Your church website is often times the first impression that a person gets about a ministry. Too many times, however, I’ve seen church websites that are only electronic newspaper ads that give contact information and some pictures. There is so much more that your website can do to not only promote your ministry, but also have people attracted to it, returning again and again.
Here are ten ways that you can modify your church website to make it more magnetic:
1. Pastor’s Corner – Here the Pastor can give a daily devotion or a special editorial on a current event or topic. This works best if it is a daily updated part of the website. Members will want to return to the website to see what the Pastor has to say every day.
2. Video / Audio Cast – What happens if a member can’t make the service on Sunday? He/She can either pick up the dvd or cd of the message or he/she can watch it straight from the website. There are many services that will allow you to host your video or audio files for free or for a small monthly fee. In a later post, I’ll go into more detail on how you can do this. Video or audio casts are also a great tool to reach those people who can’t get to the church. They also serve to give visitors an idea of what they can expect by becoming a member.
3. Photo Album – Most church websites already have a photo album page. To improve on this, you can have photos from each Sunday service uploaded to the site on a regular basis. Members will know that every Monday, there will be a new set of photos up on the website, and they’ll go take a look. Plus, if their picture is on the site, they’ll call their friends and relatives to go take a look. It’s a good way to publicize and evangelize. You can strategically place links to the page that shares your evangelistic message.
4. Prayer Requests – You can have a page where members (and even non-members) post their prayer requests. You can invite people to reply with written prayers, or the Pastor or one of the staff members can reply with a prayer. Members will return to read the prayers that people are posting in response to the requests.
5. Testimony Page – Just like a Prayer Request page, you can add a page that highlights what God is doing in the lives of your members. Again, it’s one of those pages that people will want to visit again and again.
6. Embedded YouTube Videos of Current Music – Add some YouTube videos of popular Christian artists to your site. Again, strategically add some text that invites people to check out other pages from your site, you can get your visitors to view the rest of your site.
7. Member Interviews – If you have a video camera, even a Flip Video Camera
8. Christian Radiocast – Some people will listen to music online while they’re doing the dishes or cooking dinner. Why not have them listen from your church website? Just embed some code into a page, and you can have Christian music streaming out of your site.
9. What Does This Scripture Mean To You? – In every congregation, you will find members who want to share their knowledge of the Bible. They are the ones who are always sending you emails about what they found while reading their Bible. Here is a way that you can allow them to share their insights about a particular scripture. They’ll come back again and again to share their opinion and read what others have replied.
10. Project Updates -If you have a current project that you are working on like a building addition, you can include updates on the progress. You can add pictures and interviews, along with comments by the people involved.
I know that it will take a committment on the part of the person who is the church’s web designer, who is often the Pastor who is already occupied with other church matters, and it may be difficult to make use of all of these strategies, but if you can incorporate at least a couple, you will see that the number of visitors to your church’s website will increase.
I will be adding posts that go into deeper detail about each of these strategies in the coming days. Please subscribe to the RSS feed or sign up for the UTR Newsletter to get updates. You can also follow me on Twitter.
Is there any strategy in particular that you would like me to elaborate on? Are there any strategies that you have used that I can add to this list? Please let me know.
Blessed!
Sam