By now, most churches have a website. The barriers to building a site have fallen so that anyone with a little time on their hands can build one. But should they? Before seekers will step foot into your church building, more than 70% of them will visit your church's website prior to visiting your meeting location. Are you driving them off before they visit your church? The list contains the top 11 sins you might be commiting with your church website.
- Out-of-Date Content – This is the ultimate sin when it comes to
your website. Having your Christmas musical still listed on your
website in March tells the community that your church is not concerned
with the community enough to give them up-to-date info.
- Too much info on the front page – Information overload is a great way to drive people away from your site.
- Too much religious-ease – Using words that only we as Christians
understand is a great way to drive seekers away from your website and
your church. Many times we use big religious words to make us feel
important, but the reality is, many people are turned off by this.
- Having your receptionist build your site – Handing a copy of
Website Building for Dummies is not effective outreach. There is much
more to an effective website than just slapping some HTML code and some
clipart on to your website.
- Blogs (unless you use them) – Blogging is all the rage right now
but unfortunately, unless you use it regularly and keep it up to date,
only sends the message that you unorganized and really don’t care
enough to up date it. Also, keep them on topic. Telling people about a
rare postage stamp you won on Ebay doesn’t count as relevant.
- Audio – There are two schools of thought when it comes to audio:
1. Don’t use it and 2. Don’t use it. When I use audio on a site (in
Flash usually), I make sure that the audio if off by default and then
give the user the option to turn it on if they choose. There’s nothing
more annoying than having your speakers turned up and then getting
blasted by unexpected audio from your church’s choir.
- No way to contact you – If users don’t can’t find a way to
contact you within a few seconds, it sends a very bad message. Make how
to contact you prominent on a site.
- Long Download Times – This is basic web development 101 but it
bears repeating. Keep your site’s download times and short as possible.
It’s great that you can wield Flash like a ninja, but with great power
comes great responsibility. About half of people on the internet are
still in dial-up (poor souls).
- Poor Design – I read somewhere that 90% of first time visitors to
your church building will make a decision on whether they will come
back or not based on the look of your facilities. I’m going to venture
that more than 90% will make a decision to ATTEND your church or not
based on the look and feel of your website. If you’re going to have a
website, build one with excellence.
- Poor Usability – Don’t you hate being lost? I do (I hate asking
directions even more), so imagine if your site’s users can’t find their
way around your site. If they can’t, they’ll get frustrated and leave.
Make it clear and obvious where they need to click and why.
- Browser Specific Sites – In the old days of web development (like
3 years ago), you used to be able to get away with building a site that
only works in Internet Explorer. Today it’s different. With the steady
growth of FireFox and to a lesser degree, Safari (eesh), more and more
people are visiting your sites with various browsers. Bottom line –
test it in as many different browsers as you can prior to launching it
on the world.
Do you have other church websites sins? Share them below:
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