Tuesday, September 19, 2006

How To Ineffectively Use Your Church Website

The folks at If Jesus Had A Web Site have a great post: How To Ineffectively Use Your Church Website
It's obviously tongue-in-cheek, but sometimes that's the best way to make the point. Here are some of the things we can do / not do which will help make a church website completely useless.
  • Don't Post Your Service Times - After all, why would anyone want to know when the service started?
  • Don't Post Your Location/Address - This is especially ineffective for churches that do not have their own buildings.
  • Don't Post Any Contact Information - If they really want to get a hold of you, they can just use the phone book, right? No chance they'd just move on to the next church website.
  • Use A "My First Website" Design - No, this doesn't make it look like we're not even trying, or that we're completely behind the times.
  • Write About What Your Church Won't Stand For - Nothing oozes love like singling out all the things your church hates.
    [PM - unless of course you belong to a certain strand of church, but then you are very picky about who comes]
  • Have Broken Links - Because people can just look at the Status Bar and figure out where the link was supposed to go.
  • Have Music Playing In The Background - If they don't like the same music you do, then you don't want them at your church anyway.
    [PM - this is a killer; if there is music on a site, and no obvious way to turn it off (i.e. within 5 seconds, I am out-of-there)]
  • Don't Keep Your Website Content Up-to-Date - Surely, visitors will realize that you just don't have the time to get them information.
    [PM - this is hard isn't it, there is often stuff to do that means we don't get to it]
  • Don't Even Bother Having A Website - We like our members like we like our Senators, over 30!

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