The Only Two Things Your Church Website Needs

There are only two things you’ll ever need to have for a great church website:

A good design
A continual stream of great content

Don’t let anyone, including yourself, tell you that you need more than this.

I know it’s so very tempting to think that your website needs an interactive campus map or that awesome flash thing you saw on that one church’s website. Believe me, when I served as a full-time minister of technology and communications, I spent my days trying to build all of these whistles and bells into our sites. In the end, I realized that we missed the mark. We spent tons of money and tons of time developing things that very few people used while ignoring the one thing that keeps people coming back — great content.

1. Get a good design.

Your website needs a good design, but this is a lot simpler than most people think. Just go find yourself a good designer and pay them to design a site for you. Yes, you have to pay them. Good things cost money, but it’s really not that much and it’s a one-time cost. This is the easy part. The hard part is the content.

2. Provide a continual stream of great content.

This is the hard part, but you have to do it. You have to have great content that is continually added to the site. There are a lot of different types of content you could include, but I think there are only two that you have to include:

Upcoming events / news items
Personal blogs of church leaders

Sounds easy, right? Then why are there so few church websites that do this well?

First, I think it’s because most churches spend their time trying to add in nifty little gadgets and features that nobody needs and few people use. Second, I think it’s because they don’t put their site on a content management system.

Why content management?

If content is the single most important feature of a website, then you have to be able to easily control that content. That’s what content management systems are for. Listen, you have to put your site on a CMS, and that CMS needs to support blogging. There’s no way around it. If you don’t, you will never update your content. It’s just that simple.

Here’s my disclosure.

I work for a company that makes content management systems. In fact, we make a content management system called Sky, which is specifically designed to help churches and ministries do exactly what I’m describing above. So, you may think I’m just saying all of this to get you to to buy our products. Well, I’d love for you to use our products, but that’s not the only reason I’m saying this. Whether your use ours or another CMS, please just use one. Your website will never be effective without it.

Here’s my conclusion.

If you get a good designer to design your site and you put their design onto a content management system, you will have everything you need for a great church website. Once that’s done, ignore everything else and start working on providing great content each and every day. If you do, you’ll create a website that will be effective for your church and your community.

Tim Wall is a former church communications director. He currently serves as the director of product marketing for Element Fusion, a web development company located in Oklahoma City. In addition to leading worship part-time, he also blogs at DailyGenesis.

June 29, 2007 · Filed Under Church Websites

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Comments

7 Responses to “The Only Two Things Your Church Website Needs”

DailyGenesis.com » Blog Archive » The only two things your church website needs on June 29th, 2007 8:35 am

[…] wrote a little post that’s featured on ChurchCommunicationsPro.com called “The only two things your church website needs.” Take a look and let me know what you think. I’ve got a follow up post for that site […]
Dustin on July 1st, 2007 9:48 pm

I think you’re right with the CMS, my challenge is how would you integrate a cms into an existing site and maintain the same design? I’m still new to web development with only a year and a half of experience, so i’m open to new ideas…
What is Needed for a Great Ministry Web Site? | SoulPreaching.Com on July 2nd, 2007 4:04 am

[…] at the church communication’s pro Blog the author gives two essentials for a Church website. I would also state that any ministry site would be well served by this. The two points are: A good […]
Why Church Leaders Must Blog on Their Church Websites : Church Communications Pro | Church Website Design | Church Marketing on July 6th, 2007 8:53 am

[…] The Only Two Things Your Church Website Needs […]
Tim Wall on July 6th, 2007 8:58 am

Dustin, the ability to integrate a CMS with an existing site and your own design depends upon the CMS you choose, so choose carefully. Some of them make design integration simple and others make it very hard.

One of the strengths of our company’s CMS systems is the ease of design integration. We offer a service for $395 to take an existing website design and integrate it on the CMS.

There are a lot of other cutup shops who will offer similar services for other popular CMS systems as well.

If you have any further questions, feel free to email me at tim@elementfusion.com.
Dan Cort » Blog Archive » As duas únicas coisas que o site da sua igreja precisa on July 9th, 2007 3:35 am

[…] Cory falou que o site da sua igreja só precisa de duas […]
Why Church Leaders Must Blog on their Church Websites « e-Reformation Notes on May 15th, 2008 6:27 am

[…] a previous post, I talked about the only two things your church website needs – a good design and a continual […]