Thursday, February 4, 2010

West Side Website

http://www.wscoclebanonoh.com/

So I am currently looking at our website for the church. If you do not mind, will you go to the website, look through it and mention to me anything you see that you like, do not like, or think needs improvement. There are a lot of things I am looking at to add to the website so that it is very appealing to guest coming to our church.

I am looking to clean up the links, add a calendar of events type deal, add some pictures of church activities, as well as some more information about the church.

While I am not in love with the look of this website, I love the content in the website. This was the site I helped create at Laurel Avenue in Chesapeake. I would like to add some of the same features.

Thank you for your comments. You can leave them in the comment section below or on my Facebook page.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey man!

Just looked at it....

I am not sure who created it, but NH used to have one similar to that... Not very interesting. It has an old look to it.

I didn't use NH's because... well, I didn't like it and didn't think it was very useful.
You have good content, and information. But the set up could be updated. If you want ideas I would look to Jason Bedell or Chris Woolard. They both create great websites.

If you put it together and I hurt your feelings then I am truly sorry. I was being honest so that you can make the changes you need to make. On top of that... I can't even build a website...YET!

jondrms said...

Hey Mike, I am currently in the process of getting the Church site up and running so I have been looking at and reading up on what makes a website good and user friendly. Everything I have seen points to the same principle. Keep the home page as sleek as possible. Do not make it busy. When people sing onto your site the very first thing they are going to see is the home page and it should do two things.
1) Tell them who you are (which yours does)
2) Tell them what your about in as few words as possible.

The rest of the stuff should be found else where on the site via link on the home page. People already know what they are looking for when they get on there so a bunch of stuff on the homepage will just confuse them. Just wanted to share that and also ask what program you are using to develop your site?

God Bless,

Jonathan

Michael Dawson said...

Guys,

I appreciate both of your comments. I did not do the design work on the website. It was done about a year ago long before I got here. We are paying a guy who is disabled and a friend of the church to manage it.

I am not overly happy with the look of the site, but I personally do not know how to write html. I am seriously considering diving into that in the next couple of months.

John I totally agree with you. Since reading Simple Church, and their comments on Google and the iPod, I am totally sold on the simple idea. I do not even want Marty’s picture on the homepage, maybe a collage of people (that is the church, not the preacher right or building - all puns inteneded).

While I don't like the look of Laurel Avenue's site… www.lacc-online.org, I love the content. Content wise that is what I will be shooting for here. Look wise, I don't know yet. I am getting ready to add some similar content to the site.

Again thank you for your input. I appreciate it.

Laura Williams said...

Michael, We had a new family visit a few weeks ago. They tried to use the website to get to the church (they live in Mason) the comments I got from them were that they could not find a phone number to call for directions, and the "button" for directions only gave them a map, but not how to get here. Can we link to mapquest?

Michael Dawson said...

Laura,

Thank you for the insight. I have been made aware of that particular situation. That will be one of the things that I want to fix with this website overhaul.

This needs to be a tool our people send friends and family to when they are encouraging them to visit our church.

Agian thank you for the thought.

jondrms said...

Hey I almost forgot, check out www.clover.com. They put together some awesome looking websites and they are cheap. One time $1000 fee for them to put the whole thing together, and then only $25 a month after that. It is easy to edit, they designed it around a 85year old secretary being able to edit it. I know the $1,000 one time fee seems a little much but once you see the sites you will realize they are doing about a $25,000 site for less than a fraction of the cost. Just something to think about.

Michael Dawson said...

Hey man, thanks for the info. I have looked at clover and if I ever have the 1000 to do it I probably will. I love forefronts and Verves sites and know they used it.