Website Advice
A practical guide to parish websites
David Marshall introduces the issues to consider when planning your church website.
Hello
Over the past decade I have designed many websites or advised organisations on structuring and delivering their site. So the following is an honest, to the point summary of the issues, based on the realities of parish life. I hope it helps.
Getting started
If you have an expert who can do it all then just read the Content and Management section (to make sure you understand the level of work needed and the issues of only having one person in control of your site) and off you go. Otherwise, read the whole section-I have assumed that you want to set up a long-lasting simple site, quickly, cheaply, with maybe a blog/voting polls/photo album/email/links etc
Content and Management
Websites are like plants, they need pruning and can take quite a bit of time to maintain if you get the structure wrong.
Be Realistic
You don’t have the time or resources to build the biggest site in the world. So you need to limit what you will offer-you can't put the whole church on-line and reach everyone, anyway, this is not how the internet works. The internet works by solving problems, so you need to have specific groups of people in mind who are looking for specific information. Before I deal with that issue a word on management.
Management
If you have a volunteer offering to do this work you need to get them to design a content management system (see below) so that a number of people can go in an update ALL content.
If someone volunteers to design your website (often a student writing HTML code and doing it as part of a qualification) and their circumstances change, then your site dies or becomes frozen in time. This gives the impression that your church has died or nothing happens. Ideally there needs to be a number of people who can update a finished site and it needs to be able to survive the 'super volunteer' moving off.
So, remember-if you have a volunteer offering to do this work you need to get them to design a content management system so that a number of people can go in an update ALL content.
Content
The key to good design is to limit what content your site will have. Very few people want to read the weekly service sheet and if only two people do then can you justify the 20 minutes it will take to do this task every week?
Very few want to read word for word every sermon (there is a growing market in 'borrowed sermons', or perhaps someone decides not to come to your church after reading the one that might not have been your best!). Instead, why not select a few paragraphs and put it into your parish blog where people can comment and debate?
Why put your parish magazine online? Much better to select the best stories and put them on your site as news and to show the good things about your church.
So, avoid setting up grand publishing schemes that will mean hours online every week adding the latest version of the sermon, pew sheet, rota, magazine etc.
What is the best sort of content?
The simple way to deal with what you should have on your website is to start with your audience. Make a list of the different groups who might visit your site and ask yourself, what do they want to find? Below, just to get you started, are some groups with ideas of what information they might be looking for:
Wedding couples
How to book a wedding
Clergy contacts
Costs
Pictures of the inside of your church
What else the church does
Music ideas
People new to the area
Do you have a church school?
What style is your worship?
Clergy contacts
Costs
Pictures of the inside of your church
What else the church does
Once you have a full list of audiences and what they want to find, you can implement your ideas.
Budget
£70 to purchase your domain and first year site hosting (£60 per year after).
Domain name
Keep it short and print it everywhere (magazines, pew sheets, posters, notice boards) 50% of people get to a website by reading the address on a piece of paper. Avoid: theparishofstjohnswithstmichaelgreenbuck.org.uk it might be accurate but not only will people never be able to type it, but people will probably stay away from your church! Go for something like greenbuck.org.uk
You will need to register with google. Type ‘register my website with google’ in google to find our how. Top tip-the more links you have on your site and the mor who link to you, the higher in google you will be. Make sure the Diocese has your web address and it should help.
Software
Frankly it is a disaster area! Rather than accessible software the trend has been for more and more complex packages.
The solution, remembering I am assuming that you want to set up a simple site, quickly, cheaply, with maybe a blog/voting polls/photo album/email/links etc, is to purchase a name/site and web site that is already built – allowing the site to be content managed (this just means you don’t need to write complex web-browser code, instead you push buttons, upload photos and type text).
Photos
Don’t copy pictures from other sites. Parishes have been fined thousands for copying a Getty image and using it without paying for it.
Free images can be found here. Or you could open an account with istock and download lots for a cost of 10p each.
Remember you only need low resolution 72dpi for screen.
Hosting/design
Freeservers
I have used this company for over ten years and built numerous sites with them. They will transfer you old address for free (if you have one), or allow you to register a new website address and all for about £70 per year. An excellent content management system is included or you can upload your own designs from your own software-remember stay away from publisher.
They also do a free option, but you get adverts on your site. I have set up a free site (which took 30 minutes to build) for you to view - you can add comments and have a discussion on some of the issues I have covered in the above by having a look at the site here: www.samplechurchsite.faithweb.com
I hope all the above helps you. Do get in touch if you need.
Website Advice
For general guidance on developing a parish website, visit the Church of England website. www.cofe.anglican.org/about/diocesesparishes/suggestions.html
