Your parish website
Websites are effective ways to communicate your parish news, who is who and what is happening. They can also help those in your community who may not attend church very often, but want to find out more about getting married, baptisms, funerals or confirmations.
Picking a website platform
There are numerous companies and web designers that can create and host a website for you. If your local church is fortunate, you may have just such a person in your congregation who can do this for you (at a very much cheaper rate then a commercial operator). If you are thinking about redesigning your parish website, or starting one from scratch, it is worth putting out some feelers amongst your community to see whether someone could help. They may not even attend the church but be happy to lend a hand and advice.
A commercial website developer, depending on the size of the website (the number of pages you have) and the complexity of what you may want to do, could easily exceed many thousands, if you build a website from scratch. Website costs can generally be considered to fall into three areas.
- Buying a domain/url
- Building it
- Hosting it
Below are a few options to help get you started, suggested by the Diocese without recommendation or endorsement.
Some of these sites also offer a wider range of support for churches including the day-to-day management of your parish activities.
A Church Near You (ACNY)
A Church Near You (ACNY) is an entirely free platform delivered and managed by the Church of England Digital team. Time and resources are being invested in its continual development, along with global features being rolled out by the Church of England team, and so regardless of your parishes website preference, it is recommended that your church page is maintained by someone in your parish.
The sky is the limit to what you might have time and be inclined to add to your website. But for a pleasurable visitor experience, the following should act as a guide.
Content is key
- Be concise. A rule of thumb is that a website should have 1/3 of the words that you would put in a booklet.
- Clear space is fine. Do not cram material in all over the place, section out your website and make the information clear and easy to read.
- Give some thought to who in your parish will be responsible for updating certain elements. Accountability is important, so you know certain areas do not fall between the gaps.
- Keeping your website up-to-date will make it a useful resource as well as being important to encourage people back time and again to view the content.
The information you should include is outlined below.
Your Church denomination
It is sensible to include this to help people know what to expect from the start.
The address of your church
Not to be forgotten. If your parish church is tucked away and a newcomer has travelled for many miles, give them all the local details needed to find you. (sat nav friendly postcodes included!).
Who is who
Have a clear to find contact page listing who is who and how to reach them.
You should include the clergy, key PCC members and the churchwarden(s).
Who the safeguarding contacts are
It is extremely important that your website clearly identifies who the Parish Safeguarding contacts are should someone need. Make sure this is a page that can be accessed quickly from anywhere on the website and that it includes all the required material required by the safeguarding best practice.
Events, service times and opening times
People will want to know what is going on and when they could/should visit. Keep this section clear, updated and easily found.
Some description and history
Churches are marvellous places, full of history. Telling visitors to your website more about your church, the history, then make-up of the congregation, services for the young or elderly, messy church etc. all go towards helping people get a feel about your church before they arrive.
Facilities and Access
Do not forget to mention something about the access and facilities. Can someone park near your church, if not, where should they go? Is it easy to access your church or are there steps? Is there a toilet on-site? Is there tap water available etc?
All these little details help people plan for their visit and should be prominent on your church website.