Why?

It appears that you, the Christian Web Trends community, simply aren’t interested.

In January and February we did 7 reviews.  Those posts averaged 2.5 comments excluding my own.  Those posts also averaged just 1 retweet excluding my own.  Additionally, as time went on we’ve got fewer and fewer requests for reviews, and many of those who requested reviews did not comment on the blog which was one of the requirements.

Add to that the fact that the reviews are very time consuming, and it just didn’t make any sense to continue doing them.

The positive is that those organizations whose sites were reviewed for the most part found them to be very helpful.  In fact I just saw a comment from Justin at The Grove Church in Hattiesburg, MS (review) that he completely redesigned their site, making a lot of the recommended improvements.

Paul Steinbrueck

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. 

steinbrueck.org

The post Wednesday Website Weviews Update appeared first on Christian Web Trends Blog: Church Websites, Design, SEO.

In the two weeks since, we have been hard at work implementing those recommendations.  Mike Cotton, one of our web designers, did a design consultation over the phone with the church’s web administrator Barb Stuck.  Then Mike went to work creating a custom template with a custom Flash header.  Barb wrote content for the site.  And reorganized the menu and redesigned most of the pages.  We wrapped up the work today, so now it’s time to…

Move That Bus!!!

Appearance & Layout

This is what the site used to look like.

I recommended a custom template be created with a custom header that includes the church’s logo.  This is what we created for them.

The new template is much more attractive.  The new header includes the churche’s logo and utilizes Flash to animate some of the church’s values and rotate through a set of images.

Navigation & Usability

Before, there were too many (15) links in the main navigation menu.

In the review I wrote, “There are too many items in the main menu.  Pages should be organized into a handful of sub-menus. It would also be helpful if there was an ‘About” or “New to FBC’ section of the site specifically designed for visitors.

Here’s the new navigation menu.

The new navigation menu has 6 items in the main menu.  It utilizes drop-down sub-menus. It’s much easier for a person to find their way around. It also has a new “New to FBC?” link for visitors.

Mission & Goals

The church’s mission comes through right away in the pastor’s welcome message on the homepage.  In addition to that, the church’s mission statement is easy to find in the About Us sub-menu.

Content

Before the content of the site was poor.  The homepage had nothing but a picture of the church on it.  Many of the pages had nothing on them at all.  Those that did had no images and were not formatted well.  Here’s an example.

These were my recommendations…

Let’s start with the homepage.

• There ought to be some kind of a welcome message from the pastor or at least the church’s mission statement.
• I would also suggest replacing the picture with a larger picture with people prominent.

Other general notes about the content

• Complete or get rid of pages that are currently blank.
• Include at least one picture on each page, either a real picture of people in the church or a stock photo.
• The “Website under construction” on the homepage needs to go.  Either use the news module to show upcoming activities or remove it.
• Remove the Bible search from below the navigation menu.
• Google makes it easy to embed a map into the map page.

Here’s a look at the new homepage.

It’s not mind-blowingly awesome. There are a some cool things we could have done, like create custom graphics for the services, sermon series, and upcoming events, but we decided to keep it simple. The site was built with OurChurch.Com’s NE1 Web Builder, and there’s nothing we did with the content than any novice user couldn’t do with the web builder.

Now there’s a nice message from the pastor as well as his picture.  Service times and on the homepage as well as a description of the current sermon series.  Some of the clutter was removed too.

Additionally…

• Barb provided content for many pages on the site, which we inserted for her.
• We added images to every page of the site.
• We removed the remaining pages that had no content.
• We added a calendar.
• We embedded a Google Map into the Contact Us page.

Finding the Website

The title, keywords, and description meta tags were optimized Church, Libby, and Montana.  Keywords were added to the alt and title tags of some of the images.  These changes were made today, so there hasn’t been time for them to influence Faith Bible Church’s search rankings, but they should have a positive impact soon.

Interactivity & Social Networking

Two weeks ago when we did the initial review, FBC had no interactivity on their site and no social media presence.  Since then, however, they created a Facebook Group, which already has 38 members.  And unless you’re blind, you probably noticed the big, honkin’ Facebook icon added to the site just below the navigation menu.

A Facebook Page would have been a much better option than a group, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.

Conclusion

We implement all 5 of the top 5 recommendations from the original review. The additional recommendation of a “New to FBC” page was also added as well as a Facebook group.

What do you think of the change and the new site now?

Paul Steinbrueck

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. 

steinbrueck.org

The post Extreme Website Makeover Complete – Move That Bus! appeared first on Christian Web Trends Blog: Church Websites, Design, SEO.

Background

Pastor Bob Beal requested the review writing, “I am new to using a website and would like help on doing a better job with it.”

A little more about the site:

• The site was created using Church Web Works
• Target audience: We are trying to reach people of all ages
• Budget: As economical as possible.
• Goals: Not sure.

Appearance & Layout

I’m sorry to say it looks like the cheap, non-custom template site that it is.  The gray and blue is a rather dull color set.  It’s good that there are images in the header, but I suggest switching out the images of the table, empty room, and whatever is in the “Peace” image for more images with people in them.  And in my opinion the transition effect with the circles is kind of cheesy.

For what it’s worth, I’m not a huge fan of the logo.  Noah’s Ark has become such a popular baby/kids theme, that I think it will be hard for most adults not to get the impression that the church is either childish or out of touch.  If the church is serious about reaching people in the community, I would seriously consider renaming and rebranding the church.

Navigation & Usability

It’s good that there are only 7 main items in the navigation menu.  However, there are far too many sub-menu items under “About Us” and many of them don’t really belong there.

I would suggest the following changes:

• Move “Contact Us” and make it a main navigation link.
• Create a “Communications” main menu item
• Put Pastor Bob’s Blog, Prayer, Discussion Forums, Guestbook, and IT Support & suggestions plus the Events, Video and Links pages in the Communications menu
• That means the Events, Media, and Links are no longer in the main menu
• If you’re serious about reading unbelievers, consider moving the “Wondering about God” page in the main menu

Purpose & Goals

The welcome statement on the homepage communicates what the church and the website are about.  Though, I would suggest adding a call to action at the end.  Something like,   “Please come join us for worship this Sunday or contact us if there’s anything we can do to help you.”

Content

First of all, remove the counter from the right sidebar.  It makes the site look dated not to mention unused (only 246 visitors).

I suggest adding at least one image (preferably one that has people in it) to every page.

There are lots of pages that have no content at all.  Either add content or remove them.

Finding the Website

I searched Google for “churches in Manchester, NH” and The ARK Church of God was not the top 30 general or local search results.  In Yahoo, The ARK was #1 in the local listings but not in the top 30 general listings.  In Bing, it was not in the top 30 for either the local or general search results.  So, there’s quite a bit of room for improvement here.

I would start by registering a local search listing in Google and Bing.

I would also suggest adding “Manchester, NH” to the title tag, description meta tag, keywords meta tag, and the content on the homepage.

Another option would be to purchase a church search marketing service.

Interactivity & Social Media

There are forums on the site, but they aren’t being used.  Most churches have a difficult time getting the critical mass needed to make forums worthwhile.  I suggest either rallying 5-10 core people who will post regularly to the forums or get rid of them.

The pastor has a blog.  That’s good.  It looks like it was just started last week and there’s only one post.  Blogging takes consistency, so be sure to post at least once a week.

The church doesn’t appear to be doing any social networking.  There are no links to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, or any other social sites.

Conclusion

My honest opinion is I think the website gives the impression that the church is old, boring, and somewhat out of touch.  But the good news is significant improvements can be made without a lot of time and money.  My top suggestions are:

1. Select a better template or better yet have one custom designed.
2. Eliminate the counter from the right sidebar.
3. Reorganize the navigation menu.
4. Add content or remove blank pages.
5. Add at least one image to each page.

To really take the site to the next level I recommend:

• Have a professional web developer create a custom site for the church.
• Have a professional optimize and register the site for search engines.
• Test the waters in Facebook and Twitter.
• Consider renaming and rebranding the church.

What do you think?  Agree or disagree with any of the recommendations?  Do you have any other suggestions for The ARK Church of God?

If you’d like a free, professional review of your website, just click.  Remember to be eligible to have your site reviewed next week, you must comment on one of this week’s blog posts.

Paul Steinbrueck

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. 

steinbrueck.org

The post Wednesday Website Weview: The ARK Church of God, Manchester, NH appeared first on Christian Web Trends Blog: Church Websites, Design, SEO.

Background

Barb Stuck requested the review and wrote, “I know very little about this whole arena and need every bit of constructive input that I can get. I feel that we need to present our church with a more current approach. Our website definitely does not have a current look.”

A little more about the site:

• The site was created using OurChurch.com’s NE1 Web Builder
• Target audience: those who are searching to know more about God or looking for a church home as well as info for our own people
• Budget: only for the cost of our hosting.
• Goals: I would like to update the look of the site (pictures, layout) to make it more current. Also either complete the pages that are “under construction” or delete them rather than just let them keep hanging.

Appearance & Layout

My first reaction to seeing the homepage is that I really dislike this template and I’m embarrassed that we even make it available.

The sites really needs a new template and could really benefit from a custom header that features and compliments their logo.

Navigation & Usability

There are too many items in the main menu.  Pages should be organized into a handful of sub-menus.

It would also be helpful if there was an “About” or “New to FBC” section of the site specifically designed for visitors and a prominent graphic on the homepage that links to it.

Purpose & Goals

The church’s mission statement is hidden on the beliefs page.  It should be either on the homepage or on a mission statement page in the About/New section.

Content

The content really needs a lot of work.  Let’s start with the homepage.

• There ought to be some kind of a welcome message from the pastor or at least the church’s mission statement.
• I would also suggest replacing the picture with a larger picture with people prominent.

Other general notes about the content

• Complete or get rid of pages that are currently blank.
• Include at least one picture on each page, either a real picture of people in the church or a stock photo.
• The “Website under construction” on the homepage needs to go.  Either use the news module to show upcoming activities or remove it.
• Remove the Bible search from below the navigation menu.
• Google makes it easy to embed a map into the map page.

Finding the Website

I don’t know how many churches are in Libby, Montana but I’m guessing competition in the Google search results for phrases like “Churches in Libby, MT” isn’t too strong.  Fortunately Faith Bible Church is #2 in the Google local results and #5 in the Google general results for that phrases.

That could actually be improved, though, by adding Libby, MT to the title tag, keyword & description tags, and the content of the homepage.

The church might also consider asking its members to post reviews in the Google, Yahoo, and Bing local results which would help their search rankings.

Interactivity & social media

As far as I can tell, the church has no blog, newsletter, Facebook page, or Twitter account.  If they do, it’s not referenced anywhere on the site.  Those might be things to consider, but it depends on whether the people in the congregation and the community are already reading blogs and using FB or Twitter.

Conclusion

Overall, the site could use quite a bit of work both on the design and the content.  My top recommendations are:

1. Select a different template
2. Design a custom header which includes and compliments the church logo
3. Reorganize the pages into sub-menus so there are fewer items in the main menu.
4. Add a welcome message and a better picture to the homepage.
5. Complete the content for all pages of the site including at least one image on each page.

Some additional things that could really help:

1. Create a “New to FBC” section designed for visitors
2. Create a cool “New to FBC” graphic and place it prominently on the homepage so it’s the first thing a new visitor sees.
3. Start a weekly eNewsletter
4. Consider whether a blog, Facebook page, or Twitter account could help build community online.

What do you think?  Agree or disagree with any of the recommendations?  Do you have any other suggestions for Faith Bible Church?

Stay tuned… we’ll be giving this site its Extreme Makover and in 2 weeks we’ll show you all the changes.

If you’d like a free, professional review of your website, just click.  Remember to be eligible to have your site reviewed next week, you must comment on one of this week’s blog posts.

EDIT (2/24/10): The Extreme Makeover is complete. See the before and after screenshots in this post.

Paul Steinbrueck

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. 

steinbrueck.org

The post Wed. Website Weview & Extreme Makeover Winner: Faith Bible Church appeared first on Christian Web Trends Blog: Church Websites, Design, SEO.

For the last 3 weeks I’ve posted Wednesday Website Weviews.  Each one has been a comprehensive website review providing background on the site and going into detail with opinions and suggestions concerning

• appearance & layout
• navigation & usability
• purpose & goals
• content
• search engine presence
• interactivity & social media integration

Additionally, this week OurChurch.Com kicked off Website Design Month and so many of the posts here on Christian Web Trends will be about design issues.

I’ve got to confess that I feel like a bit of a hypocrite posting about web design issues and reviewing sites here, because I think the design of this blog… well… I think it…

…could be a lot better.

Just like any other site, it would benefit from a review and from your feedback.  So, today’s Wednesday Website Weview is going to be of this blog.

Background

I’m hoping a review will help us to make the site more readable, develop a bigger and better connected community of ministry/tech people, and result in it becoming overall a better resource.

A little more about the site:

• Created using WordPress and hacking up the Atahualpa theme.
• Target audience: Christian web admins, ministry/tech folks, rogue platypuses
• Budget: We print our own money & can use our staff as slave labor
• Goals: As explained on the About page, the purpose of this blog is “to help Christian individuals and organizations make better use of communications technology in their churches, schools, ministries, businesses, and personal lives.” Plus we want publishers to give us more free books.

Appearance & Layout

I think the site looks busy and cluttered.  The ads are part of the issue.  A lot of blogs have ads on them, but the placement, spacing, size, and animation of the ads on this site contribute to its busyness.

Adding some space to the header and reducing the number of items in the top navigation menu would help reduce clutter as well.

In the left column, the ads, menu, and recommended sites all have different widths and formats.  Some consistency would help it look less cluttered.

In the right column, dark gray links on a light gray background make them a bit difficult to read and the site look somewhat dull.

When viewing individual blog articles, the titles are a different size and color compared with the main page.  I would also suggest removing the links to the next and previous posts or perhaps moving them below the post.  And the horizontal dashed line above the title could be removed as well.

Navigation & Usability

Because the blog is done with WordPress all the navigation within the blog is automatically generated and fairly intuitive.

I question whether so many links are needed in the horizontal navigation menu below the header and whether the “OurChurch.Com Community” menu in the left sidebar is necessary at all.

Purpose & Goals

I think the purpose and goals are well stated on the About page, and that is easy enough to find.  If desired, they could be emphasized more by putting the mission statement in a sidebar with a link to read more in the About page.

Content

The content itself is consistent with the purpose and goals of the site.

The format of the content seems pretty good.  The text is consistent in face, size, and color.  There’s at least one image in every post.  Text is broken up using headings, bullet points, and short paragraphs.  The Intense Debate plugin with its threaded comments, makes the comment section of each post easier to read.

Finding the Website

According to Blog Grader, Christian Web Trends has 724 pages indexed in Google and 5,985 inbound links.  Pretty good.  Search rankings seem all over the place though.   There are some good keywords this site could rank for it with some intentional optimization.

Interactivity & Social Media

Well, it’s a blog and commenting is on every page, so there’s a good amount of interactivity built into the site.  Social media is integrated into the site in many ways including the TweetMeme retweet button on every post, the links to Facebook, Twitter, and RSS feeds at the top of the left sidebar, and the Twitter module in the right sidebar.

The ShareThis plugin at the bottom of each post on the homepage, but it should be added to the bottom of each individual post.

Summary

Overall, I think the Christian Web Trends blog is functionally good but lacking aesthetically.

My top suggestions are:

1. Design a new template.  Create a more compelling and less cluttered header.  Add a border/background to the site.  Eliminate or move the ads.  Pretty up the gray on gray right sidebar.
2. Reduce the number of items in the horizontal navigation menu and eliminate the left navigation menu.
3. On the individual posts, remove (or move) the links to the next and previous posts and eliminate the dashed horizontal line.
4. It needs more cowbell.

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. 

What do you think of this site?

Are there any other changes you would suggest?  Any functionality (WordPress plugins) you would recommend?  Post your impressions and suggestions in the comments.

If you’d like a free, professional review of your website, just click.  Next week we’ll be selecting our Extreme Makeover OCC Edition winner, where we’ll not only review the site but actually implement all the changes we recommend.

Remember to be eligible to have your site reviewed next week, you must comment on one of this week’s blog posts.

Paul Steinbrueck

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. 

steinbrueck.org

The post Wednesday Website Weview: Christian Web Trends appeared first on Christian Web Trends Blog: Church Websites, Design, SEO.

Background

R. Joseph Owles wrote that his vision for The Kingdom of God Christian Community is “to grow into a fully functional church–online church for an online community of faith.”  He requested the review because he wants “to know what is limiting my church’s online growth. is it merely lack of advertisement, or is the format undermining the goal.”

A little more about the site:

• Site was created using OurChurch.com’s NE1 Web Builder
• Target audience: That’s the tricky question. Non-committed Christians and those who aren’t Christian or were at one time but have ventured away.
• Budget: whatever i can scrounge together
• Goals: Cool to have video worship posted, adapting the sermon and readings week to week; and have an online bible study via skype or yahoo chat or something.

Appearance and Layout

This is tough one for me because this site uses one of my company’s templates, but I’ve got to be honest.

When I first looked at the site the phrase that came to mind is “Christian clichés.”  I feel like the lighthouse theme has been overused in Christian circles.  That’s just my opinion, though, I know a lot of other people like it.  The peaceful, expressionless image of Jesus looks like a picture my grandmother might have hung on her wall when she was alive.  The image quality is low as well, like it’s a scan of a print.

The red color used for the name of the site and the links screeches at me.  I would suggest changing those to a color (or colors) that are more compatible with the blues and grays of the template.

Navigation and Usability

The navigation menu is intuitive enough.  Some of the menu items are in all caps while others include both lower and uppercase.  This should be consistent across the site – preferably lowercase with the first letter of each word capitalized.

There’s not a lot of functionality built into the site, so the usability is fine.

Purpose and Goals

I love the fact that there is a brief introductory video on the homepage.  In fact, I suggest removing the image of Jesus and making it the first thing a visitor to the site sees.  However, it’s not clear in that video or in the text on the homepage that the site is for an online church.  It’s also not really clear who is a part of the church or who the church is for.  What is it that distinguishes this church from any other church online or offline?

I would suggest putting brief vision and mission statements on the homepage.

This is getting a little off topic, but I looked at the vision and mission statement pages and I’m not sure they are really vision and mission statements.  A vision statement should paint a picture of what you want the future to look like.  A mission statement should state specifically what the organization is going to accomplish.  I just don’t get a clear compelling picture from these pages.

Content

There are several major issues with the content of the site. Here are some suggestions.

• Shorten up the pages.  The homepage should only be 1 or 2 screens long.  Other pages 3-4 screen lengths at most.

• Standardize the text.  There’s way too many variations which I’m guessing are intended to add emphasis.  To much bold, italics, underlining, and varying of sizes and colors.

• Unclutter the pages.  I strongly suggest removing the plea for donations, the Facebook widget, and the big promotional graphic for the book that are at the bottom of most of the pages in the site.  Putting smaller versions of those items in the left sidebar would be a better alternative.

Finding the Website

This is going to be a real challenge.  As an online church, this site is competing in search engines with every other online church, many of which are backed by megachurches.  The only way this site could compete in search engines is if it has a focused niche.  That would require narrowing the target audience.  It can’t compete in search engines for “online church” but maybe it could for “Episcopal online church” or “online recovery church” (not that those niches would necessarily be appropriate for this church.)

Another options is to forget about connecting with people through search engines but by social networking and word of mouth.

Interactivity and Social Media

It looks like there is a Facebook, but there doesn’t appear to be much interaction there.

There’s also a Ning community site.  This is great because at its core a church is a community, and without interaction there can be no community.  I like the chat feature (though I don’t like that a person has to register before they can chat), the discussion forum, and the blog.  And it’s good to see the blog is being posted to daily (at least for the last 3 days).

I think the Ning site needs to be much more prominent on the main website.  One of the main goals if not the highest priority of the website should be to get a visitor to the site to become a member of the Ning community.

The Concept

Before I wrap this review up, one other thing I want to touch on is the overall concept of creating an online church community.

Most people join a church because of the people.  When people visit a church, they need to experience community.  They need to feel like they’re accepted and getting to know other people in the community.  I think that’s no different with an online church.

This is essentially a church plant.  For a church plant to be successful, it needs to start by recruiting a core group of people who are committed to the vision of the church.  There needs to be at least 5-10 people who commit to chatting, posting to the discussion board, and interacting with other people.  That way when visitors show up, there is already a blossoming community for them to engage with.

I would also suggest setting up specific gathering times for chat or worship.  Having real-time interaction would be huge.

Lastly, I just don’t know how many people are going to connect with a computer-generated audio liturgy.  I would suggest looking into ustream or livestream which would enable you to do a live video broadcast of a service to the website.  You could lead the liturgy while those watching read responsively or use the live chat feature.

Summary

Right now this appears to be a community site without a community.  So, I think the most important thing to do is to look for ways to make the site less informational and more relational.

My top suggestions are:

1. Remove the donation, Facebook, and book stuff from the bottom of each page and put smaller versions of those items in the left sidebar.
2. Rework the homepage.  Remove the image of Jesus, add a 2-3 sentence vision statement that makes it clear this is an online church & the vision is for an online Christian community, feature the Ning community site, and remove the prosperity message.
3. Change the colors of the site title and links.
4. Standardize the text, eliminating a lot of the bold, italics, underlining, color variations and size variation.

If you really want to take your site to the next level…

1. Recruit a core committed to the vision for this community.
2. Schedule chats for specific times & purposes.
3. Start doing live video services using ustream or livestream.

What do you think of this site?  Post your impressions and suggestions in the comments.

And if you’d like a free, professional review of your website, click.  And remember to be eligible to have your site reviewed next week, you must comment on one of this week’s blog posts.

Paul Steinbrueck

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. 

steinbrueck.org

The post Wednesday Website Weview – The Kingdom of God Christian Community appeared first on Christian Web Trends Blog: Church Websites, Design, SEO.

Background

Scripts by Warren is “Christian Drama Site” that provides drama and play scripts for churches, schools, and community theaters.

Warren Sager requested the review and wrote, “I think a review from someone who knows web sites, studies them and builds them would be very helpful as I do most of the upkeep and changes to the site myself.”

A little more about the website:

• Site created using Studio 11 Productions (web builder/host)
• Target audience: Churches, Christian Schools, Drama groups, Christian
• Theater groups, Home School groups, Youth groups.
• Purpose of the website: Making a living and meeting our basic needs.
• 2010 budget: $500-$600 a year
• 2010 goals for the site: increase traffic and revenue.

Appearance and Layout

My first impression of the site was that it’s kind of dull and looks like cookie-cutter, template site. There are no images on the homepage and everything is black and brown except for some blue and purple text.

It looks like the designer went with a manuscript concept for the site, but I would suggest going in a different direction. The target audience for this site is artists, who tend to be very visual and creative. For that reason it’s even more important for this site than most to capture the curiosity and imagination of the visitor right away.

I would recommend a total redesign of the site with a more colorful, artistic template, and a header that includes high quality images of drama performances. Some subtle animation or an image slideshow in the header would help to get a visitors attention as well.

Navigation and Usability

For the most part I was able to find what I was looking for, but the biggest challenge for the site is organizing the large number of scripts in a way that will enable the visitor to find what he’s looking for. The use of slide-out sub-menus is good, but I think the menus are still somewhat cluttered.

I would seriously consider simplifying the main menu by eliminating all but one “scripts” menu item. Then have a separate second menu just for navigating scripts on the main scripts page and all the pages in that section.

I would then suggest taking the links to the “About the Author,” FAQs, and blog out of the “About this site” menu and putting them in the main menu. The “About the scripts” page could be the main scripts page mentioned in the previous paragraph.

Additionally, one of the most important goals of a website should be to keep people coming back to the site. An e-newsletter is a great way to do that, so it’s good to see this site has one. But it’s hidden way down at the bottom of the homepage and not clearly labeled. Ideally, the newsletter signup should be in a sidebar, like just below the navigation menu or if the site were to be redesigned in a sidebar on the right side of the page. And the reason to sign up should be within the sign-up box.

Purpose and Goals

A visitor needs to be able to identify the purpose of the site immediately. The “Pay by credit card…” and “Nothing is mailed…” sentences should not be the first thing a visitor sees.

The paragraphs below that do a good job of explaining what the site is all about. However, I think a sentence about why the scriptwriter has written these scripts would be good. A sentence that shows the scriptwriter understands the visitor’s underlying motivation could be helpful too. What I mean is the visitor is not just looking for a script, they are envisioning a drama that is going to touch the heart of the people in the audience. If you show you understand the heart of your visitors, that will go a long way to building relationships with them.

Content

Then content could really use some improvement.

For starters, the homepage is way too long. If the newsletter signup can be moved to a sidebar along with the site search, I suggest cutting everything else below the “Free scripts available” paragraph. Webings are very 1999, and as much as I appreciate God’s word, putting a scripture verse on the homepage just clutters it.

Throughout the site, I strongly recommending including at least one image within the content of every page.

I also strongly recommending picking one font and one font color and using it throughout the entire site.

Finding the Website

I Googled “drama scripts” and the site came up on the 3rd page of the results (#21). It was #5 for “Christian drama scripts,” #4 for “church drama scripts,” and #1 for “Christmas drama scripts.” That’s pretty good.

Of course, I’m just guessing as to which keywords are the best fit for the site. If keyword research has never been performed for the site, I would highly recommend it. Keyword research will tell you which keywords relevant to your site get the most searches each month, how competitive those keywords are, and which keywords you could target to gain the most visitors.

Analyzing the site’s traffic to see which search keywords are already bringing the most visitors to the site would be helpful as well.

Getting as many links on drama, script and scriptwriting sites would also help bring in more visitors directly from those sites as well has improve search rankings.

Interactivity and Social Media

A blog is a great way to interact with visitors and build one’s reputation. This site has a blog, but it’s buried in a sub-menu and there’s only been one post since May. I recommend committing to posting at least one time a week to the blog. If not, I would remove the link from the menu.

There’s a link on the “About the Author” page to his Facebook profile. Facebook is a great place to interact with site visitors. If you’re serious about connecting with potential customers on Facebook, though, I recommend putting a Facebook graphic and link in the sidebar of the site.

Additionally, you might want to create a Facebook page specifically for interacting with customers, who would probably be interested in different content than your family and friends.

I noticed on the Facebook profile mention of being on MySpace and Twitter, but there were no links to specific profiles there or on this site. If those social networking sites are being used, it would be good to link to them. There are also widgets you can add to your site that will show your latest tweets and FB updates that will encourage website visitors to connect with you via social media.

Summary

Overall, the site is functional, but my honest opinion is it could use a lot of work to look more professional and engage visitors.

My top suggestions are:

1. Redesign the site with a more colorful, artistic template, and a header that includes high quality images of drama performances.  Unfortunately, unless you’re an experienced graphic artist and web designer this is going to cost more than $500-$600.
2. Rework the homepage. Cut out some text, eliminate the web ring and scripture verse, and add some images.
3. Improve the content of the entire site by adding images to pages sticking with one font and font color throughout.
4. Decide what you’re going to do with social media. You don’t have to do everything, but what you are going to do you need to do consistently and link to it prominently.

If you really want to take your site to the next level:

1. Get videos of the dramas being performed and put them on your site and in YouTube. Pay customers for them if you have to.
2. Do some keyword research or pay a company that does search engines optimization to do it for you.
3. Switch to a shopping cart.  There are open-source (free) shopping cart systems like osCommerce and ZenCart that are very professional and integrate with Authorize.net

What do you think of the Scripts by Warren site? Remember this is a community effort. Post your opinions and suggestions in a comment.

Find out how you can get a free professional review of your website.

Paul Steinbrueck

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. 

steinbrueck.org

The post Wednesday Website Weview – Scripts by Warren appeared first on Christian Web Trends Blog: Church Websites, Design, SEO.

This week we’re reviewing The Grove Church in Hattiesburg, MS.

Background

Justin Grice requested the review and wrote,

We are a church plant and need to get our name out there. One of the main ways we are doing that is by spreading our website around. Since this is so key for us, we need a quality, functional website.

A little more about the website:

• Used wordpress with a graphic artist for parts of the site.
• Target audience: Prospective church guests/members
• Purpose of the website: get people to take the jump and visit
• 2010 budget: $50 a month (ish)
• 2010 goals for the site: Moving up in google and more social network interactivity)

Appearance and Layout

My first impression of the site was positive.  There’s a nice logo with friendly looking faces.  Below that there’s a happy couple on an artistic-looking graphic inviting the visitor to join them for a Sunday service.  If the visitor is Caucasian they will probably get a warm feeling from these graphics.  People of any other ethnicity will probably wonder if there’s anyone like them at this church and if they’d be welcome.  I suggest adding some diversity to the homepage.

As I clicked around the site I noticed the logo not present on any other pages, only the name of the church and slogan in black and white.  I suggest replacing the black and white header with the logo that’s on the homepage and add the city, state and slogan to it.

The gray gradient behind the site is a bit boring.  It’s not bad, but could be more colorful and interesting.

Navigation and Usability

The drop-down menus are clearly labeled and consistent from page to page.  They’re very intuitive and I was able to quickly find everything I was looking for.

Purpose and Goals

Justin stated the purpose of the site is to “get people to take the jump and visit.”  That purpose is clear from the moment I first saw the homepage.  The prominent “RU NEW HERE” graphic in the right sidebar is obvious to anyone visiting the site for the first time.  The “Join us this Sunday” graphic makes it clear that’s the next step they what a website visitor to take.  The first text on the page is a message from the pastor to visitors.

The site is also has the church’s address displayed on the homepage and “Contact Us” page, and the Contact Us page is just click away in the main navigation menu.  So, anyone wanting to come to a service or ask someone at the church questions should have no problem doing that.

Content

The content on the homepage is very good – just a short welcome message from the pastor.  There’s nothing worse than a long or busy homepage, and thankfully The Grove Church does not have one of those.

I didn’t read through every page on the site, but those I did were all concise and easy to read due to good use of headings, bold, and bullets.  The site also makes fairly good use of images – both stock images and images of real people in the church.  I did notice repeated use of the “Welcome to the grove” image.  Perhaps it was used a placeholder?  I would suggest replacing that on all but one page.

One of the things I always look for when reviewing a website is whether it appears to be up to date.  With The Grove Church’s site I couldn’t tell because there doesn’t appear to be any time-sensitive information on the site.  There are no events on the “calendar” page, no indication as to what the topic of the Sunday service might be.

Finding the Website

I Googled “Church in Hattiesburg, MS.”  The Grove Church showed up on the second page of the general results (#16) but did not show up anywhere in the top 30 in the local/Google Maps results.  There’s definitely room for improvement there.

Some suggestions I have are:

• Put the church address and phone number in the footer of the site, so it’s displayed on every page.
• Register the site with local directories/yellow pages
• Look for ways to get other organizations within Hattiesburg to put links on their site to The Grove Church’s site.

The “About Hattisburg” page on the site is a great idea!

Interactivity and Social Media

I couldn’t find any way for church members or visitors to interact on the site itself.  No forums or way to post comments on anything.  That’s typical of most church sites, but something to consider if the church would like people to return to the site regularly.

There are links in the sidebar to the church’s flickr page and blogs of 4 of the staff.  These are great tools for engaging people, however, there doesn’t appear to be any commitment to using them.  I would suggest that each staff person either commit to posting once a week to their blog or remove the link from the church site.

Is Facebook or Twitter widely used by people at The Grove Church?  If so, consider creating a Facebook page and/or Twitter profile for the church.  But either commit to updating them regularly or don’t do them at all.

Summary

Overall, I think the site is effectively a decent electronic brochure for people looking for a church and a resource for pointing people in the right direction who are looking for specific ministries.

My top suggestions are:

1. Replace the black and white header with the logo that’s on the homepage and add the city, state, slogan and some ethnic diversity to it.
2. Put the church address in the footer of the site.
3. Put upcoming events on the “calendar” p age.
4. Register the site in local directories and search engines
5. Ask the staff to decide whether they are committed to blogging or whether the link to their blog should be removed.

If you really want take things up to the next level:

1. Hire a company that specializes in local search engine optimization for churches to improve your search rankings.
2. Create a welcome video for the homepage.
3. Add some interactivity like a sermon blog or a Facebook page

What do you think of The Grove Church website?  Post your opinions and suggestions in a comment.

Find out how you can get a free professional review of your website.

Paul Steinbrueck

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. 

steinbrueck.org

The post Wednesday Website Weview – The Grove Church, Hattiesburg, MS appeared first on Christian Web Trends Blog: Church Websites, Design, SEO.

Wednesday Website Reviews

Every Wednesday, starting January 13, we are going to post a review of one of our readers’ websites here on this blog.

Honest feedback is very important to improving a website.  Unfortunately honest feedback is very difficult to get because few people want to risk hurting anybody’s feelings.  So, once a week we are going to give one of you honest feedback about your site, and we’ll invite other readers to offer their feedback as well.

If you really want to improve your website and your online communications in 2010, this is an opportunity you don’t want to miss out on.

Here are the rules and review request guidelines:

A) If you’d like us to consider posting a review of your website, you must start by posting a request to the “Request your free professional website review” topic in our forums.  In that post, you need to answer the following 9 questions, which will help us provide you with guidance.

1. Your name
2. The name of your organization
3. The URL of the site you’d like reviewed
4. What did you use to create the site? (Dreamweaver? HTML? WordPress? An online web builder? Paid a designer to create it for you?)
5. Who is the target audience of your website? People already involved in your organization? Prospective buyers? Teens? Their parents?
6. What are you trying to accomplish with your website?
7. What is your 2010 budget for your website?
8. What if any goals have you set for your website in 2010.
9. Why do you want a professional review of your website?

If you don’t answer all 9 questions, your site will not be considered.

B) We will not review free, ad-supported sites, even those hosted by OurChurch.Com.  Sorry, but if you can’t scrounge up $5-$10 a month into your site to pay for hosting, I question you’re commitment to having a quality site.

C) You must post a meaningful comment to the blog during the previous week.  The idea behind the Wednesday Website Reviews (and Christian Web Trends as a whole) is that we as a community help each other get better at online communications.  That means you’re not just receiving but also contributing.  So, if you want to be considered for next week’s review, post a meaningful comment to any of this week’s posts.  If you’re site is not reviewed next week, you must post a meaningful comment next week to be considered for the following week.  Cool?

D) You must be able to handle constructive criticism. We are going to try our best to speak the truth in love and not hold anything back.

That’s it.

If you have any comments or questions post them below in the comments.  If not, we hope you’ll participate and both request a review and comment on the review of other sites.

Paul Steinbrueck

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. 

steinbrueck.org

The post Get a Free Professional Review of Your Website appeared first on Christian Web Trends Blog: Church Websites, Design, SEO.