# Church Website Questions



## panicbird (May 20, 2006)

My church is considering putting a website up. It has fallen to me to figure out how to go about doing that. I have a series of questions for those of you who are much more literate in this area than me.

1. Who is the best host? Yahoo seems to have a pretty good deal, but is their service any good?

2. How did you design your site? Did you hire someone, or did you do it yourself?

3. If you designed your site yourself, what software did you use? Which web authoring software is good and easy to use?

4. What is maintenance on your church's site like? Does it take a lot of time?

5. Have your found your church's website to be worth the time, money, and effort put into it? Have your people benefited from it?

Thanks brothers and sisters.

Lon


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## Scott Bushey (May 20, 2006)

> _Originally posted by panicbird_
> My church is considering putting a website up. It has fallen to me to figure out how to go about doing that. I have a series of questions for those of you who are much more literate in this area than me.
> 
> 1. Who is the best host? Yahoo seems to have a pretty good deal, but is their service any good?
> ...



Check w/ LT. Col. Rich aka SemperFideles on the board.

http://www.puritanboard.com/forum/member.php?action=viewpro&member=SemperFideles

I believe he helps w/ church websites.



[Edited on 5-20-2006 by Scott Bushey]


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## Semper Fidelis (May 20, 2006)

1. I will host it for free. It's a bit limited in terms of space and bandwidth I can offer (with limited tech support) but I'm happy to do so for Reformed Churches.

2. I use Dreamweaver but your questions lead me to believe your knowledge of building a Church website is pretty limited. Check out what I set up for Paul Manata at http://www.presstheantithesis.org. I loaded up a script called Joomla (http://www.joomla.org), that allows non tech types to build their own sites.

3. See above.

4. It can at first. If you use a Content Management Script like Joomla then, once you figure it out, it's not very hard.

5. That depends on what you do with it. I don't think you're going to get a ton of foot traffic from it but it is very useful to refer folks to if you have the right information on it. Here is a minimal website I set up for the Church I attend in Japan:

http://www.baptistchurch.jp

Here is a "nicer" site I set up for my home Church in Temecula:

http://www.temeculaopc.org

Neither are very "busy", the second has a lot more information about beliefs but both have directions (very key), worship times, a contact form, and some statements about the Church. Both are also written to optimize for search engines using and re-using keywords such as "temecula church" etc.


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