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Church Web Sites That Work: Make Info Easy to Find

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A four-part series on church web sites by Kevin D. Hendricks

I’ve talked about communicating where people are listening (use the Internet!), I gave some specific ways to communicate and I emphasized that communication doesn’t have to be written. But none of those strategies are any good if people can’t find your content.

Search Box
Earlier this year I tried to find information about the presidential candidates and I was shocked to discover that Barack Obama’s web site had no search box. Right now it’s a week before the election and his site still doesn’t have one. I’m losing hope.

Make sure your web site is searchable and that the results are helpful. Even if you’re not a techie, Google offers a free and easy search you can add to your site. Help people find what they’re looking for.

Archives
If you offer any kind of updateable content you should be archiving it and keeping it available, no matter how old it is. Yes, your pastor’s May 2005 letter to the congregation is outdated. But hopefully the spiritual concepts illustrated in that letter are timeless. Keep it online.

Navigation
In order for a site full of content to be useful, it has to be well organized. Make sure your site has a well-structured menu and navigation. It should be easy to get around and easy to figure out where you are in the site. It should be obvious where I’d go to find that May 2005 letter.

Highlight
The final key to making content easy to find is to highlight the good stuff. With so much information coming and going it’s easy to miss something. So be sure you’re pulling out the gems and pointing people to them. This might mean highlighting last week’s sermon and it might mean pulling out that timeless lesson from your pastor’s May 2005 letter.

Just because you built it doesn’t mean they’ll find it. Put in the extra effort to make sure people find your content.

Kevin D. Hendricks is the editor of Church Marketing Sucks and runs his own freelance writing and editing company, Monkey Outta Nowhere, where he helps organizations communicate.


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