Continuing our series: Free Online Gifts Every Communicator Can Give, one gift every web administrator should give the people they communicate with is a website that they’re not embarrassed to share.
Take your communicators hat off for a moment and imagine for a moment you were member of a church with a website that looks as bad as say… this one.
Now ask yourself…
– If you had a friend who was looking for a church would you give him your church’s web address & suggest he visit your church some Sunday?
– If your church was putting on the best Christmas production of all time and had a video about it on the site, would you invite your friends and email them a link?
– Would you share any page or blog post from the site on Facebook or Twitter?
– Would be excited to see a billboard promoting your church & its web address on a busy road in your community?
– Would you advise your church invest in search engine optimization (SEO) or Google AdWords advertising so more people would find your church’s website through search engines?
The bottom line is…
If your church’s website is embarrassing, it undermines every evangelism/outreach effort your church does. If your business, school or nonprofit website looks bad, you are throwing every hour and dollar you spend on marketing down the toilet.
Now, I know your website doesn’t look as bad as this one, but are the people connected with your organization proud to share it? If not, people probably aren’t going to tell you. You’ll have to ask people who will give you honest feedback.
And if/when you know your people are reluctant to share your website, give them the gift of a well-designed website.
Discussion
- Have you ever been a part of an organization that you wanted to tell others about but didn’t because you were embarrassed by their website? How did that make you feel?
- What if anything are you doing to get honest feedback concerning your website?
- Are significant improvements to your website in the plans for 2013?
3 Comments
wow that is not exactly the best site is it! If your own church members don't like your site then chances are outsiders will be even less forgiving… So important to get it right!
Yeah, good point. And I'm not suggesting an organization's website has to be the coolest one in town, but good enough so that people will share things without hesitation.
Of course "first impressions" can "make of break" the success of a new Website, but nothing gets people to share more – than great content, which "rightly divides His word of truth."
Should a Church Website "dazzle" newcomers with something that should "impress" the world? You be the judge. For what one does..is it not more important to the "watchman set" (Christ Jesus; to whom all judgement hath been committed) than what one shows?