Resources
Web Tips (or how to improve your church Web site)
(This article, written by Angela Herrmann in 2000, remains relevant.)
Your congregation has a Web site, you’ve registered
it with all of the major search engines and Web surfers actually
drop in for a visit. But you want them to return, right? Now
what?
Here are some useful tips and guidelines that will help you
transform your Web site into a professional-looking communication
tool for your congregation. This article focuses on basic,
but important, content and navigation tips.
- Keep your content relevant, and up to
date. Did you forget to remove references to last year’s
General Assembly from your site? When was the last time you
updated your monthly calendar? What about hot links? Have
you checked them lately? The bottom line? Your Web site is
like a child: it’s high maintenance!
- ...more on hot links (or don’t send
your visitors away forever). If you include hot links
to Web sites outside your site, do you send your visitor away
forever? By adding the HTML attribute, TARGET= “_blank”
to your <A HREF...> tags, the link will open a new browser
window and keep your visitor at your site longer.
- Don’t put the content of your entire
site on one page. Have you stumbled across Web sites
with pages that force you to scroll on and on--like long stretches
of highway without exits. With the click of a keystroke, our
visitor will bail out quickly in a desperate search for a
more user-friendly site.
Think of the Web as a big house with lots of doors, links
to unexplored places. Hot links are like doors: Give your
visitor clues as to what’s behind those doors then let
them decide whether or not to enter. Your opening page should
contain no more than will fit on your visitor’s computer
screen. You can add links to other pages that contain the
information they want.
- Not all browsers “see” the
same. You’ve created your Web masterpiece with
Microsoft FrontPage and it looks great through Microsoft Explorer.
But not everyone uses Explorer. Nearly half of all Web surfers
use Netscape Navigator. (...and then there’s the America
Online browser, but that’s a whole other issue) Both
Explorer and Navigator are free. Download them and use them
to test your site.
- Avoid colored or textured backgrounds.
The issue here is text readability. Folks in the print world
discovered a long time ago that dark type on light-colored
paper offers the best contrast, thus enhancing text readability.
Remember, if you have trouble reading the text on your Web site, your visitors will, too.
- If you know there’s an error on
your site, fix it. We all make mistakes--careless little
typographical errors. When I find a glaring error on a Web site, I’ll send the webmaster a short note, as a courtesy
(I have received these notes gratefully). By the time I return
to their site, the mistake has been corrected. One site I
visit periodically has a glaring error on the opening page
in the headline. I wrote to the webmaster---several months
have passed---the error remains.
Remember, your Web site is a reflection on your congregation.
You want it to be relevant---and you want to give your visitor
a reason to return---for reasons other than whether or not you
corrected that glaring error.
Do you have Web questions? Write to me at aherrmann@dhm.disciples.org.
Your questions could provide fodder for upcoming articles.
—Angela Herrmann
Director of Web site development
Disciples Home Missions
