What do you need to start a church website?
A church website is a great way to attract new people to visit the church. In today’s world of technology an online presence can be a necessary part any church.
Creating a quality is not an easy feat. There are many considerations that must be taken into account in order to get a website off the ground.
In order to start a church website you will need:
Domain Name
Lets begin with the domain name also know as the web address. This is the starting point for an individual to look up your website. There are different strategies for choosing the perfect domain name. And if you pick a domain name and then want to change it later, it is good to know that you can more than one domain name for your website.
As a general rule the shorter you make a domain name the better. People may not remember a long domain name or make a mistake typing the name in. Since shorter is better most of the very short domain name have already been registered.
Another strategy is to use the name of the town or state you are located in the name. That way people know where you are immediately.
It is also important to remember there are many different endings to choose from. The most popular ending on the web is .com but most churches are nonprofits and therefore use the .org ending. It makes no difference to the search engines which ending you use.
Once you have picked the perfect domain name you will need to find someone to host your website
Web Hosting
Think of web hosting as a traffic manager. Web hosting is important because it can determine how quickly or slowly your website loads when a person visits the site. If a website has a lot of traffic and your host can’t handle it some people wont be able to get to the website. That’s a problem!
If a website is slow running people may get frustrated and leave the website, because they don't want to wait. If your web host is unreliable your website may go off the web altogether and people wont know what going on. A great web host should be affordable, but also reliable.
Design platform
The final and most vital part of the website is the design. This is your message to the world. A great website should be beautiful, efficient, and informative. Don’t go crazy with graphics or images. Simple is powerful. Your church website should be a delivery system for your message. Give the people the vital information they need to connect with you and others.
There are many different design platforms from Wordpress to Joomla and then there're many great individual companies. A great system to use is a content management system. This allows the users to login and edit the information on the website as well as design and functions of the site. You must be careful when choosing a CMS, because many can be very difficult to manipulate and require much expertise.
And these are things needed to create a great church website. Once you put them all together, visitors will be able to find your site and engaging with the church and other members.
