When many people start to think about building a website, the first question they ask is “Who will build it, and what will it cost?”

These are very important questions but they are not the first ones you should think about. A website can be your most valuable marketing tool if done correctly, but if done incorrectly, it will be nothing but a worthless money pit.

With today’s technology, the potential of a website is infinite. Unfortunately your time and resources, along with the attention span of your potential website visitors, are very much limited. This means that you need to find the answers to a few important questions before you even lift a finger or pay a dime to start the construction of your project.

1. What will be the overall purpose of your website?

If this website is the only website your organization will have, chances are, the overall purpose of your website is the same as the overall purpose of your organization.

If you are a Christian Church, the ultimate purpose of your website may be “To  bring people to Christianity”. If you are a grass seed salesman, the overall purpose of your website may be “To sell grass seed”.

It’s important that you and everyone who will be working with you on your website has a clear idea in their heads as to what your web site’s ultimate purpose is. If you stray from your purpose, your website will become too general and will eventually fail to serve any purpose at all.

2. What kinds of People will visit your site and why?

If you make your website public to the world, all sorts of different people will stumble across your pages. Who are they? What is it that they want from you? Below is a short list of people who might be visiting a church website and what they may be looking for:

1. Members of the church wanting to find something inspirational to hear, read, or see
2. Members of the church trying to remember the date of the next church potluck dinner
3. New folks in town who are looking for a local church
4. Non members looking to visit for the first time but don’t yet know what to expect
5. Non Christians who are interested in learning about general Christian beliefs
6. Other Christians, Preachers, or theologists wanting to know the specifics of your church’s doctrine and maybe listen to a sermon or two
7. Lost or ex-members of your church looking for a private place online to rekindle their faith until they gain the courage to fully re-enter the congregation.
8. Enemies of your church looking for a way to disturb your organization or steal away members of your congregation

3. How can your site serve its visitors

Now that you have a list of visitors and their needs, it’s time to ask how you will meet their needs while keeping in mind the overall purpose of your website.

If you are a grass seed salesmen, you will need to convince your visitors to buy your grass seed and then you will need to give them a way to do so.

Below is a list of how a church website could meet the needs of the list above while keeping in mind the main purpose of a Christian website which in this case is “To bring people to Christianity”. Each number in the list below matches the numbers in the list above.

1. Your site could have articles, sermons, and videos about spiritual things for members to view and share.
2. Your site could have an events calendar that’s easy for the church to update and simple for visitors to use.
3. You could provide meeting schedules, church location, and contact info for potential visitors.
4. You can explanation exactly what goes on during meetings, and how people typically dress (formal or informal) so your first time visitors won’t be caught off guard by awkward surprises.
5. You can give a basic overview of your beliefs for people who are new to the idea if being Christian.
6. You could provide in depth articles, audio sermons, and videos on a variety of doctrinal topics for those interested in learning more about the ideas that fuel your faith.
7. By now you should have plenty of resources to serve lost members of the church but you could also add special resources for those struggling with alcohol addiction, anger management, or other issues that may be hurting their church and family life.
8. All organizations develop enemies over time. Your site should be built in a way that it can not be poisoned by these people who may try to post bad things in message boards, hack into your website, or harass church leaders by obtaining too much contact information that may have been carelessly posted on the site.

When answering the questions above, you should not worry about issues of time or money. Simply imagine the perfect website for your organization.

Once your dream website has been imagined, it’s time to analyze your budget and find a web design firm who can help you understand what is doable and what is not for the price you are looking to pay. Then you will go back and prioritize your needs, putting on hold anything that you find is not necessary for the time being. Once your website has proven to be successful, you can go back and start to add all your dream features.

And that’s that
Jon Perry