Heal Your Church WebSite

Month: January 2008

  • Is your church website little more than brochureware?

    Little image of little brochure with little contentThe WikiPedia defines brochureware as: “A brochureware website is a business website that has very infrequently updated content, and little of it. Often the site has been developed as a direct translation of existing printed promotional materials, hence the name.”

    Note the emphasis, that’s mine.

    This is because I’ve run into more than one church website that is nothing more than a big-honking Adobe PDF file – or worse, a big-honking graphic file – that is in fact nothing more than an online version of their printed brochure.

    The same WikiPedia article asserts “Brochureware sites therefore take little advantage of the capabilities of the web that are missing in printed publication. Often the only hyperlinks on the site are in the site’s navigation menu.”

    Note again the emphasis, also mine.

    This is because most who use the web are seeking – and expect – online more than what is available in a printed brochure.

    Here are a few questions you can ask yourself and/or your church webmaster to see if your site falls into the category of brochureware:

    • Is the website designed around an existing printed brochure?
    • Does the website heavily employ PDF or graphic files to represent text?
    • Is the content on your website generally dynamic or static in nature?
    • Is the church website nothing more than one-big-honking brain-dump page created out of Word?
    • Does the church website have a usable search feature?
    • Is your church website rendered with Microsoft FrontPage or Microsoft Publisher?

    If you can answer yes to ANY of these questions, then your church website may be in part or in whole brochureware.

    Here are some past examples and topics on this topic:

    I’m sure some of you can think of some other traits and/or articles related to the topic. If so, leave a comment – in love – so we can all learn from it.

  • When web page creation tools and novice church website design collide

    One of the good things about the Web in 2008 is the number of free and easy web page creation tools to aid those novices involved in church website design. One of the bad things about the Web in 2008 is the number of free and easy web page creation tools novices employ to generate unusually unusable church websites.

    Case in point, Sabbath Day Church of God Hot Springs Arkansas, brought to you by Web Page Maker V2; a web page generation tool described on its own website as:

    … an easy-to-use web page editor that allows you to create and upload web pages in minutes without knowing HTML. Simply drag and drop objects onto the page and position them freely in the layout.

    It also appears that it is an easy-to-use web page editor that allows you to create web pages in minutes without knowing usable interface design, conversion goals, semantic HTML, and other important details. Basically, all the bad things one gets with FrontPage at only a 1/3rd the expense of FrontPage.

    That said, here are 5 things I would do to improve the web presence for the Sabbath Day Church of God:

    1. Since there is information provided on a weekly basis, consider using a blog as a content management tool. It’ll help both better organize and present otherwise compelling content.
    2. Move the prayer list page behind a password protected area – as the current format may expose the church to some unwanted privacy concerns.
    3. Lose the Java Applets – such counters are not needed in a day and age of far better usage measurement tools as Google Analytics. Such counters also slows down the page load ALOT.
    4. Optimize those bloated images.
    5. Lose the grainy-green background image – it makes the black text entirely unreadable.

    There are other things I might do as well, perhaps leverage Google Calendars and Google Maps instead of the current calendar and map solutions.

    I most definately would put the phone number, location, along with the dates and times of the services in a far more conspicuous place then hiding said lamp under a bowl as is currently the case.

    Other observations? You know the drill, leave a comment – in love – so we can all learn from it.