Some search for church by way of the Web - USATODAY.com
| Here's a USATODAY.com article: Some search for church by way of the Web, reminding us of what we know: People search for new churches by way of the web. In marketing your church, your web site is extremely important. Extremely important. Maybe even supremely important. Of course this leads to the whole discussion with the knuckleheads that don't believe in "marketing" their church. Like it or not, every church markets themselves by way of their ad in the phone book, their sign out front, bulletin, and the style and care of their property. Every church markets themselves. Every single one. Some do it well and some do it poorly but everyone does it. Websites need not be expensive. I've seen churches do it well with a free blog from Blogger, some use the free Google tools, some use the free forministry.com. Whatever you use, it does not have to be expensive or media intensive. It needs to be informative. I'm still shocked about how many churches have nothing. Please, please, please people: Do something. It's really not that hard. |
posted by theultrarev at 2:01 PM
Comments on "Some search for church by way of the Web - USATODAY.com"
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Luke said ... (6:11 AM, October 19, 2007) :
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theultrarev said ... (9:02 AM, October 19, 2007) :
post a commentUltraRev:
Our church web site sucks. It has, for a long time. We are a small church, and the 80/20 rule means a lot of people are stretched very thin trying to do the ministry of the church. We don't have, within our congregation, enough expertise to do a good web site - and we don't have enough money to hire someone. You're right, that web sites don't have to be expensive, but it is a trade off - the less you want to pay, the more you have to rely on in-house expertise and volunteer time and effort. The less in-house expertise, and volunteer time and effort you happen to have in your small congregation, the more you're going to have to pay.
In addition, a good web site requires updated content. Content management is tough. Telling the people that are doing ministry, that they also have to constantly write about it as well, really burdens them. And getting soemone else to do it is impossible. We've proven that.
I'd rather have no web site than have the crappy one we have...
OK. I agree. Your church web site is underwhelming. Maybe because it has too much.
I think a super minimalist site is better than no site at all. Worship times, contact info, location & directions, map, list of ministries, staff & leader directory and a couple of photos of your space -- there be done with it. Update it once a month. For just a little more effort you could update a weekly events page. Overall that's not a huge amount of time or tech expertise -- about the same as it took you to post on my blog. Hey, maybe you could be the webmaster. It would be a nice side job to being church chair. :)
We can't imagine not having our church in the phone book. Everyone in the church would think that absurd. I believe we need to think the same way about a web site.