One of our biggest themes throughout 2015 has been the importance of making your website mobile-friendly and responsive so it looks good and functions well on all devices. We’ve also blogged frequently about how using WordPress as the platform for your website makes it easier to make your website mobile-friendly and provides many other benefits.
Well, I’m excited to announce that this week we took our own advice and launched a brand new OurChurch.Com website.
The goals for our new website include:
- Make it mobile-friendly
- Make it looks good and functions well on all devices (responsive)
- Make it easier to update
- De-clutter and eliminate obsolete or unnecessary pages
- Preserve its good search engine rankings
- Launch as soon as possible
To accomplish these goals we performed the very same services we provide for our clients, including:
- Built a new website using WordPress (Custom Web Design)
- Created a custom, responsive WordPress theme (also part of our Custom Web Design service)
- Reviewed all the pages on the old site, created a content map which includes all the pages included in the new site, and decided which pages to delete. (also a part of our Custom Web Design service)
- Copied the content into WordPress (Website Transfer Service, also included with Custom Web Design)
- Copied all of the title and meta tag data from the old pages to the new pages to help preserve search rankings (Website Re-optimization Service)
- Created 301 redirects for the URLs of all the pages on the old site, so people and search engines going to those URLs are automatically forwarded to the corresponding page on the new site (Web Traffic Redirect Service)
- Thoroughly tested every page of the site using multiple web browsers and devices, and fixed all the issues discovered. (Custom Web Design)
Note that our because our goal was to launch as soon as possible, we did not dramatically alter the design of the site nor did we add any new functionality. We also have not yet redesigned this blog, yet, though that’s coming in 2016.
Big thanks to everyone on the OCC team! It was a total team effort!
Take a look at the new OurChurch.Com website.
We’d love to hear your feedback:
- What do you think of the new OurChurch.Com site?
- What comments or questions do you have about the services performed to create and launch it?
Co-founder & CEO, OurChurch.Com
Paul has been the CEO of OurChurch.Com since its founding in 1996, combining his passion for faith and technology to lead the organization.
An accomplished writer, Paul has authored over 2,000 articles on faith and technology, featured on platforms like ChurchLeaders.com, The JoyFM, and his personal blog, LiveIntentionally.org.
Beyond his professional achievements, Paul serves as an elder at Journey Community Church and is deeply engaged in his community through his involvement with the Florida Sheriffs Youth Ranch and the Safety Harbor Chamber of Commerce. He is a contributing author of the book Outspoken! Conversations on Church Communication.