The Hardest Lesson You'll Learn With Your Church Website

When Jesus preached to the world during his time on earth, he almost always preached in large venues, where as many as possible could come and hear the Truth of the Lord. He didn't hide his teachings in a dark corner of the city hoping people would stumble across them, but he put the message forth to as broad an audience as possible.

While there are many lessons to learn as a church webmaster, none is harder than establishing your church's voice on the internet. But with so much going on in the world wide web, this is often a difficult task. We need to find as many ways as possible to make our church website as easy to find as possible. Otherwise, our sites will just continue to hide among all the commotion and not be effective outreach tools.

So, how do we make our sites easy to find?

• Put your church website on all printed materials that your church distributes. It should be as important to your church as the phone number. Think of it as your online calling card.
  
• Take some time to read up on Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The more easily someone can find your website through a search, the more likely they are to come across your online outreaches.
• Network with other churches. If your church regularly collaborates with other local churches with outreaches and other activities, you may want to exchange links to each others sites. In time, you may develop a strong online community as well and strengthen one another in the process.
• Join directories of churches. If your church is affiliated with a denomination, then chances are that the denominations site hosts a directory of affiliated churches and their contact information, including their websites and e-mails. You probably also want to look at other directories where you commonly search for information, or just generally search the web for where a listing for your church might fit in.