Technology has been a tough area to tackle for the church. Most pastors do not have the knowledge of what it takes to build an effective presence with their church web sites. Hopefully I will be able to help out in this area, so that you can build a more effective site with a strong online presence. Listed below are five ways to help accomplish this.
1. Find good, high-quality images for your website. Images can help emphasize your church’s message.
- Stock.xchng is a site containing images that can be freely used on your site. You may have to search a bit to find what you want, but this is a good starting point.
- StockExpert charges per image download. The prices are based on image size, and are very fair.
- iStockPhoto is similar to StockExpert, and also charges for each image download. I have used images from this site in my work.
- VectorStock is a great resource used in much of my work. Some experience or familiarity in working with vector files will make this website easier for you to use.
2. Make use of social networking. This is an essential part of building relationships online with your church members. Get together with teenagers in the church for more social networking ideas.
- Facebook, at http://www.facebook.com is a great way to start networking – preferable to MySpace, in my opinion. Here, you can search for and add friends, and find people in your area to connect with and share information about your church website.
- Twitter, at http://www.twitter.com is a way to keep friends updated on what the current events are. You can also connect to other new friends in this way.
3. Eliminate outdated pages on your church websites. For example, having information posted regarding when last year’s Christmas events will take place does not benefit your site. You should always have the most current information available, so if you know you will not be able to maintain a page and keep it up-to-date, do not put it on your site to begin with.
4. Register with a search engine such as Google. If you do not register your site with a search engine, how can you expect the search engine to provide your site as a result to a search query? If you have not registered or are not sure if you have registered your site, go here and check.
5. Have an email address related to your church website’s domain. Your email address is another form of marketing. If you are using pastor@gmail.com, you are not marketing your website. Contact the hosting company of your church website and arrange to have an email address set up.
Many of the suggestions listed above are simple ways to increase the popularity of your church websites. They are also very commonly ignored or left out, and this is a mistake when you want to improve your church web sites. I hope that by using these suggestions, your church will have a great year in 2011!
