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    Church Website Best Practices - Entries tagged "Is Your Homepage Attractive"

    Home - Blog - Church Website Best Practices - Entries tagged "Is Your Homepage Attractive"
    SatSaturdayMayMay7th2011 New Free Church Website Designs
    Posted Saturday, May 07 2011 @ 9 AM byTravis Hickox Tagged Company News Is Your Homepage Attractive 0 comments Add comment

    It has never been easier to have a great looking church website when you use the iMinistires church website cms.

    We are excited to announce that we have several new free church website designs that you can select from for your church website. Each provides the ability to make it your own with:
    • 4 Editable text areas that you can use for service times, location, mission statement, or even graphics.
    • Easily add your facebook, twitter, vimeo, youtube, linkedin, flickr and RSS addresses to have the appropriate icon appear.
    • Upload your own logo.
    • Upload your own fav icon.
    Take a look at these websites to see how your website could look if you selected them today! We can also easily modify these skins to suit your tastes for an hourly rate. Check out the church website of Harvest Bible Chapel Pittsburgh North for an example. They selected Olivet, and had us change the background, coloring as well as make them some banners and ads.

    Capernaum

    Visit Sample Site | Learn more

    Bethsaida

    Visit Sample Site | Learn More

    Ephesus

    Visit Sample Site | Learn More

    Olivet

    Visit Sample Site | Learn More

    Sinai

    Visit Sample Site | Learn More

    Free Trial

    We believe the best way to describe our tools is for you to try them out yourself. We offer a 15-day free trial account which will give you a few days to use all of the features available to our paying clients. There's no risk and no obligation. Who knows, you might even enjoy the new control you have over your very own website.

    Create Your Free Trial Account
    MonMondayJulJuly5th2010 Is Your Homepage Attractive? Part 5: Ads
    Posted Monday, July 05 2010 @ 9 AM byTravis Hickox Tagged Best Practices for Church Websites Is Your Homepage Attractive 0 comments Add comment

    5. Ads

    In the past few blogs, we explored how to improve the look of your homepage by writing compelling content, adding thumbnails and highlights, and by creating a custom scrolling header. In this blog, we'll explain how ads can be the finishing touch on the first page your visitors see.

    The goal of your homepage is to "convert" your vistor--to convince them to stay on your site longer, see what your ministry has to offer, and hopefully visit your ministry in person or contact you for more information. One way to do this is to show them what's happening with you. You can do this on a large scale with scrolling headers, but you can also do this by creating and uploading ads.

    Just like a business would use advertisements in newspapers, billboards, or television, you can advertise your upcoming events, latest news, podcasts, or blogs in the same way. The goal is the same--to get your audience to buy what you're selling. In this case, you are selling your ministry and your ministry website's offerings.

    On your iMinistries website, you have a designated place where ads will display, depending on your skin. Most ads show above highlights in the right column. And with iMinistries Rotator feature, you can easily add scrolling ads to maximize the use of this space.

    Step 1:     Create your ads to "sell" the content of your choice.
    Step 2: Make a Rotator, add slides, upload your images, and link them to your content.
    Step 3: In your site's Content Administration, use the Widget feature to add your Rotator as a ad.



    Free Trial

    We believe the best way to describe our tools is for you to try them out yourself. We offer a 15-day free trial account which will give you a few days to use all of the features available to our paying clients. There's no risk and no obligation. Who knows, you might even enjoy the new control you have over your very own website.

    Create Your Free Trial Account

    MORE RESOURCES FOR ADS

    What is An Ad? How Do I Create an Ad? - iMinistries Knowledgebase
    What is Rotator Admin? How Do I Create a Rotator? - iMinistries Knowledgebase Video
    MonMondayJunJune21st2010 Is Your Homepage Attractive? Part 4: Custom Header
    Posted Monday, June 21 2010 @ 9 AM byTravis Hickox Tagged Best Practices for Church Websites Is Your Homepage Attractive 0 comments Add comment

    4. Header

    Your ministry website's header is your place to grab your visitor's attention. Since its placement is most prominent on your homepage, your header can be used for several things:
    • To advertise your upcoming ministry events
    • To link to your About pages (Our Beliefs, Service Times, etc.)
    • To let visitors know about your site's blogs and podcasts
    Using iMinistries' Rotator feature, you can create a scrolling header for your homepage that can do all these things.

    Step 1:     Create your banner images to advertise the content of your choice.
    Step 2: Make a Rotator, add slides, upload your images, and link them to your content.
    Step 3: In your site's Content Administration, use the Widget feature to add your Rotator as a header.



    Now your site visitors can see what your ministry is all about, and what's currently going on, from the second they get there. And in the Web world, every second counts.

    Free Trial

    We believe the best way to describe our tools is for you to try them out yourself. We offer a 15-day free trial account which will give you a few days to use all of the features available to our paying clients. There's no risk and no obligation. Who knows, you might even enjoy the new control you have over your very own website.

    Create Your Free Trial Account

    MORE INFO ABOUT HEADERS AND THE ROTATOR FEATURE

    Adding a Header – iMinistries Support Video
    What is a Rotator? How do I Create a Rotator? – iMinistries Support Document
    Rotator Feature – iMinistries Feature Description
    Rotator Transition Styles – iMinistries Feature Description
    MonMondayJunJune7th2010 Is Your Homepage Attractive? Part 3: Adding Highlights
    Posted Monday, June 07 2010 @ 9 AM byTravis Hickox Tagged Best Practices for Church Websites Is Your Homepage Attractive 0 comments Add comment

    3. Highlights

    Are you using Highlights effectively? Do you even know what a Highlight is? Every page should have at least one Highlight on it. Why?
    • Because they provide additional points of interest
    • Because they provide additional imagery to break up the text
    • Because they make your website appear more dynamic, even if you don't have someone maintaining your website, by using the "Random Highlight" option
    • Because they make your website look more filled with content
    • Because they provide additional cross links, which makes you look better to search engines
    • Because they provide additional navigational links, which help your users find more information


    Free Trial

    We believe the best way to describe our tools is for you to try them out yourself. We offer a 15-day free trial account which will give you a few days to use all of the features available to our paying clients. There's no risk and no obligation. Who knows, you might even enjoy the new control you have over your very own website.

    Create Your Free Trial Account

    OTHER RESOURCES ON HIGHLIGHTS

    What Are Highlights? – iMinistries Support
    Adding Highlights? – iMinistries Support Video
    Why Highlights? – Wisdom & Insight for Your Website
    MonMondayMayMay24th2010 Is Your Homepage Attractive? Part 2: Adding Thumbnails
    Posted Monday, May 24 2010 @ 9 AM byTravis Hickox Tagged Best Practices for Church Websites Is Your Homepage Attractive 0 comments Add comment

    2. Thumbnails

    If you are not adding thumbnails to the content that you post on your church website, you are missing a step that is a total game changer for how your website looks. I don't want to say that this is the most common thing people miss, but it is a big one. Check out the difference between our previous blog entry and the one below. They have the exact same pieces of information in them but this one has thumbnails.



    Thumbnails make your content "pop" off the page. The images break up the chunks of text so your homepage is more pleasing to the eye. They also give a visual representation to your content that your users can more easily identify with. Pictures speak a thousand words, remember?

    Free Trial

    We believe the best way to describe our tools is for you to try them out yourself. We offer a 15-day free trial account which will give you a few days to use all of the features available to our paying clients. There's no risk and no obligation. Who knows, you might even enjoy the new control you have over your very own website.

    Create Your Free Trial Account

    OTHER RESOURCES ON THUMBNAILS

    How to add a thumbnail – iMinistries Support Video
    Free thumbnails – iMinistries Resources
    MonMondayMayMay10th2010 Is Your Homepage Attractive? Part 1: Content
    Posted Monday, May 10 2010 @ 9 AM byTravis Hickox Tagged Best Practices for Church Websites Is Your Homepage Attractive Web Writing 0 comments Add comment
    As we've said before, having a great website is more than just fancy images and flashy bells and whistles. The same goes for having an attractive homepage. So how can you make your church website's homepage more attractive to its visitors? Follow us step-by-step through this five part series.

    1. Content

    Being visually appealing can make or break your website, but the real killer is your written content and how often it changes. While graphics can either pull people in or turn them away from your church website, how can anyone ever find you if Google, Bing, or Yahoo never visit you because there is no information for them to consume? And how will you keep people coming back if there is no information for them to consume?

    You need written content on your website's homepage that is dynamic, always up-to-date, and is constantly-changing. Adding the News, Events, or even Blog Widgets to your homepage will make a dramatic difference in how your website looks, both to visitors and search engines.


    In the example above, you can see that there are two news items, two events, and a latest blog entry from this website. This is an excellent start, especially because the content shows on the home page by a dynamic feed, or what we call the News, Events, and Blog Widget. Any time that there is a new item added to the News, Events, or Blogs Administration panel, they will update the home page.

    Free Trial

    We believe the best way to describe our tools is for you to try them out yourself. We offer a 15-day free trial account which will give you a few days to use all of the features available to our paying clients. There's no risk and no obligation. Who knows, you might even enjoy the new control you have over your very own website.

    Create Your Free Trial Account
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