As a church plans a website, that church needs to decide who is going to be responsible for the website. There needs to be someone in charge, someone ultimately responsible for keeping the site running and keeping it updated.

There are several routes to go on this. One is to use volunteers. Rarely is this a good idea. Volunteers have good intentions, but when push comes to shove, their other commitments will take priority. There are exceptions to this, but they are few.

Another solution is to use an outside party. Hire a web designer who will be willing to perform updates. Depending on who you choose, this can be expensive. I’ve seen this work well; I’ve seen this work poorly. One possibility, of course, is to pay someone in the congregation. This has its risks as well. Many times the person feels compelled to charge the church very little, then views the work as a favor and not a service. I think the church should say, “We’ll pay your going rate. If you then want to donate some of that back, it’s your business. But we will pay what’s fair.”

What usually works best is to have a site with a content management system which the staff can handle. Have someone on staff responsible for keeping the site up and running. If they don’t have the know how to troubleshoot problems, make sure they have quick access to phone numbers of those that do. A well-designed site shouldn’t need much maintenance, merely content updates.

Given my choice, I’d have a professional design the site (I’d have it done on WordPress, though there are other options), then have someone already on staff maintain the site.

Do you have other suggestions as to how a church can keep things running smoothly?

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?

Over at Church Marketing Sucks, Kevin Hendricks has done an excellent series on creating church sites. The first post in the series hits on something that often gets overlooked: the planning stage.

According to this post, 22% of churches don’t have websites. If you find yourself in the 22%, it’s easy to want to get something up quickly. We need a site now. We need to be on YouTube and Twitter and Flickr and Facebook and Google+ and YouVerse and… we need it all now.

Hang on there, Kemosabe. Before doing anything, there are some questions to be addressed. Hendricks has done a good job of pointing out some of the most important.

How does your church communicate? What do you communicate? Why do you communicate it? Who’s your audience? What’s the best way to reach that audience? What are your goals? How are you going to reach those goals? What’s your style? Who’s responsible for the communication? Who makes the final decisions? Is communication a priority?

Before you start filming videos and writing your “About Us” statement, take some time and work through these questions. Doing that at the very beginning will save you lots of headaches down the road.

Can you think of other questions that need to be addressed in the initial planning stage?

There are so many cool features that can be added to a website. There are wondrous visual effects, slick technical tricks, amazing feats of audio-visual magic. Most of it adds little to a website and much of it actually hinders its functionality.

A site needs to be visually attractive; there are some church websites that scream 1995 when you open them, with the little animated icons and boxy layout. There are others that are so visually overwhelming that its next to impossible to find any real information. Every time you move your cursor, something new pops up at you. Videos are running on both sides of the page, with a slideshow moving across the middle.

And please, PLEASE, get rid of the splash page. You know, that landing page that has no real content on it. There was a moment in time when that was appealing. But those three minutes and 40 seconds have passed. People don’t want to go to your site, then have to click to actually get to any real content. They want to read something now. Reports show that people become impatient if a page takes more than a second to load, and if it takes over 10 seconds, they’ll usually go elsewhere.

Never lose sight of the fact that, when it comes to church websites, content is king. People want information. Yes, like I say, an ugly website can create a bad impression. But a website that won’t load because they don’t have the SnazzMaster™ plugin on their computer also creates a bad impression.

Think about our technology. Why are mp3s so popular? Because of their quality? No. Because of their accessibility. Why do newscasts now show cellphone videos? Because of the high def picture they produce? Nope. Its because the information can be had now. In many ways, the text message is a huge step backwards. But it’s become the dominant communication form for a whole generation. Is it pretty? Not at all. No bells. No whistles. But it works, right now. That’s what you want on your website. Something that works. Right now.

Or do you see it differently? I’d like to hear your experiences with websites in general and church websites in particular.