driving traffic, to your church website : workshop session at ministry 2.0 technology conference
- you want to get people to come back, over and over again
- make the site the primary vehicle
- q? "how'd you make the transition from the printed to online newsletter" answer, "we just did it. we do have a once a month paper publication that is more storytelling of missions or ministry etc."
- forward compatability vs backward compatible. we make decisions on what we want to be about
- once you put everything on the front page, nothing is on the front page. people couldn't see it, lost in the mix. find the middle road.
- task based organization, what are using coming to your site to do?
- "highest real estate of a site is the top left"
- new to church is highest ranking, email newsletter 2nd, media and calendar are the sticky things that bring people back
- if it is on the bulletin then it goes onto the website homepage as featured item
- navigation structure of site. jargon and organizational thinking in navigation. use words that are understandable by others (ex. journeys, don't know if is youth or whatever). navigation shouldn't be done according to the organization of work.
- organize content according to users, not church structure
- consistency across the site is critical. having different structures for different parts of the site is frustrating for users
- search-ability of site. larger site need better search-ability. if smaller the structure needs to be stronger
- "don't make me think" book on search-ability
- integrate with the core values of your church. make sure everything goes in with your mission & purpose statements and movement of the church.
- tie to your discipleship values. integrate all throughout the site. putting in the message
- web credibility project, what is appeal of your site
- integrated brand position with your site. get content past peoples filter by being consistent across mediums
- develop a content maintenance plan. how are you going to keep all this going and up to date. chuck uses a weekly communications schedule. all the stuff that needs to be done that week (micro level). need to keep the site up to date to keep folks coming back.
- cross promotion (thinking like oprah). on her website she's promoting her tv show or radio show. on the radio show they promote the web site, etc. crucial to how you think about promotions
- business cards need to have the web site address. bulletins need to promote site, etc.
- in all flyers have short cut links to your promotions. they don't always have to just promote the homepage. www.sitename/ministry/ build that culture. children's ministry has its own domain name, but it just directs back to page within the site. domain names are cheap. can be printed on flyers, t-shirts, outside of church building, etc.
- newspaper ad, everything we do has the website address. we don't do ads in the faith section. we put in the sports or finance sections.
- direct mailer, has times and website for services. put prominently. do a /specificneed url for the message you are getting out.
- the web is a fast medium, people don't want to wander around your site (church & corporate site wise, youtube a bit different)
- email newsletters a primary driver of coming back to the site. it used to be really long and content heavy. now its short and links to information on the website. people scan & click
- email aquisition strategy, if you sign into the attendance pad you get the pastor emails and wednesday newsletter. also have online web site sign up. if you sign up for an event we don't put you in. will put you into specific event emails if attending those.
- social media, have people link back and help drive traffic back to you. blogs, facebook groups, individual and ministry blogs, podcast of sermons, etc. the more ways you are out there, the exponential the effect.
chuck russell is leadership development director at church of the resurrection in leawood kansas outside kansas city (that was for you chuck)
