Church Website Builder Tips and Tools

Generally speaking, there are 3 ways to build a church website:

1. Hire a church website developer to build the website for you.
2. Build your website yourself from scratch (installing and configuring all the software yourself)
3. Use a church website builder to build the website yourself.

Let’s look at the pos and cons of each option…

1. Hire a church website developer

The benefits of hiring a church website developer to build a custom-designed website for your church:

• Time savings: It will save you time compared to building a website yourself.
• Completed sooner: Professional website developers usually have a process with timelines and will keep the project on schedule. If you build the website yourself, chances are its one of many responsibilities you have, and it could be delayed if other things get priority.
• Better results: A team of people that build websites for a living will be able to create a better looking, better functioning website than you can on your own.

The only negative to hiring a church website developer is that its the most expensive option.

2. Build the website yourself from scratch

The benefits of building a church website yourself from scratch include:

• Flexibility/Control: You get to choose exactly how the website looks and what functionality you build into to it.
• Cost savings: It’s the least expensive option.

The biggest drawback to building your own site from scratch is that it before it takes a lot of time, effort and research, especially if you’ve never done it before. That’s because it involves the following steps:

• Purchase a church web hosting account (15 minutes)
• Purchase a domain name (15 minutes)
• Install a content management system like WordPress in the hosting account (15-30 minutes)
• Research, purchase, and install a theme (2-4 hours)
• Research and install 20+ plugins (10-20 hours)

And all of this is even before you have created your first web page.  It could take another 1-3 hours per page depending on the content and layout of the pages.

Another drawback to building the website yourself from scratch is that once your website is built, you have to frequently check for updates to keep your website running smoothly and prevent it from getting hacked. If the developers abandon any of the plugins you’re using you have to find new ones and replace them. So, there’s a lot of ongoing maintenance.

3. Use a church website builder to build the website yourself

Using a church website builder is an appealing middle ground between hiring someone to build a site and building the site from scratch.

• Cost:  The monthly cost for hosting and a website builder is usually only slightly more than hosting alone and significantly less than a custom-designed website.
• Time: The time it takes to build a site with a church website builder is in between the previous two options. It’s dramatically less than building a site from scratch, but more than hiring someone else to build it for you.
• Updates: The developers of the website builder will maintain and regularly update the website builder software and keep it secure. But they typically won’t update the text and images on your pages for you unless you pay extra for content updates.
• No technical expertise required: Church website builders don’t require any coding and are usually pretty easy to learn.

If you’re leaning in the direction of using a church website builder to create your church website, we’ve got some tips for you…

5 Church Website Builder Tips and Tools

1. Use our WP-EZ Website Builder.

If you want a new church website and have the time to do it yourself, our WP-EZ Church Website Builder is easy to use, affordable and designed specifically for churches.  No need to install WordPress, buy a theme, or install dozens of plugins. WP-EZ does all of that for you.

2. Update Your Church Website Theme.

If your website looks a little dated or you just want to change things up, one way to do that is to switch to a new website theme.

If you are using WP-EZ 2.0, switching themes takes just a few clicks.

If you built your website more than 5 years ago with our original WP-EZ Website Builder, we strongly encourage you to switch themes and migrate to WP-EZ 2.0.  Your new website will look and function sooooo much better!

3) Use the Training Center and Video Tutorial Library.

Have you already built your website with our WP-EZ Website Builder and want to make it even better?

You have free access to our WP-EZ Training Center which has a series of courses that combine short videos with action steps that will teach you everything you need to know to build a great website with WP-EZ.

We also have an extensive library of web builder video tutorials in our knowledgebase.

4) Ultimate Guild to Church Website Photos.

The biggest problems we see with church websites has to do with photos – lack of photos, blurry photos, improperly sized photos, and more. Use the Ultimate Guide to Church Website Photos to improve your website.

5) Help Us Help You.

Share your thoughts on church website design in this month’s Listening Post.

Bonus: More church website builder tips!

All month long we’ll be blogging our best church website builder tips and adding links these articles below.
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1. 3 Secrets To The Best Church Website Builder Designs
2. Pablo Picasso’s Secret to a Beautiful Church Website
3. 10 SEO Features of an SEO-Friendly Church Website Builder
4. Church Website Builder Must-Have Features!

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The bottom line…

Using a church website builder, is a great option for churches that have a limited budget, limited technical experience, and limited time.

1. 3 Secrets To The Best Church Website Builder Designs

When choosing the best church website builder for your church, a big thing to consider is the themes or templates that come with each website builder.

We discuss 3 specific things to look for in a church website theme in 3 Secrets To The Best Church Website Builder Designs 

2. Pablo Picasso’s Secret to a Beautiful Church Website

Would you like to know the secret to a beautiful church website?

A secret straight from renown artist Pablo Picasso?

Once you know that secret, you’ll understand how even if you aren’t super-artistic and don’t have any training or experience building websites, you can still build a beautiful website if you have the right tool.

Continue reading Pablo Picasso’s Secret to a Beautiful Church Website

3. 10 SEO Features of an SEO-Friendly Church Website Builder

Just about every church website builder claims to be “SEO friendly” but what does that mean?

There is no standard for capabilities needed to call something “SEO friendly.”

In this article we list 10 specific things to look for in a church website builder that are needed for a well-optimized, top-ranking website.

Continue reading 10 SEO Features of an SEO-Friendly Church Website Builder

4. Church Website Builder Must-Have Features!

One factor to consider when selecting a church website builder is the features (or functionality) you want to have in your website.

To determine that, we start by thinking about the purpose of the website. What do you want it to accomplish for your church?

From the many, many conversations we’ve had with church leaders, we’ve been able to determine The Top 5 Must-Have Church Website Builder Features

Continue reading to learn the Church Website Builder Must-Have Features!

Comment and discuss… What questions, issues and challenges regarding church web builders do you have? Post a comment so we can help you with them.