Why not use a free service. What are the pitfalls of just getting someone to create a site? Why not use a volunteer in the church?
Sometimes we just want something created and don’t think about the long term upkeep. The article is much longer and feel free to visit the article and read the complete post. While we offer the full featured wordpress onour servers and have the experience to answer your questions… we also know that sometimes people are skeptical of a “sales pitch.” We genuninely believe that churches/ministries need not only a decent looking site but even more importantly that it stay fresh. We have found no better way than the free wordpress system. All you need is server space and a domain name. Something we would like to do for you but more immediately we want you to do something about your outdated site.
Not everyone who reads this needs a new site but more likely it does need updating. While we offer updating features we are more than happy to help train your self or volunteers to do it. If someone can write in word they can write in wordpress. So read the following if you have been considering what way to handle your website.
Why not Google’s Blogger/Blogspot free web blog service? It’s similar in many ways to WordPress. But its features are not as well developed or supported as WordPress. And Wordpress has one MAJOR design advantage over Google’s Blogger that’s critical to way you will want to organize your information. In WordPress, you can create “categories” of messages (ie, you can organize every post under headings, such as, a Mission Page or Worship Page). With Blogger/blogspot, you cannot create categories or multiple pages. Rather, all posts in blogspot appear in chronological order, ie, one after the other. So your members can’t click “Mission” and go see all the posts related to mission. Perhaps someday Google will fix that. WordPress.com also lets you migrate your website to it’s own domain name, whereas Blogger makes it harder to do, and once you do, Blogger doesn’t allow certain functions to work on your site. Again, maybe someday that will change, but for now, WordPress is the one.
There are other collaborative/blog style options on the web, but be careful. Many of such services come and go. They get developed and then languish after a year or two. Wordpress has been around a long time, and has a track record of continual improvement.
Caution:
You can count on some Web Techies turning up their noses at this WordPress/online solution. They’d naturally prefer to create a custom website of their own design using their own software. Many web developers I’ve met love the idea of creating a church site from scratch. They want to contribute to the church and show what they can do. And some actually do a great job long-term. But over time, most get discouraged and/or move on.
So let me address this directly to the web techies reading this: Here’s what discourages those who have gone before you… They put in all this time to make the site look nice, but nobody gives them timely info, and/or, they were interested in starting the site, but not good at maintaining it. And then the next volunteer who comes after them doesn’t understand the original design or code, and “rebuilds” the site. Or the web techie actually gets a LOT of support initially, and spends a lot of time fulfilling everyone’s wish list, but after 6 months, key people lose interest and the good-looking site is full of stale content. And round and round she goes.
Unfortunately, the internet is littered with the wreckage of well-intentioned church websites and techies. That’s why I encourage the web wizards to think about the future, rather than just about your own skills and current interest in developing a site for your church. WordPress has the kind of features that can help you AND your church avoid some of the well-known bumps in the road to developing and maintaining a church website. Mainly, it makes collaboration E-Z. And the easier you make the site to USE and MAINTAIN, -the more people you involve in creating and maintaining the site, the more likely you are to have a project that’s clean, quick, fresh, supported AND APPRECIATED by MORE than JUST YOU.
Here’s what I suggest you do next:
1. Check out a few WordPress-created church websites, and read some blogs by people who are talking about using WordPress for church sites.
A few links to get you started looking: Good place to start:
