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Church Website Best Practices - Entries written by Sharon Kostal

MonMondayDecDecember6th2010 Writing They'll Never Read: WebTalk 201

Posted Monday, December 06 2010 @ 9 AM bySharon Kostal Tagged Best Practices for Church Websites Web Writing 0 comments Add comment

Church Communicators,

To blog or not to blog: is that your question? :)

Perhaps you've elected for an e-newsletter over print and need to find a starting point? Or delivering quality web content has become a dilemma? If you'd raise your hand on any of the above...

Welcome to the world of web writing.

It's an arbitrary world of conventions, applied to intangibles with a short shelf-life. Which explains the lack of journalistic practices...which leads to a lot of writing that doesn't get read.

Which is the reason for this WebTalk.

If you or your pastor are staking out new blogging or e-news territory, or have never applied a process to your church's cyber-communications, here's a brief on:

How to Write So They'll Read It

1: Know your audience (and how to reach them).
Blogs, e-newsletters and web stories each hit different rings of the demographic bull's eye, and most web providers have features that accomplish their basic functions.

Learn yours, then define your target readers for each vehicle, then determine calendars and contents. As you assess your writing investments, consider:

Is this for congregants, or those outside, or both?
Viewable online, or to land in an inbox?
RSS-enabled, or pushed through a distribution list?
Who will author and who will edit? Who will manage the admin?
How often will it be posted or published? What would best serve the recipients?

2: Know your purpose.
Our purpose in every piece is to inform, inspire and instill. To adopt it as yours, coach your team to...

Inform: Write about what really matters.
Of course cover sundries and events, but don't be limited to them--ministry news and personal stories are all around. Keep track of what's important and worthy, and shout it from the housetop!
Inspire: Let Scripture breathe verticality into your posts.
Every story is ultimately a God-story...but not everyone will see that. A reflection on Sunday's sermon = obvious. Promoting a parking lot redirection = less so. Look for opportunities to reveal the greater narrative and help connect the vertical dots, and without over-spiritualizing, seize them.
Instill: Find angles that reinforce core values and your church's DNA.
Every Harvest Bible Chapel has four Pillars. Worship, Walk with, Work for Christ. Life-transformation through small groups. Contemporary worship without compromise. Quality discipleship, not a quantity of disciples...

3: Know your voice.
For solo writers and projects, this one's easy. But if you're writing for yourself and ghosting for your pastor, and/or speaking generically for your church, it can be a challenge--and becomes more complex with a writing team.

If your church's online presence waffles between vibrant first person and corporately-bland third, or your team needs some unifying direction, it's time to develop a writing style guide.

Identify the "vocal" qualities, and the categories and types of articles you're after. Include editing and formatting guidelines.

Identify the following:

Are you aiming for a collective voice or individual expression, or both? Whichever your aim, defining it will increase your effectiveness.

What tone do you want to convey? Avoid sounding too casual or elitist; keep the "dude" and über-scholastic references to a minimum. Extremes on both ends lose readers.

What buckets do your pieces fall into? Identifying the category and article type will help streamline the writing.

Most God-stories start out as events, updates, testimonies, or teaching (categories), then become fillers, 150wc; shorts, 200-300wc; or features, 500-600wc (article types). If you're managing a team, clarify your categories and types, and find strong examples of each.

Are you writing with reader gender in mind? It's worth noting that a succinct, authoritative voice is received more favorably by both men and women than a descriptive, explanatory one.

Include formatting basics:

visual design principles: contrast, alignment, proximity, repetition
bullet item lists (as opposed to paragraph form)
bold selectively; italics rarely; underline never
Scripture texts: generally italicize; only use quotes if someone is speaking
Scripture references: very small, no brackets
embed videos or galleries above the web fold
capitalize ministry categories, i.e. Children’s Ministry, Worship Ministry, etc...

Gather your guidelines into a visually-friendly doc for reference and share with your team, staff, anyone with web or writing access.

4. Now write so they'll read it.
Not write what they'll read--we're not pandering to itching ears. But it pays to write for how they'll read. Most web readers are skimmers and will dismiss dense content. Short sentences, one-thought paragraphs, bulleted lists, white space, bold for emphasis, tight content--these are the keys to skim-writing.

Not convinced?

Consider how long an average visitor stays on your site. Analytics for HarvestBibleFellowship.org reveal an average of 2.44 minutes and 3.3 pages--which is relatively high.

These stats indicate 28% or less of the content per page actually gets read. Pretty deflating if you've spent hours perfecting your transient piece.

So let's raise the standard for:

high-caliber content / high-caliber writing
clarity, simplicity, urgency
strong titles, opening lines
quick, engaging answers to the who-what-where-when-why
one-thought paragraphs
short, active-voice sentences
bulleted lists
proofreading

And be ruthless about word counts. If your "feature" pieces regularly top 700, start whittling down the content. If you're new or tend to be verbose, I'd commend the 50% rule: half of any first draft could probably be deleted. Seriously.

The tighter the writing, the higher the caliber, the wider the reach...which is the whole point, right?

Okay, so maybe this wasn’t a brief. :) Call it a “resource.”

Know your readers, know your purpose, know your voice.

And. Make. Every. Word. Count.

Making Him known with you,

About the Author

Sharon Kostal oversees the Harvest Bible Fellowship website, digital media and other aspects of communication. Her delight is in spreading the word of God's work in our world today, encouraging Harvest church plants and pastors, and helping to further the reach of their ministries.

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MonMondayNovNovember29th2010 Back to School: WebTalk 101

Posted Monday, November 29 2010 @ 9 AM bySharon Kostal Tagged Best Practices for Church Websites Website 101 0 comments Add comment

Pop quiz: How's your website looking today?

Just like it looked last week...or last month?
Is your content primarily fresh, but a casual glance would say it's cluttered?
How about the navigation - is it clear?
Does the layout make sense upon landing?
What would your visitors say? What about your members?

These are a just a few invaluable questions to ask - and keep asking - because your church's website is priority number one when it comes to external communications.

Whether your site is established, in development, or heading for a revamp, might those questions serve as a springboard to consider these greater principles, offered by ChurchJuice.com. Download the complete whitepaper to drill deeper.

SEVEN BASICS VITAL TO A GOOD SITE

Cater to the guest

This is the most important thing you can think about when designing your website. As a church, we're called to bring people to Christ and as we mentioned in the intro, your website is where you'll be making your church's first impression...
Remember your regular attendees too

Your members and regular attendees have much different needs from your website than visitors do. Figure out what goals ministry leaders want to achieve with members online. Do you want members to use the website as a way to learn how to get connected in various ministries? Do you want...
Clean front page

We always want to make sure people have all the information they need, but it doesn't always have to be on the front page. Text heavy front pages can be a big turn off. Folks just don't want to filter through a sea of words to find the one thing they're looking for. People are visually orientated. For example, provide an area for info for visitors and then link to other pages...
Staying up to date

Commit to keeping things up to date and your website will better appeal to visitors and may become a place your members regularly visit. Your church won't look relevant if Christmas information is still there in March. Some churches have found success is decentralizing website content updating. They've put specific ministry leaders or rock star volunteers in charge of updating certain areas...
Embrace existing technology

Your church members are already using social media, so why not meet them where they're already at? You can always use these tools as a way to push people back to your website for more information. Here are some very basic ideas for using various online tools...
Be authentic to who you are

Like any sort of communications, don't pretend to be something you're not. A church that's more traditional probably shouldn't have a website that has a grungy look. Along the same lines you shouldn't use pictures that show a racial rainbow of people if your congregation is not multicultural...
Graphic design counts

If you're putting all of the work into planning and organizing a website, it's a shame if it all goes to waste in bad or rushed design. There is no magic equation for what makes a graphically well-designed website... [download whitepaper]

Food for thought that's fresh, clear and uncomplicated....just like we want our websites. :)

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MonMondayAugAugust2nd2010 Helping Your Senior Pastor

Posted Monday, August 02 2010 @ 9 AM bySharon Kostal Tagged Best Practices for Church Websites 0 comments Add comment

As a ministry "communicator" you are all about furthering the reach of the message of Christ--an aim that readily transfers into supporting His messenger, your Senior Pastor. This begs the question, have you helped your Senior Pastor today?

Below are two important ways to consider...

GET HIM CURRENT

No, we're not talking cell phones, social media or even sweater vests :). We are talking about his web bio.

Is the information accurate?
Are the number and names of children correct?
Does he still resemble his photo?
Do you even have one posted on your website?

If not, then it's time for an update! When doing so, a simple tip to lengthen his bio's shelf-life is to omit the ages of his children and replace time references with dates (i.e. change "married eight years" to "married in 2002").

COMMUNICATE THE NEWS

Is the Lord working out his purposes in your midst? Share on your website the good news by posting news, blog updates or send out e-newsletter blasts. The daily responsibilities of a typical Senior Pastor doesn’t always allow for timely sharing of even the most powerful moments in your church. The body of Christ that you are involved with can’t be kept up to date if they don't know. :)

Noteworthy events in the life of your church or ministry might include:

Baptisms.
Anniversaries of specific dates and milestones.
Elder installations.
The launch of new programs.
Those unexpected faith-building circumstances that God orchestrates.

Then...

Tap someone to take photos and/or video. Always!
Be selective. Upload 10-15 good images to your website.
Create a News item and summarize the gist of the event in a few paragraphs. Include wow-moments and a few quotes if possible for these really help to communicate the moment. Add your photos and/or video to your page.

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Church Website Best Practices - Entries written by Sharon Kostal

About the Author

Free Trial

Pop quiz: How's your website looking today?

SEVEN BASICS VITAL TO A GOOD SITE

Food for thought that's fresh, clear and uncomplicated....just like we want our websites. :)

About the Author

Free Trial

As a ministry "communicator" you are all about furthering the reach of the message of Christ--an aim that readily transfers into supporting His messenger, your Senior Pastor. This begs the question, have you helped your Senior Pastor today?

GET HIM CURRENT

COMMUNICATE THE NEWS

About the Author

Free Trial

@iMinistries