Information on Developing Your Parish Websites
How to's
Designing Your Parish Website
Your parish community presence on the web
Adding Content to Your Website
Resources:
Open the door to your congregation
Worship, Websites, Conflict Affect Your Congregation's Growth
Maintaining your presence
Once you have established your web site, you must maintain your presence by keeping your site fresh with content and free of errors. We offer several thoughts to keep in mind to be sure that your site stays useful on a daily basis:
- Update event calendars regularly - Your visitors, whether first time or frequent, will be interested in knowing about your congregation's activities. Out of date information gives the impression that providing activity information is a low priority. If weekly calendar updates seem overwhelming, consider creating a monthly event calendar so you need to update less frequently.
- Check the status of the site often - It is a good idea to visit your site at least once a week in the most frequently used browsers - Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator and AOL’s browser to check for errors. Always check the site after you make changes or additions. Regular periodic checks are necessary since your site might experience a problem, and if so you will want to know it as soon as possible. You might consider asking a group of volunteer teen web surfers to spend a few minutes visiting the site in different browsers each week. They can notify you of any problems they encounter.
- Respond quickly to email requests - Whether the request is for more information or a correct link, a quick response to visitors shows that you are not trying to hide behind the "web wall." Just as you would greet visitors to your service, follow up any email to the site with a quick thank you, even if you need to hold off on actually fulfilling the request. You may want to consider having web site emails routed to an address that you know will be checked regularly. Don’t leave your virtual visitors waiting at your door.
- Add new information continually - One thing that keeps visitors coming back is knowing that they will find new information each visit. This new content might be links to web sites that are useful for your members, your pastor’s sermon text, or articles of interest. For example, you may want to bring the recent release of survey information from the Faith Communities Today project to your congregation’s attention, or provide them with links to your town’s informational sites, or the best web sites that offer parenting tips.
If your site serves as an information directory for your web users, they will be more likely to come to your site first rather than go it alone on the web and conduct their own searches. This encourages a sense of community and trust in your web users, with your or the church leadership acting as editors and screeners of web content. The web can be scary and overwhelming for some persons; but you can help put them at ease by giving them what they need to know in one trusted location.
- Encourage feedback - An easy way to maintain and develop your site is to encourage visitor feedback. You should always ask for suggestions and provide an email address, guest book or feedback form to facilitate the sharing of these suggestions. Listening to your users helps you to create new information that those travel your site really want.
- Resubmit your site to search engines - Although you may have submitted your site to several search engines, consider looking for new search engines or collections of links that may be newly created. You might try paying for search engine submission. Resubmit every six months, especially if you have added new pages, changed page locations, or if you revised the content considerably.
Other Web Site Construction Guides for CongregationsWeb Site Development for Religious Organizations
How to make a church Web page
by the Presbyterian Church, USAPutting your church on the web
by the Disciples of Christ ChurchCreating Church Web Pages
information provided by the General Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church.Web Site Development for Religious Organizations
A site offering extensive information on planning, publishing, and maintenance of organizational web sites.
The Hartford Institute Webmaster Survey
Summary of a Survey of Church Webmasters
Students from Hartford’s Seminary Fall 2000 course on Religion and the Internet surveyed webmasters from 63 U.S. congregational web sites. These sites represented Muslim, Jewish, Catholic, and both conservative and liberal Protestantism congregations. Although the sample was small, there are many interesting findings from this glimpse into the process of creating and maintaining a congregational web site.
Reviews of congregational web sites
Read our reviews of select congregational web sites. This section analyzes congregational web sites and points out positive aspects while offering some suggestions that may improve the quality of that site.
