provide this. All links, menu options and buttons should be clearly identified as ‘active’ – they should change colour when hovered. People need these visual clues. Think long and hard before using nonstandard link styles - a blue underlined link remains the ‘language’ that most people understand. And don’t confuse by underlining text which is not a link! Don’t include ‘mailto’ email addresses in plain coding on the site. They will be ‘harvested’ by spammers. Create a contact form instead. Or at the very least hide addresses using Javascript encoding – a special code written into a web-page which can carry out functions within the page after it has downloaded. If you do use Javascript, ensure everything on the site still works for those with Javascript disabled. Provide alternative options enclosed within ‘noscript’ tags if necessary. Don’t use ‘frames’ - one or more blocks of content which can be scrolled independently - they have disadvantages which even expert design cannot overcome. Use colours correctly - understand how to choose a colour scheme, what mood they communicate, etc. Don’t use patterned graphic backgrounds behind body text. With very few exceptions, black (or at least dark blue) body text on a white (or near-white) plain background is best. Ask a graphic designer for advice! Choice of fonts is important. The Verdana font is designed for computer monitors, and is widely perceived as the most readable for body text. Don’t put ‘best viewed at resolution X’ or ‘best viewed in browser Y’ on your website. This is irritating to people who use a different resolution or browser. It is your job to make sure the site works on most browsers. Don’t leave out-of-date content online. Few things rob a site of credibility more than this, but it is amazing how many church web sites are way out of date! Use several people to proof-read for typos and poor grammar. Test your site from a technical viewpoint in different browsers, and at different screen resolutions, and with real first-time users. A church webmaster or team needs a clear job description. The church must state clearly what is expected. If the webmaster is not on the church leadership team, there should be a clear line of responsibility to the church leaders. A larger church site can benefit from ‘CMS’ – Content Management – a system whereby different people have permission to update content within a site, using only a browser interface accessed via a password. This enables multiple users to keep the site updated. Before choosing a CMS provider, take considerable time to compare what is on offer.
Written by Andrew Duff, January 2007 Material used with the kind permission of the Churches Tourism Association: www.churchestourismassociatio.info. Visit the CTA’s website for more helpful downloadable resources.