Building a Good Church Website

If your parish or mission would like to create a website for our church, you have a number of decisions to make before you sit down at a keyboard.

What are the goals of your site?

• Do you have the resources necessary to meet your goals? 
• Money? 
• Equipment? 
• Skills? 
• Time? 
• People

Who is your audience? 

• Are they churched? 
• Unchurched?
• Or are you thinking of a targeted ministry, by age groups, ethnic populations, special-needs visitors?

How will your website be structured? 

• Keep in mind that if it becomes very complex, it may be difficult to find volunteers to maintain it.
• Top navigation? Side navigation? Make sure navigation is visible on all pages.
• Frames? (Remember that not all browsers work with frames)
• Database driven?

Who will create and maintain your site? 

• An individual parishioner, committee, or friend of the parish? 
• A professional website firm?

What about finding a home for your site on the web?

You have several options for putting your site on the web, including:

Using a free website hosting service for religious organizations using their online page templates, like Episcopal Church Web Hosting or forministry.com. 
   Let's suppose the name of your parish is 'Our Church' and is located in Absecon, NJ, whose zip code is 08201. Episcopal Church Web Hosting is for parishes and missions lacking resources to host their own website. You can purchase your own domain using ECWH so your URL looks like 'ourchurch.org', and you can utilize your own design. 
    If you were to use forministry.com, the URL (website address) your visitors would use is http://www.forministry.com/oc08201, and no HTML or other website coding knowledge is needed. 

Design your own site and 'rent' server space on something like Verizon or ATT, or any other of the many web hosting companies available. If you go this route, make sure you know what type of server they have, as some website features work on Microsoft-based systems but not on other servers. This allows you to have your own domain name, like ourchurchinabsecon.org. 

1. You'll need to register the domain: search 'domain registration' on your favorite search engine to see a list of companies. Many offer both domain registration and website hosting. 
2. Once you have reserved and paid for your domain, you point that to the server your site is hosted on, unless the registration company is also hosting your site, in which case this step is taken care of for you. 
3. You create your website and transfer the files to that server

You design and host your own site on your own server. This is the most expensive, technically challenging, and flexible route. It requires that you:

1. Have 24/7 access to a network administrator, either someone in your parish or someone with whom you contract to provide network oversight. 
2. Provide your own equipment, connection to the internet, and network security.

Register your domain and point it to your server.

1. Design your website and post the files to your server.

Make sure you let people know how to get to your website!  Also, if you use option 2 or 3, make sure that if someone searches for your site, they will find it. Be sure to post your URL (website address):

• To Google.com. They have a free listing option. 
• In your Sunday service leaflet, on your bulletin board, and on your church sign.
• Submit it to the websexton for posting on this website.
• If your service times are printed in the newspaper or phone book, include it there.
• On your church's letterhead.

Keep your site updated. if your website contains out-of-date information, visitors may pass it by, costing you the opportunity to minister to them.