In some areas, the church can afford to learn from the world. When it comes to websites, one thing that people in the world realize is that you have to have a call to action. What do you want people to do?
If your site is mainly for your members, your goal may not be as sharp. You may want your shut-ins watching the stream of the service, your teens checking the youth calendar, your parents looking at pictures of their kids, etc. But if you have any interest in creating a site that will be of use to outsiders, you need to put some thought into what you want them to do. “Just look at everything” isn’t focused enough; they’ll spend 15 seconds looking at everything, then head elsewhere. You need to think how you’ll measure “success.”
It may be that your goal is to get them to visit your assembly. If so, that needs to be a focal point on your home page. Assembly times and directions. A description of what goes on. Pictures, videos, sermon downloads… anything that you can do to give them a better idea of what to expect. They want to know how to dress. They want to know what goes on. They want some kind of assurance that if they go, they’ll be able to participate at their comfort level.
Your goal might be to establish a more personal contact. If that’s the case, have prominent links to forms where they can leave their information. Make telephone numbers available, making it plain that you welcome calls. Some churches even keep a live chat open, with members taking turns interacting with visitors.
There are other possible goals, like getting visitors to attend a special activity, enrolling them in a study course, subscribing them to a newsletter, etc. It’s important that you decide what your main goal is, even if you want to have other options available to them. And the site itself should make that goal clear and move people toward that desired action.
What suggestions do you have as to how to interact with visitors? Do you know of examples of churches that are implementing this well?
We recently had our site re-done. We wanted something that was attractive, functional, and informative of who we are and what we are doing for God and for our community. Some people won’t stick around if your information is old or unattractive. We also included an event invite form on the site where members can plug in the email address of a friend to have an attractive looking flyer sent directly to their email.
Matt,
I like the event invite idea. Very nice.
We offer two things, but neither is the focal point of our site. (I can’t say that I really know what the focal point of the site is. We seem to just throw up a bunch of stuff and hope some of it will stick.)
We offer a Bible Correspondence Course and we have a “Question Box.”
Each of these probably averages a couple of requests per week when looked at over a long period of time. Could that be “ginned up” some? Probably – by listing some recent questions on the home page with links to answers – and maybe having something more than a link in a long list of links to the BCC on the home page. The other stuff is sometimes very much not related to anything we are doing at church or that would have any interest to others in the community.
I also like the emailed invitation idea. That could make it much easier for members to invite friends to church events. Publishing sermon topics ahead of time – with the opportunity to email invitations could also prove useful.
Jerry
Tim,
I’d be interested in your thoughts on http://wfrchurch.org.
Thanks,
Royce
Royce,
Here are some quick thoughts:
• Kudos on having a mobile version. That’s something I want to talk about during this series.
• I’m not a big fan of “opening sequences,” but your site’s was brief and the rest of the site loaded quickly.
• I like the play off of WFR, with Worship, Family, Rescue. I would make that a little more prominent if I were designing the site. (although I’m not sure how outsiders would react to “Rescue”; I might look for a different R)
• I found it hard to find where to click. My eye was drawn to “How To Be Involved” in the middle of the page, but there was nowhere close to that where I could click. I finally realized that the button was up near the top. There’s an awful lot of site descriptions that draw my attention but offer nothing clickable.
• If I were a visitor, I think I would be put off by the donation button at the top, especially because you expect the top of the page to tell you what the site is. I, personally, would move that to the side.
• The site does a good job of pushing social media interactions.
• Nice mix of media and opportunities on the site.
Those are some quick impressions. Overall, a nice-looking site.
Grace and peace,
Tim