3Sixty Creative Blog

Before you begin any web site project you must consider how the site will be maintained and updated after it is launched. In the early days of the Internet many websites were essentially online brochures, which carried basic information about the organisation but were not regularly updated or very interactive. There is still a place for a the simple 'brochure-type' church websites that are an initial point of contact and provide 'fixed' information about when and where they meet and what to expect on a typical Sunday. With the advent of 'Web 2', websites increasingly becoming more like a living community, updated daily with users making regular contributions. (World-class examples of this are FaceBook, MySpace and Flickr.) If you want your church website to be 'sticky' - i.e. attract regular repeat visitors, it is vital to keep it up to date. Examples of what can make a church website sticky could be; Sermon podcasts (Provided each week), details of times and locations of midweek and other meetings, details of the next Sunday; who is preaching, who is leading worship etc, reports and photos of recent events... the list could go on.

Running a church website effectively will involve a serious commitment and I would highly recommend the church appoints (and funds?) a website manager who is responsible for updating the site on a weekly or even daily basis. In parallel, I would also suggest you find a photographer (ideally within the church) who will record church events, not only to provide a library of images for the initial site design, but to add to the site on a frequent basis.

Manual updates V Content Management System
Before the site is designed you have a VERY important choice to make - will the site be a manually coded and updated or will it be built on a Content Management System?

A manually constructed site may be built using software such as Dreamweaver or Frontpage on a PC and then uploaded to the website hosting space (Which you will have to purchase yourself). Any changes have to be done on the PC using the software and then re-uploaded. This requires someone who is technically competent and willing (your 'IT guy') and usually means you are reliant on the co-operation and availability of just one individual to update the site. However this could be slightly cheaper (if your 'IT guy' is a member of the church and not charging for updates) as you will have to pay fees to the CMS provider

Using a CMS involves a third party who will provide a clever software system that allows any authorised users to access the site using a 'back-office' where they can edit the site easily using just a web browser (from anywhere in the world) and will not usually require a great deal of technical know-how. Your website designer will provide a template to the CMS who integrate it into their system. The huge advantage of this is that a team can run the site that doesn't need lots of IT skill and can be quickly updated. The CMS will usually include hosting the site, email and many other features that would require a great deal of work to add to a manually built site.

Church Website Content Management Systems.
The primary function of a content management system (CMS) is to allow the content of the site to be managed and updated easily, ideally without much technical expertise required by the website manager. At the very least a CMS should allow to website manager to edit text, upload, photos (and other file formats such as PDFs and MP3s) add and delete pages and 'publish' the changes to your website. There are many other functions offered by CMS that I will discuss at a later date.

In the UK there are several companies providing specialist CMS for Churches. I will provide an independent review of these soon. They each have strengths and weaknesses but I would usually recommend that any church website is built using a CMS.