We have 5 tips for creating or maintaining a cutting-edge website.

At Fishhook, we love giving clients the tools they can use to effectively engage with and communicate with their audiences. That’s why as a member of the Fishhook Web Team, I can wholeheartedly say our biggest goal is to create cutting-edge, compelling and beneficial websites that meet the needs and goals of our clients. Everyone is online, so churches must maximize how they use their websites, and we are passionate about helping them do so.

Here are our 5 tips for creating or maintaining a cutting-edge website:
  1. Leave it to the professionals.
    Church staff members should be focused on what they are called to do in a church. If building websites and communications in general are not their calling, then make sure to leave those tasks to the professionals to handle, so staff members can get back to ministering. For example, if your Student Ministry pastor is spending all of his time wrestling with the website, then he's not affecting kids’ lives and probably not following his calling.

    And we know that pre-built website services (like Wix or SquareSpace) can be tempting, but there are some tradeoffs to using them. Not only do you give up a lot of control over your content, but you give up the creative control to customize the site as well. You’re pretty much stuck with what they give you. And those services are not really geared for churches, so items like sermons and events are more difficult to feature well.

  2. Your website is only as good as your photography.
    You can have a great website that follows your brand, but if all of your photography is dated, poor quality, stock images or doesn’t align with the message of the page it is on, it can make your site look bad and not well-thought-out.

    Also, when it comes to photography, don’t use your header images and rotators for event promotion. People want to see the life of your church. Think of your website as your welcome mat, so your headers and rotators are the windows. When you look in windows, you see people and action happening, not advertising, so your headers and rotators should reflect the same.

  3. Don’t use Flash. Just don’t.
    Flash is a dated technology. It was popular back in the early-to-mid 2000s. Think about that: It’s a technology that was popular over a decade ago! Times have changed. Plus, there are security risks associated with Flash, so it’s best to avoid it.

    Instead, build a standards-based website using HTML5, CSS and Javascript. Much of what Flash used to do can be done with Javascript and just straight HTML now, so stick with those and skip Flash.

  4. Busy is not better.
    When it comes to the visual design of your website, keep it simple. A basic communications principle is to keep the main thing the main thing and don’t cloud it with unimportant junk. The same is true with animations.

    Websites have gotten to the point where they’re more utilitarian than they used to be. You may be tempted to impress people with many different features, but what people really want is clean, clear and simple websites, so they can find what they’re looking for easily.

  5. Have a plan for keeping your website current.
    This is so important! Here’s what we recommend for updates:

    –Images should be updated seasonally.
    –Timely content (events, blog posts, etc.) should be updated 2-3 times/week.
    –New content needs to be consistently hitting your site, and the homepage needs to reflect some of that new content. This is essential for two reasons: 1) Part of Google’s scoring is based on how often you update, and 2) you want site visitors to see that you’re updating your website as well.
    –Evergreen content should be revisited once a year or if there are major ministry transitions.

We know it's difficult to add keeping a website current to your list of to-dos. But we also know that it can be a powerful ministry tool if you use it strategically! So take some time to follow these tips, and you should be able to maintain a cutting-edge website for your church.