Does Your Church Have a Content Strategy for Its Website?

by: Justin Wise

Creating awareness for local churches becomes increasingly difficult as more time demands are made on faith community members.

When a user goes to a church website to find information on programs, services, or to find directions, you have 7-30 seconds to keep their attention. If people can’t find what they need, they will go elsewhere. A cluttered website is not only irritating, it could be sending potential church members away in frustration.

Increase the effectiveness of your church website with a content strategy.

We interviewed dozens of ministry leaders and church communications professionals for our latest report, “Effective Church Content Strategies.” We wanted to show you what can happen in the life of a local church when their website is organized. A clear process emerges that savvy church leaders use to accomplish organizational and ministry goals. Conversely, this white paper will show you what happens when churches do not have a content governance in place for their online presence. (Hint: words like “painful,” “messy,” and “frustrating” sum it up!)

Learn how to assess the content that is already on your church website.

Melissa Therrien of Eagle Brook Church shares the story of when the staff went through a content auditing process. Each page on the website was sifted through with a fine-tooth comb, asking questions like:

  1. Does this content accomplish our goal to reach people for Christ?
  2. Does this help people who are wanting to find out about our church find what they need?
  3. Do we know what our call to action is?

Does the content on your church website have this level of clarity and purpose? If not, you’ll learn how to start the content strategy process for your church.

Additionally, you’ll learn how to make your online content readable, understandable, findable, and actionable. Put simply, your church website will work for the user, not against it.

There’s a quote from the report that sums things up nicely: If your church can not be Googled, it does not exist. The church website is the new front door to the organization. Make sure when users come knocking, they find you standing with the door open, saying, “we’ve been waiting for you…Come on in.”

 Go here to download the report.
Read more from Justin here.
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Justin Wise

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— Abel Singbeh
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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.
 
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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.
 
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