6 Reasons to Have a Dedicated Guest Website for Your Church

by: Will Mancini

Over the years the Auxano Design team has helped churches think more strategically about guest engagement. (Read 10 Mind Blowing Facts to Fuel your Hospitality Ministry). One great idea is to create a separate website for guests. At Auxano, we call this a “buzzsite.”

To catch an example, check out Gateway’s WelcomeToYourJourney.com or First Baptist’s ExploreFirst.org

Why have a dedicated site just for guests at your church?

1) Make a Bigger Front Porch: Eighty-seven percent of your guests will click-thru before they walk-thru. Having a site dedicated to guests enables you to communicate more guest information in a more useful way.

2) Smooth the Path: Guest have mini-hurdles coming to your church for the first time. They don’t know where to go, or what to do.  A guest site will enabling them to “get a feel” ahead of time, as a simple way to make them feel more welcome.  Notice how Gateway walks your through these key guest decisions from parking lot to checking in children.

3) Show you Care: When a guest enters the dedicated site, it will show that you are expecting guests and that you care about their experience.

4) Resolve Conflict: Having a dedicated guest site alleviates the burden on your main church site to speak to both members and guests.

5) Show Some Personality: A guest site can introduce your church with with a story, promise or creative element. Gateway Community Church used the tagline “Welcome to your Journey” as their URL. It enabled the moment of introduction to include something to spark the imagination and draw people in rather than just saying “visit our church.”At First Baptist Dallas, they creatively use a “Plan Your Visit” form on their ExploreFirst.org to make the welcome experience personalized.

6) Evaluate Your Investment: A guest site can measure the effectiveness of external communication initiatives or campaigns that point to the guest site and not the church’s main site. For example, when Gateway Community Church opened its building, they could know exactly how their six-piece direct mail invitations worked by monitoring web stats when the mail dropped.

Have used a similar site? Let us know about it.

Download PDF

Tags: , , , ,

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Environments >

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Will Mancini

Will Mancini

Will Mancini wants you and your ministry to experience the benefits of stunning, God-given clarity. As a pastor turned vision coach, Will has worked with an unprecedented variety of churches from growing megachurches and missional communities, to mainline revitalization and church plants. He is the founder of Auxano, creator of VisionRoom.com and the author of God Dreams and Church Unique.

See more articles by >

COMMENTS

What say you? Leave a comment!

Related Items

  1. You’re Not a Lead Worshipper
  2. The Real Competition for Your Church
  3. Volunteer Culture: Debunking the Myth that Volunteering Takes More Time, Part 5
  4. The Admission Price of Worship
  5. Church Music Conflicts, Part 1: Have We Really Always Done It That Way?
  6. A 5-Step Process for Investing in Your Front Line Team Members
  7. How to Utilize the Power of Story on Your Church’s Campus Facility
  8. Design Intervention
  9. An Architect’s Secret Weapons: Color
  10. Compelling Environments
Recent Comments
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you for this information. I'm going to use this article to improve my work with the Lord.
 
— Abel Singbeh
Read Article >
 
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you Ed for sharing your insights into the Church Growth Movement. I have my reservations with Church Growth models because it has done more damage than good in the Body of Christ. Over the years, western churches are more focused on results, formulas and processes with little or no emphasis on membership and church discipline. Pastors and vocational leaders are burnt out because they're overworked. I do believe that the Church Growth model is a catalyst to two destructive groups: The New Apostolic Reformation and the Emerging Church. Both groups overlap and have a very loose definition. They're both focus on contemporary worship, expansion of church brand (franchising), and mobilizing volunteering members as 'leaders' to grow their ministry. Little focus on biblical study, apologetics and genuine missional work with no agenda besides preaching of the gospel.
 
— Dave
Read Article >
 
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you for sharing such a good article. It is a great lesson I learned from this article. I am one of the leaders in Emmanuel united church of Ethiopia (A denomination with more-than 780 local churches through out the country). I am preparing a presentation on succession planning for local church leaders. It will help me for preparation If you send me more resources and recommend me books to read on the topic. I hope we may collaborate in advancing leadership capacity of our church. God Bless You and Your Ministry.
 
— Argaw Alemu
Read Article >
 

Clarity Process

Three effective ways to start moving toward clarity right now.