Design, Marketing, Strategy
19

First Impressions Matter – 12 Tips for Ministry Websites

Posted by John Saddington on Jan 22, 2009

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First impressions are pretty important and since I blogged about one way to have a great first impression I thought I’d share some tips I’ve learned through the years.

So here are 10 Quick Tips for making sure your ministry or church website produces maximum effect:

1. Load Time and Speed – I blogged about this already here. If your site is slow they are going to leave. Period.Most of us are very impatient and slow loading pages will not make us want to return.

2. Don’t be Broken – If you’ve got errors on your site please fix them. How can you “control” your experience if it breaks?

3. Beauty and Brand – Beauty is not often completely in the “eye of the beholder”. Apparently, there are colors that really “work” with who you are and what you’re trying to communicate. In addition, logo branding is just as important. Is it memorable? Perhaps it was ugly, so they didn’t.

4. Images – Images can really speak volumes. Choose them wisely and make them effective. Images at the very top can significantly help first impressions. BAM. Did that connect? And make them high quality. Get some good photos of real people in there too!

5. Fonts – Typography is another word for this. Mark Boulton is the man. Read his stuff here.

6. Layout and Architecture – There is genius in layout. Apparently, we all read things very similar, top down, left to right. Does your layout speak to the human condition? Is it laid out that simple, easy to use, attractive, intuitive?

7. Ads – Not in the traditional sense, but “advertisements” for your many ministries within your organization can really cramp your initial style. So WHAT if you’ve got a great “Children’s Easter Play Date Special on Friday?” Perhaps that big banner on the top of your site for it shouldn’t be there…

8. Navigation – If you can’t find it then it really isn’t there. Poll your congregation, random people. “Hey, can you find ____________?” [Fill in the blank.] If not, you lose.

9. We Are… – Is it obvious WHO YOU ARE as a ministry and/or organization? Can someone identify your “Mission” immediately? What’s the purpose? What’s the point?

10. 90’s Elements – Apparently, some church websites still have extremely ugly hit counters, animated GIFS, and flaming horizontal rules… Please, spare us.  Popups are in this category too. Kill them.

11. Accessibility – Buzzword here we come. This would include browser compatibility, etc. Make it usable to those that aren’t just like you.

12. Media – Audio and Video are very cool. Use wisely and sparingly. Don’t blast us with music when we first get there either, and no auto-play please.

Would you add anymore?

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John Saddington

John is the Chief Editor @ The 8BIT Network and Senior Blog Junkie here at ChurchCrunch.He enjoys Triple-Tall Americanos, developing Wordpress Themes, and a few other Random Things.

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19 Responses to “First Impressions Matter – 12 Tips for Ministry Websites”

  1. Phillip Gibb
    Thursday, January 22, 2009 at 1:42 pm

    hear hear, I must forward this to guys talking about improving our website, but they probably read Church Crunch anyhow. One thing I would like to see is more Video rather than just lots of words; while keeping the video short, purposeful and high quality without killing the bandwidth and cap (with is so important in South Africa)

    Reply
    • human3rror
      Thursday, January 22, 2009 at 1:49 pm

      Sweet. Thanks for that. Are you speaking “generally” or for this blog?

      Reply
  2. Phillip Gibb
    Thursday, January 22, 2009 at 1:56 pm

    I was meaning for my church's website: http://stellenbergcc.org.za/it needs more engaging content – esp video.
    As well as removing the gormless picture of me, lol

    Reply
  3. Frank Johnson
    Thursday, January 22, 2009 at 3:40 pm

    I would say the most important thing for a church website is to tell the stories of real people. Our "brand" is our people and 99% of church websites I see are all about the organization. The easiest way to see how a church thinks of itself – as an institution or as people – is to take a look at the “About Us” or “Who We Are” menu on their website. Churches that think of themselves as an institution tend to populate their “About Us” menus with items like “Core Values,” “Leadership Team,” “Mission,” “Vision,” “How To Give,” etc. That’s the language of an institution, not of a community, and I believe it turns off unbelievers.

    I love to see church websites which present the stories of real people – not religious testimonies, but simple life stories (which can't help but involve a person's relationship with Christ but which are much broader than traditional testimonies). Such stories give unbelievers something to connect with (and feel a part of the community in some small sense) prior to joining us at a physical gathering. It's something that I think is very important if our church websites are going to play a part in reaching our local geographic areas for Christ.

    Reply
    • Daniel_Berman
      Thursday, January 22, 2009 at 4:44 pm

      Frank, could you elaborate a bit on your concepts of "About Pages." What is the language of the community in your understanding? From your perspective, how would a community describe itself in an about page? Especially one that's just beginning?

      Reply
      • Frank Johnson
        Friday, January 23, 2009 at 2:58 am

        Hi Daniel. Awhile back, I designed a church website which reflected the principles I advocate (unfortunately, it's no longer live because the staff members who had caught the vision I presented have moved on).

        The About Us page was actually fairly traditional because the pastor had something specific he wanted to appear there. To present a more people-centric flavor, we had a page we called "What To Expect." On that page, we answered a number of questions (in fact, you can still see the content on this church website – http://www.thehighbridge.com/expect.html- I'm pretty sure this is one of the churches that asked us for permission to use the text).

        But on the site I'm talking about, above those questions and answers, we had a section called "Who Will I Meet?" When we launched the site, that section had links to 5 other sections of the site, centered around the stories of real people in the congregation – a man who suffered from Hepatitis-C because of drug use in his early life, a former right rear tire man on a winning Indianapolis 500 team (and a former alcoholic), an actor/musician, a 13-year-old girl with leukemia, and a man who spent much of his early life as a devotee of Eastern religions. Each of those people-centered sections included a profile of the person, an interview transcript (most of them were quite long), and a page of links to web-based resources which fit their life experiences.

        The idea was not to present religious testimonies, but life stories. So, for example, most of the interview with the 13-year-old girl was about how she found out how she had leukemia, about how she coped with chemotherapy, about her swimming exploits at her high school (she was quite accomplished), about how she was part of the Olympic Torch relay in 2002. Of course, for people who love Jesus, those broader life stories still touched upon their relationship with God. I still remember listening to the audio recording when the interviewer asked her if she was scared of dying. Her answer brought me to tears (still does when I think about it) – she said that she was not afraid because she knew where she was going when she died, but she was afraid for her family because they would have to cope with her death.

        Our thought was that presenting that story (eventually, we also wanted to have video clips but we never got there) to people in our local geographic area would hopefully cause those who were young and had leukemia would want to meet her, and that through that, unbelievers would be drawn into the community of believers and eventually commit their lives to Christ as they witnessed the love of Christ lived out within the community.

        We also had a section on the home page that rotated various tantalizing questions (and links to the corresponding people-centric sections). For example, one of the home-page elements linked to the section which was about the Indy 500 right-rear-tire man and said this "Do You Love Auto Racing? Click here to read how a champion driver (he wasn't just a right-rear-tire man) finds satisfaction in life through devoting his life to a greater cause." Each people-centric section had two or three such home-page elements in the rotation.

        Initially, the stated objective was to interview every person in the church. At first, we chose people who had intriguing stories from a human perspective, but our conviction was/is that everyone has a story to tell and that every person's story can/will provide a touchpoint for an unbeliever in a local geographic area. And hopefully draw them into the community of believers.

        If you're interested in more on the idea, you could read these articles on one of my blogs:

        Effective Church Websites for Emerging Generations – http://tinyurl.com/b229ma
        A Strategy For Local Internet Outreach – http://tinyurl.com/2c7pqw

        Hope that helps!

        Frank

        Reply
        • Daniel_Berman
          Friday, January 23, 2009 at 5:01 am

          Frank,
          Thank you so much for this., It will take me some time to digest but it looks like good material. I am working on something (http://issacharnetwork.org)that has a big vision but needs a lot work. Hopefully your tips will help.

          Reply
        • Daniel_Berman
          Friday, January 23, 2009 at 5:01 am

          Frank,
          Thank you so much for this., It will take me some time to digest but it looks like good material. I am working on something (http://issacharnetwork.org) that has a big vision but needs a lot work. Hopefully your tips will help.

          Reply
  4. Brad Davis Seal
    Friday, January 23, 2009 at 12:42 am

    An easy way to sign up for updates and news via email is also important since it help bring people back to your site on a regular basis.

    Reply
  5. AdrianRodriguez
    Friday, January 23, 2009 at 2:57 am

    Thanks for the tips and some tips from comments as well, I am getting ready to start something new, so I will try and utilize these tips.

    Reply
    • human3rror
      Friday, January 23, 2009 at 3:12 am

      sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!? what is it?

      Reply
    • Daniel_Berman
      Friday, January 23, 2009 at 5:03 am

      Echo Human3rror on this, looking forward to the unveiling!

      Reply
  6. Bobby Shirley
    Friday, January 23, 2009 at 7:05 am

    Great post! So true.

    Reply
  7. Brad Davis Seal
    Friday, January 23, 2009 at 4:09 pm

    For layout and architecture ideas, Konigi http://konigi.com/is an amazing showcase of creative interface and visual design for web sites.

    Reply

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