7/5/2013

Since you have decided to delve into the digital world and invest in a website, there are some very important concepts that you need to understand before you contract out your site build. Every website builder out there is going to tell you they are the best, or that they have what you need, or that they know what you want even if you don’t. Don’t buy it. Here’s some advice from one of the top web returns on Google for “Church Website Builders” – You don’t need an easy to maintain website, unless you are going to keep it up-to-date, and you don’t need an online church directory or a podcast or a “members only” section nor do you need social media plug-ins. Don’t buy it. This is a recipe for disaster.

There are two things that you absolutely must-have for a successful web presence; scalability and longevity. Scalability is the fancy web builder term for a website that can be viewed on multiple browser formats. This means it can be accessed from a laptop, a desktop, a Smartphone, a tablet computer or any number of other mobile computing devices. If your site doesn’t look good on any one of these formats, you will fail to connect with your reader. Worse yet, if the page doesn’t load correctly the interface buttons may not work at all, and the site will be useless to visitors. Making sure that your builder is optimizing your site for several different formats and not just formatting for standard HTML 3.0.

Longevity is the other key to a web page. You need to have a format and content that will stand the test of time. By using a relatively simple format with standard buttons and utilizing headings along the left-hand column on the page, your readers will easily be able to navigate your site and find what they are looking for. Again, this doesn’t have to be an extremely complicated site. Simple, streamlined pages load fast, look better and keep people on your page longer. Adding social media plug-ins and other special areas for people to chat is definitely something to consider. The entire point of creating a website for your church is to spread the Word. Chat rooms and social media are the perfect mediums for this.

The real key to getting what you want out of a website is explaining that you want a site that allows users to participate in a dialogue. This is why a simple interface that is easy to update should be the highest priority. Google is very conscious of the freshness of a site, so the more easily it is updated the more relevant the content will be and the higher it will rank. And getting your church website to the first page of Google is the best way for it to spread the Word. If you want to make a good decision then make sure you look at the best church websites company you can partner with to develop the website you are hoping for.

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/building_scalable_websites.html

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