The hardest part about building a website and how to make it easy

Building a website… there are so many different parts to the process.

But every time we build a site for a client, we have found that same part of the process is the most difficult for them…

Creating Content

For clarification purposes, let me define what content is… Content is the text and images needed to go on every page of your website.

Seems simple, right.  Pretty straight forward.  However, creating content is what slows every website project down… sometimes to a complete standstill.

Content creation is the dam in the river, the accident during rush hour traffic, or the hairball in your drain (pretty disgusting, right).

Well, the task of creating content for most folks is disgusting and painful.  We have had websites stall for 6 months to 2 years because of the delay in creating content.

It doesn’t need to be like this…

For the next 2-3 weeks, I want to talk about why creating content is so difficult and what you can do to make it much easier when you build your website.

Keep in mind, that creating content is an issue for folks who are building their own website or who have someone else building  a custom church website.

This is because even when we build a website for a church, we don’t know the DNA, history, or stories of that church. Only those who are a part of that church can talk about those details, so it is those people who should be writing the content and providing the images for the website.

So, why is it so difficult for people to create content for a website?

The reason that most people struggle to create is broken up into 2 primary categories:

• Lack of structure
• Believing lies that they can’t do it

Lack of structure

• For most people building their own website (and some who have other website companies build their site for them), they don’t create a Content Map.  A Content Map is a spreadsheet that lists every page of your website, as well as all the items that will go into your website’s header and your footer.   Without it, you won’t know what pages you will need content for or what other content you will need for places like your header and footer.
• Once you have your content map created, it is important to schedule time to create content.  Without the structure of a schedule, most people find other work to do instead of creating content because they don’t want to do it.  Schedule time at least 3 blocks per week for at least an 2 hours at a time.  This should give you the ability to create the content needed for most church websites in just a few weeks.

Believing lies that they can’t do it

• Most folks who build a website for a church haven’t built a website before.  Because of this, they don’t think that they are capable of writing the text that “the whole world” will read.  The reality is that anybody can write the text that will go on a website.

Don’t let content creation be the dam in the river or the hairball in your drain.  – Mark Steinbrueck

Next week, we will talk about more specific steps you can take to make the creation of content easier.

Are you interested in talking about a new website for your church?  Please contact me here.

Continue reading Part 2 >>