Planning Guide Part Four

Part Four:
Maintaining a Fresh and Dynamic Web Ministry
This is part four of the four-part training for Web Ministry

101. In part one, we covered the first seven steps to
developing an effective Web ministry by considering how
to access the power of the Internet. In part two, we shared
steps 8–12, which outline the basic material, human, and
financial resources you will need to develop a powerful
Web ministry, including the basic website design and
hosting options available to you. Then in part three, we
introduced the concept of developing a user-centered
website as your primary tool for Web ministry by covering
steps 13–20. Now, in this fourth session, we will be
exploring the important components of maintaining a fresh
and dynamic Web ministry, offering a comprehensive
wrap-up of the four-part training, and sharing some
valuable, timely resources. Our goals for this part of the
training are to:
• Develop a schedule for regular and routine

content and design maintenance of your
website
• Identify and use dynamic website content
from UMC.org
• Establish a plan for marketing and launching
your website
• Conduct regular reviews and evaluations of
the effectiveness of your website in relation to
your overall Web ministry goals
• Share the seven phases of the Web ministry
planning and implementation process as a
way of wrapping up the four-part training, and
• Identify ways to gain support and further
training as you expand your Web ministry
The main question we want to answer in today’s training

How can you keep
is, “How can you keep your website relevant and your website relevant
exciting?” In particular, we want to empower you to take and exciting?
Web Ministry 101 Planning Guide Part Four: Maintaining a Fresh and Dynamic Web Ministry
© 2006 United Methodist Communications
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advantage of dynamic content tools and establish a

routine for updating and evaluating your website.
As we discussed in part one of this Web Ministry 101

training, visitors to your website are more apt to return if
Step #21:
Develop a Schedule for
your site offers dynamic elements, such as daily content Maintaining Your Website
updates. A fresh and dynamic website demands regular
content and design maintenance. This means that you will
want to set a schedule to review, edit, and modify your
content and design on a regular basis and get continuous
input from your target audiences and other stakeholders to
make these changes and updates. As you develop your
content and design maintenance schedule, keep in mind
what information will need to be updated on a daily,
weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis. In addition,
there will be content that requires updating on-demand,
such as changes to your staff or volunteer listings, should
you include these on your website. On pages 128–133 of
this Guide, we offer more information on maintaining your
website and sample worksheets for developing your
website maintenance schedule.
Step #22:
Another way to keep your website content fresh and
dynamic is to employ the use of Really Simple
Syndication, commonly referred to as RSS feeds. RSS Use Really Simple Syndication
feeds use a cut and paste Javascript string that (RSS)
automatically provides new and up-to-date content right
on your website.
One of the best examples of this is The Upper Room Daily

Devotional. Instead of simply providing a link on your
webpage to the Upper Room, you can display part of each
day’s devotional right on your website that is automatically
updated with the current devotional each day. The display
comes in three sizes. Each display includes the banner,
“Today’s Devotional from The Upper Room,” the name of
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the day’s devotional, and a link to the full devotion on The

Upper Room Ministries website.
If you select the small-sized display, you can include the

“Thought For The Day.” With the medium or large-sized
display, you can select to include the current date, the
“Thought For The Day,” and the first 200 characters of the
devotional.
To make your selections and preview the display you have

chosen, visit the UMCom RSS webpage. Once you’ve
made your selections and are happy with the display
format, the Javascript string will be created. Simply cut
and paste this into your website.
There are other RSS feeds available through United

Methodist Communications. These include United
Methodist News Service Daily News Headlines, UMC.org
Audio Profiles, UMC.org Movie Reviews, UMC.org Book
Reviews, and UMC.org Music Reviews. To learn more,
visit the UMC.org website and click on “Tools For Ministry.”
If you are using E-zekiel, the process is even easier. All

you need to do is specify which RSS feeds you want to
display and where you want them to appear on your
webpage. E-zekiel does the rest for you.
There are other sources for RSS feeds, and we’ve offered
a few suggestions in the Web Ministry Planning Guide.
Remember to evaluate these RSS feeds for your own use
to be sure they meet the stated needs of your target
audiences and are appropriate for the type of content you
want to offer through your website. Likewise, as with any
RSS feeds, you will want to conduct regular maintenance
by checking the links to be sure they still direct to the
correct site. Nothing is more frustrating to a user than a
dead end link or one that directs to the wrong place. See
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page 134 of this Guide for links to United Methodist and

other RSS feeds and resources.
Okay, you’ve designed and populated a website with

dynamic content, engaging information, attractive colors,
Step #23:
Develop Strategies for
graphics, and photos. Now it’s time to let the whole world Marketing Your Website
see your hard work. But before you launch your website,
you will want to consider how to get the word out about
your Web presence.
To begin with, you will want to add your Web address to

every printed resource that your church distributes. Two
places you can do this first are the church’s newsletter and
the worship bulletin. You might consider running a feature
article in the next issue of your newsletter and carry an
abbreviated form of the article as an announcement in
your worship bulletins. As soon as you have identified your
website launch date, you can begin to advertise it in article
and announcement form. Building anticipation among
church members for the launching of your website will
ensure they are eager and ready to visit as soon as the
site goes live. Hold off on printing the Web address on
other resources until you have actually launched your
website. Otherwise, people my attempt to access the site
and find that it is not yet operating.
Another excellent location to display your church website

address is on your Find-A-Church page through UMC.org.
This may be the first place visitors find out about your
church, and they can learn a lot more by clicking on the
link from your Find-A-Church page to visit your website. To
add your website address, follow the same steps we
discussed in part one for accessing and updating your
Find-A-Church page on the UMC.org website.
Next, check to see if your district of The United Methodist

Church has a website. If so, you may be able to have a link
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posted to your local church website from the district site.

Likewise, check with your conference of The United
Methodist Church to do the same thing. Most districts and
conferences will offer free links to local United Methodist
Church websites.
Another effective way to market your church’s website is

to participate in reciprocal links with other churches in your
area. Most church websites will provide a Links page, and
this is a good place to get your church’s Web address
posted. You can offer the same service to other churches
through your website on your Links page.
There are several free online directories that offer links to

church websites along with a brief description, in most
cases. These free online directories may have some
reciprocal requirements, like posting an advertising
banner on your website. Be sure to read the requirements
and specifications before signing up for these directories.
A list of those we’ve recently reviewed is included on
pages 135–136 of this Guide.
To broaden the circle beyond the Church, visit the website

for your local Chamber of Commerce. Many offer free links
to community organizations. Likewise, many cities offer an
online community directory, which provides free links for
churches and other community organizations. And,
consider participating in reciprocal links with other not-for-
profit and community organizations in your area that are
compatible with your church’s mission and ministry goals.
If your church collects email addresses for its members,

consider sending an email blast announcing the launch of
your church’s website. And, remember to add your
church’s website address to all future email messages in
your signature block.
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What’s most important about marketing strategies and

promoting your website is to have a plan. Just because
you build a website does not guarantee that people will
come to visit. You have to tell them, in many different ways
and often, that your church’s website is an exciting place
to visit and to participate in meaningful ministry. Getting
the word out is paramount to realizing the fruits of your
hard work. And, don’t forget the oldest tried and true form
of marketing: word of mouth. Talk up your church’s website
every chance you get.
There is one other powerful, free resource for marketing

your website: the search engine. Anyone who has used
the Internet is familiar with the most popular search
engine: Google. You can list your website through the
Google directory as well as two other popular search
engines: Yahoo and Open Directory Project/DMOZ.
Listing your website with these search engines is free.
Simply follow the sign-up instructions for each.
The key to using search engines to generate traffic to your

website is keywords. Whenever someone “googles,” she
types in a keyword or phrase to locate all the possible
website or webpage matches to begin her surfing on the
Internet. This is not as easy as it sounds because one
keyword, like church, can generate millions of results.
Keywords that are very popular or too broad will require
too much work on the searcher’s part, and she will
abandon the effort. As a result, you will want to select
specific keyword phrases that you believe your potential
visitors would use to find your website. In most cases, the
name of your church would be a good keyword phrases;
however, if you are a First United Methodist Church,
another word or two to indicate your city and state would
narrow the field and produce much more helpful results.
Search engines crawl through websites everyday to locate
results for keywords and phrases; and like actual visitors
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to your website, they start reading with the page’s title.

Therefore, make sure your titles are descriptive of the type
of information located on the pages and use words that
people would “google” in order to find such information.
For more information on optimizing your website for
search engines by using keywords and key phrases, see
pages 137–139 of this Guide.
Of course, there are many website marketing resources

available for a fee. We have attempted to provide you with
the best free resources to get started. If your budget
allows for marketing with pay-per-click or other fee-based
marketing services, we encourage you to research them
first before spending your valuable ministry dollars. Some
of these services promise a lot more than they can
reasonably deliver, and there are no guarantees that their
services will increase traffic to your website.
Step #24:
Okay, are you ready? It’s time to launch your website! All
the while you are building your webpages, you have been
creating them offline where they are not accessible to the Launch Your Website
general public. To take your website online, you will launch
it, or go live, by uploading your completed webpages to
the hosting service or server. Each hosting service will
have a specific set of instructions for how you are to
upload your pages, so be sure to get all of this information
ahead of time and test it to make sure it is working as
promised. It is a good idea to take your website live a
week or two prior to your advertised launch date and have
several people test drive the site to make sure everything
is working as planned. This way, you can work out the
kinks, if any, before your site is advertised for the entire
world to see and use.
With prior testing and tweaking, your website should be up

and running with ease by the time your advertised launch
date arrives. Then, it’s time to celebrate. We recommend
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that you plan an official celebration of some sort with your

congregation, perhaps during worship, to highlight the
new Web presence and ministry your church has
launched. For more information on launching your
website, see pages 140–141 of this Guide.
Okay, so you have your website up and running. Now it’s

time to sit back and relax, right? No! Any website worth its
“megabytes” must be regularly maintained, up-dated, and
evaluated.
For an effective Web ministry to meet its goals and

objectives, your website, which is a major tool, must Step #25:
remain vibrant, dynamic, and relevant. Likewise, you must Conduct Website Reviews
and Evaluations
constantly be seeking feedback and input from your target
audiences and those within your church who have a
vested interest in your Web ministry regarding the
effectiveness and usefulness of your website. These are
the stakeholders in your Web ministry, and their input and
feedback are crucial to your continued success.
Therefore, we recommend regular evaluation of your
website that continually points back to your Web ministry
purpose, goals, and objectives. That’s why, almost
immediately after launching your website, you will want to
schedule and conduct at least quarterly Web Ministry
team meetings to review your overall Web ministry goals
and plans for updates to your website. Regular meetings
and reviews will enable you and your team to stay on top
of things and make sure your Web presence remains fresh
and dynamic.
Every so often, but at least once a year, your Web ministry

team will want to do a more thorough evaluation of your
website and its effectiveness to determine if more
advanced elements are needed or appropriate. In
addition, the technology for website development is
constantly changing, and every day new features and
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elements become available to improve and enhance Web

ministry. We recommend that you visit our Web Ministry
Resource Center frequently to learn the latest in Web
ministry tools and technologies. For suggestions on
stakeholder evaluation tools, see pages 142–144 of this
Guide.
Another tool that will aid in evaluating the success of your

Web presence is what’s called a traffic report. The website
hosting service you use should provide this for you at least
monthly. The traffic report details the number of “hits” your
website has received each day, the number of pages
accessed, the length of time visitors spend on your site,
and the links used to enter your website. These are the
basic traffic report components. Some hosting services
provide much more detail and information. However, what
is most helpful to you is data regarding the number of
“hits” your website receives on a daily basis, the most
frequently visited pages, length of visit or session per user,
and the route by which visitors came to your site.
Keep in mind that the number of hits is not the same thing
as the number of visitors to your site. In fact, the number
of hits will be much higher because hits are counted based
upon the number of individual components of a webpage
that are loaded every time it is accessed. It is not
uncommon for a traffic report to show ten or even twenty
times as many hits as actual visits. Nonetheless, hits are
important to know because this is the language most
people understand when reporting the use and success of
their websites. But to know more accurately the number of
visitors to your website, focus on the number of sessions
conducted by your website. A session is a unique visit by
a single user. One session is recorded for each unique site
visit whether the visitor looks at one page or every page
on your site.
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In addition to knowing the number of hits and sessions

conducted each day on your website, you want to know
the average number of pages visited by users and the
average length of each session. This information is useful
because it shows the stickiness of your site. Having
started a session, do your users stick around and look at
lots of information, or do they leave after hitting the home
page? The average number of page views tells you how
your site is performing. The average length of stay is
related to page views, but indicates how intensely people
are looking at your site. For example, you might only have
two or three average page views, but a long average
session time. This tells you that while people are only
looking at a few pages, they are really reading those few
pages carefully. Conversely, you might have high page
views but low length time, indicating that people are
clicking through your site a lot but aren’t really reading it
very closely. All of this helps you to revise and refine your
pages to be more user-centered.
Finally, traffic reports can tell you how people came to visit
your site. They show whenever a visit is generated from a
link on another website, including links from search
engines. They include which search engines are sending
the most traffic and what keywords people are using to
find you. So, be sure to consider the traffic reports
provided by your website hosting service as a part of your
overall evaluation and feedback. For sample traffic reports
and analysis tools, see pages 145–153 of this Guide.
At this point in our training, we have covered all of the core Seven Phases of Web
components for starting a Web ministry in your local Ministry Planning and
church. Now, as a way to recap and wrap-up all four
Implementation
sessions of this training, we are going to talk about
developing an overall Web ministry planning and
implementation process. This process incorporates the 25
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steps we have covered throughout this training by

grouping them into seven phases. The seven phases
include:
• Discovery
• Strategy
• Design
• Building
• Launch
• Maintenance
• Evaluation
First, as we discussed in part one of this training, your Phase #1:

Web ministry team will need to engage in a period of Discovery
discovery around how the Web ministry and website will fit
into the church’s overall ministry and mission. Likewise,
you will need to identify the target audiences for your
website and consider the implications of these findings.
From this, you will develop your overall Web ministry
purpose and goals. This discovery phase should
reasonably take from two to three months depending upon
how frequently your Web ministry team meets and how
effective it is at getting the input and feedback it needs.
Keep in mind, though, that you can already have up-to-
date information about your church available on Find-A-
Church. This will provide a valuable Web presence on the
World Wide Web for your local church even after
launching your website.
So, the first phase of your Web ministry planning and

implementation process is a period of discovery as you
work through steps 1–7. These steps involve forming a
Web ministry team, securing buy-in from key people and
groups, browsing websites, developing a purpose and
goals for your Web ministry, identifying your target
audiences and their needs, choosing a type of Web
presence, and utilizing Find-A-Church.
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Next, with everything you’ve gathered in the Discovery

phase, your Web ministry team will develop a strategy for Phase #2:
achieving its purpose and goals. To accomplish this, you
Strategy
will be considering the material, financial, and human
resources needed to establish and maintain your Web
ministry; setting up your website domain name and
selecting design and hosting services; and drafting the
organization of your website. Again, depending upon the
choices you make and the diligence of your Web ministry
team, the Strategy phase can take between two and three
months to complete.
In the second phase of your Web ministry planning and

implementation process, you are working through steps
8–12 and portions of step 15. These steps involve
acquiring basic technology resources, selecting and
registering a domain name, choosing website design and
hosting services, choosing human resources, establishing
a budget, and creating the basic framework of your
website by developing a site map.
Phase #3:
Following the Strategy phase, it’s time to design your
website. Here is where you will need to decide what your
website will look like. If you choose a template-based Design
service, like E-zekiel, the design phase can be
accomplished in a matter of hours. If you choose to design
your website in-house or contract with a consultant or
website development company, the process could take
between two and three months. Make sure that the design
you select fulfills your needs, goals, and objectives based
upon the information you have already considered in the
Discovery and Strategy phases.
The Design phase encompasses steps 13–16. These

steps involve designing a unique image using a logo,
colors, and text styles; designing a welcoming home page;
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creating a site map and navigation tools; and designing

main sections and subpages.
With the design phase completed, it’s time to populate, or

build, your website. This is where all your content, Phase #4:
photographs, and graphics come into play, and where you Building
will need the most help from people, both staff and
volunteers, who can provide information for each section
and subpage of your website. The Building phase can take
up to six months to complete, but some portions of your
site can be ready for launch within a month or two
depending upon how detailed and dynamic your content
will be.
The Building phase includes steps 17–20, which

encompass populating your website with engaging
content, developing content protocols, adding
photographs and graphics to enhance the content of your
website, and protecting users and members privacy.
Phase five in your Web ministry planning and

implementation process is to launch your website. This
Phase #5:
Launch
phase includes steps 23 and 24 where you develop
strategies for marketing your website and actually
launching your website by uploading your pages to the
hosting service or server. Marketing should begin near the
end of the building phase, and some aspects of your
marketing plan will be ongoing for the life of your Web
ministry. Typically it takes only a matter of days to a week
to launch and test your website before going live on the
World Wide Web.
The Maintenance phase of your Web ministry planning Phase #6:

and implementation process is ongoing once your site is Maintenance
launched. In this phase, you are focusing on steps 21 and
22, which include developing a website maintenance
schedule and using dynamic content management tools
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like Really Simple Syndication or RSS. This phase begins

the same day that you launch your website. The
Maintenance phase is where most local church websites
lag behind because it takes a lot of hard work and
persistence to keep your site’s content fresh and up-to-
date.
Although it is the final phase, evaluation is not the end of Phase #7:
your Web ministry planning and implementation process. Evaluation
In the Evaluation phase, you are asking your target
audience(s) and other stakeholders to provide
constructive feedback and offer specific input about how
you can improve your website and overall Web ministry.
Likewise, you are taking advantage of statistical data
gathered from your hosting service regarding the type of
traffic your website is receiving on a daily basis. From this
feedback, your Web ministry team can conduct a thorough
review of how effectively you are meeting your Web
ministry purpose and goals. The Evaluation phase focuses
on step 25, which involves conducting regular reviews and
evaluation of your website.
These seven phases become a spinning circle versus a

straight line to an end point. In fact, if you follow this
process, you will naturally find yourself right back at the
beginning. You will be discovering all over again what it is
that your users and stakeholders want and expect from
your Web ministry and website, and you and your Web
ministry team will be able to apply this discovery to the rest
of the process. As a result, your Web ministry will remain
strong, vital, and growing to meet the ever-changing
needs of your audiences as well as take advantage of the
latest Web ministry technology. See pages 154–156 of this
Guide for a sample planning and implementation
checklist.
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Before we conclude this fourth and final training session

for Web Ministry 101, we wanted to share some support
services and plans for future training sessions. We know
that these four sessions have covered a lot of information
and that you are just beginning the journey of creating an
effective, user-centered Web presence for your Web
ministry. Having access to resources and support along
Ongoing Web Ministry
the way will ensure your success, and we are committed Support via Email
to offering these and staying connected. To begin with, we and Telephone
have a dedicated email address for Web ministry training,
webtraining@umcom.org. Generally, you can expect a
response by the next business day. If your need is more
urgent, we offer the toll-free number, 888-278-4862 and
will try to respond as quickly as possible during regular
business hours.
If you are looking for electronic and print resources, visit

our Web Ministry Resource Center. We will be constantly
updating this resource center with the latest and best
resources for building and maintaining an effective Web
Ministry. Web Ministry Resources,
Communications,
and Training
We will be offering a free, monthly eNewsletter to anyone
who wishes to receive it. This eNewsletter will announce
upcoming training opportunities, feature profiles and
success stories from local United Methodist Church Web
ministries, and highlight the latest and best resources
available for Web Ministry.
We will be providing online discussion groups specifically

for Web ministry. You can follow the discussion, share your
input, and pose questions for the group to discuss. This is
an exciting and important part of providing a dynamic and
interactive support system for local church Web ministry
teams.
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Finally, we are committed to your long-term success, and

we will be developing other online training sessions to
keep you learning and growing in Web Ministry. We plan
to launch three more Web Ministry training modules in late
2006 and early 2007.
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Step #21:
Develop a Schedule for Maintaining Your Website
As we discussed in part one of this Web Ministry 101 training, visitors to your website are more apt to return
if your site offers dynamic elements, such as daily content updates. A fresh and dynamic website demands
regular content and design maintenance. This means that you will want to set a schedule to review, edit, and
modify your content and design on a regular basis and get continuous input from stakeholders to make these
changes and updates. As you develop your content and design maintenance schedule, keep in mind what
information will need to be updated on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis. In addition, there
will be content that requires updating on-demand, such as changes to your staff or volunteer listings, should
you include these on your website.
Annual Maintenance
To begin with, consider these annual maintenance items for your website:
1. Review Your Domain Name Record. Don't let outdated information cause you to miss
renewals and other important notices. Verify that the contact names and addresses on your
domain record are correct once a year. Use these resources to review your domain record now:
• InterNIC
• Network Solutions (formerly VeriSign)
2. Check Website Email Addresses. If your church has had organizational changes over the past
year, you could have invalid email addresses on your site. Make a list of all the email addresses
on your site and confirm that they're still active.
3. Update Your Confirmation and Automated Messages. If the automated messages from your
registration, request, order and other forms have not been updated this year, it's time to review
them. These messages can be powerful communication tools, but only if they're meeting your
users’ needs. If you aren't using automated messages for all of your forms, we recommend
adding them to your list of site upgrades for the next year. Here's some advice on what makes
a good automated response:
• Automated Email From Websites to Customers from Jacob Nielsen
4. Test Your Forms. In conjunction with updating your automated messages, you should test your
forms to confirm that they're still functioning correctly—and to review how easy they are to use.
Simply submit each as if you were a visitor on your site. Be sure to review your error messages
as part of this process. You should test your forms often and immediately look into any sudden
drops in the number of submissions.
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Step #21:
5. Validate Your Links. Check your internal and external site links—especially if you've neglected
this task due to more pressing demands.
6. Check Your Site's Search Feature. Like most of the items on this list, checking your site's
search feature should be done more than once a year. But we know it's not always possible to
review all aspects of your site on an ongoing basis. That's why it's important to make sure your
search feature is functioning effectively and that outdated content isn't showing up as part of
your annual review. If you don't have a search feature on your site, now's a good time to see if
adding one would enhance your site's usability.
7. Check Your File Sizes and Download Times. If a lot of updates and additions have been
made to your site, it might be time to check your site's performance. It's not unusual for page
and image files to slowly creep up in size with each successive update. Re-optimizing your files
so your pages load faster will make for a better user experience.
8. Review Your Stylesheets, Standards, Accessibility, and Compatibility. If you want to save
some serious time for your visitors—and for yourself during site maintenance—the annual
review is the perfect time to revisit or set site standards covering CSS (style guide), Web
Standards, Accessibility, and Browser Compatibility. To help you wrestle with the issues
surrounding evolving your site to new standards, we offer these articles and resources:
Web Standards:
• What are Web Standards and Why Should I Use Them? from the Web Standards
Project
Cascading Stylesheets (CSS):

• CSS Topics from A List Apart
XHTML:
• The XHTML Way from 4 Guys from Rolla
Accessibility:
• Accessibility Resource Center from NetMechanic
• WebAIM Accessibility Checklist
Browser Stats:
• Browser Stats & Trends from Browser News
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Step #21:
9. Update Your Time References and Copyright. “About Us” and other background information
on your site may contain specific time references such as "for ten years.” Your site may also
include a historical timeline or list of accomplishments that should be updated at the start of the
year. In addition, your copyright should be updated when your content is updated. During your
annual review, check to make sure this task hasn't been overlooked. Although you can simply
use the date that the content was first created, it's a good idea for your copyright to reflect when
content was created and when it was modified. This is not only to protect your work but also to
avoid having visitors think that your content is out of date. Below are some examples of the
syntax:
• Content created in 2006

• Copyright © 2003 First United Methodist Church
• Content created in 2005 and updated in 2006
• Copyright © 2001, 2003 First United Methodist Church
• Content created in 2004 and updated in 2005 and 2006
• Copyright © 2001-2003 First United Methodist Church
Learn More About Copyrights:

• Copyright Basics from the U.S. Government Copyright Office
• What is Copyright Protection
10. Check Your Search Engine Visibility. Over the past few years, search engines have become
one of the most important and cost-effective sources for attracting targeted traffic and increasing
awareness for websites. At the same time, many changes have taken place in how search
engines return results and display paid (sponsored) listings. As a result, we encourage you to
check your site's visibility on the top search engines by searching for your church name and
other appropriate keyword phrases. See the suggestions on page 00 for Step #23 for more
information on search engines and keywords/phrases. If your site isn't coming up near the top
of the results for these terms, you should look into the benefits of marketing your site through
search engine optimization and paid placement.
11. Assess Your Site's Content & Features. Conduct an all-encompassing annual review of your
site. Reviewing all of your site's content and features, rather than just the specific items listed
above, is a great way to take a big picture look at your site and identify content and features that
should be added, updated or removed. As part of your review, you should also identify areas of
your site that may require better procedures or tools to streamline the maintenance process.
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Step #21:
Regular and Routine Content Maintenance

In addition to the annual maintenance items outlined on the previous pages, you will want to perform more
regular and routine updates to the content on your webpages. How frequently you update content will
depend in large part upon how dynamic you want your content to be and what items require updating
because they are time-sensitive. Here are some suggestions for managing your website’s content.
1. Take an inventory of your website’s content. A content inventory will give you a road map for
starting your content project. So if you don't already have a comprehensive list of the pages on
your site, you should make one. See a sample inventory worksheet on page 131 of this Guide.
2. Prioritize your pages. The next step in making your content more manageable involves
prioritizing your pages. And it's simple to do once you have your content inventory.
Step 1: Identify the pages that are okay and those that need to be updated, improved
,or removed. Think of this as your OUCH factor: Outdated, Unnecessary, Current, or
Have-to-Write.
Step 2: Prioritize each page to identify the ones that need immediate attention and the
ones that can wait. A simple scale of 1 to 3 (1 = high, 2 = intermediate, and 3 = low)
works well. Now you're ready to start creating, fixing, and fine-tuning your content.
3. Write content like an expert. There is no better indicator of your website’s success than great
content. Here are some resources to help you write great content. See page 132 of this Guide
for a sample webpage content update log.
Headings on webpages are just as important as titles on books and subjects on emails. If
you don't engage your audience immediately, you may never get a second chance.
Consider this resource for writing more effective headings.
• 5 Easy Steps To Write More Effective Headlines
Copywriting. Make sure your message isn't lost on your readers. This resource can help
you stay focused on giving your audience clear and informative content.
• 3 Steps to Great Copy
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Step #21:
Website Content Inventory

Use this worksheet to take an inventory of your website’s pages and their content. To track content update
details, see the “Webpage Content Update Log” sample worksheet on the next page.
Filename Section Date Original Update Last Status

Page Name Owner Priority Notes
URL Name Created Format Frequency Updated OUCH
Web Ministry 101 Planning Guide Part Four: Maintaining a Fresh and Dynamic Web Ministry 132
Step #21:
Webpage Content Update Log

Create a separate sheet for each page on your website to track updates.
Page Name:___________________________________________________________________________
Filename/URL:_________________________________________________________________________
Section Name:_________________________________________________________________________
Originating Format (Word, Quark, etc.):______________________________________________________
Owner:_______________________________________________________________________________
Update Frequency:______________________________________________________________________
Creation Date:_________________________________________________________________________
Date Update Notes
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Step #22:
Use Really Simple Syndication (RSS)
Really Simple Syndication, commonly referred to as RSS feeds, uses a cut and paste Javascript string that
automatically provides new and up-to-date content right on your website.
RSS Feeds from The United Methodist Church

One of the best examples of this is The Upper Room Daily Devotional. Instead of simply providing a link on
your webpage to the Upper Room, you can display part of each day’s devotional right on your website that
is automatically updated with the current devotional each day. The display comes in three sizes. Each display
includes the banner, “Today’s Devotional from The Upper Room,” the name of the day’s devotional, and a
link to the full devotion on The Upper Room Ministries website.
• If you select the small-sized display, you can include the “Thought For The Day.” With the
medium or large-sized display, you can select to include the current date, the “Thought For The
Day,” and the first 200 characters of the devotional.
• To make your selections and preview the display you have chosen, visit the UMCom RSS
webpage. Once you’ve made your selections and are happy with the display format, the
Javascript string will be created. Simply cut and paste this into your website.
There are other RSS feeds available through United Methodist Communications. These include:
• United Methodist News Service Daily News Headlines

• UMC.org Audio Profiles
• UMC.org Movie Reviews
• UMC.org Book Reviews
• UMC.org Music Reviews
RSS Feeds from Other Sources

There are other sources for RSS feeds, and we’ve offered a few suggestions below. Remember to evaluate
these RSS feeds for your own use to be sure they meet the stated needs of your users and are appropriate
for the type of content you want to offer through your website. Likewise, as with any RSS feeds, you will want
to conduct regular maintenance by checking the links to be sure they still direct to the correct site. Nothing
is more frustrating to a user than a dead end link or one that directs to the wrong place.
• Christ Notes, daily Bible verses

• Feed for All, specializing in Godcasting
• Heartlight, Bible verses, wisdom, quotes, etc.
• Hwy777, listing for various RSS feeds from a variety of sources
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Step #23:
Develop Strategies for Marketing Your Website
To optimize traffic to your church’s website, we recommend that you take advantage of the many free
opportunities to promote your website and advertise your Web address.
Printed Documents
Add your church’s Web address to all printed documents, just like you already display your church’s
telephone number, email address, and mailing address. Don’t forget bulletins, newsletters, brochures, and
flyers. If you provide a PDF (portable document format) of your newsletter or other print documents, be sure
to include the Web address as a hyperlink so people can easily go directly to your website from the PDF by
clicking on the link.
Church Email Messages

Every staff or volunteer who has a church email address should include the church’s Web address in his/her
signature block at the end of every email message sent from a church email account. Make sure the Web
address displays as a hyperlink so recipients of the message can easily click the link in the email to go
directly to your website.
Find-A-Church Page through UMC.org

Make sure your church’s website address is included on your Find-A-Church through the UMC.org website.
This is the most frequently visited section of the UMC.org website, and every local church has a page with
space to provide a link to its website. To access and update your Find-A-Church page, go to Find-A-Church
and locate your page by providing your church’s zip code or city and state. Select your church from the
results of this search. Review the information. To update your page, you will need your GCFA number. If you
do not know your GCFA number, contact your district superintendent’s office, send an email request to
fac@umcom.org, or call 1-800-251-8140. With your GCFA number, log into your page and make the
necessary changes or updates.
Conference and District Website

If your district and/or conference has a website, you may be able to have a link displayed to your church’s
website. Check with your district and conference offices or visit their websites to find out more.
Reciprocal Links
Work with churches in your area, United Methodist and others, to participate in placing reciprocal links on
each other’s websites, preferably the “Links” page of each site. Do the same with other not-for-profit and
community organizations in your area that are compatible with your church’s mission and ministry purpose
and goals.
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Step #23:
Free Church Website Directories

When adding your church’s website address and listing to these free services, be sure to read the
requirements to make sure you are not agreeing to something for which you did not intend. Keep in mind
that some of these free services make their money by placing advertising banners on your website. Don’t
sign up for a free service if you don’t want to accept this requirement.
• ChristPages
• ChristSites
• CrossDaily
• Crosswalk Directory
• CrossSearch
• ForMinistry
Chamber of Commerce and Community Websites

Visit the website of your local Chamber of Commerce or other community websites or directories to see if
these offer free links for church websites.
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Step #23:
Search Engines
In order to generate traffic to your website through search engines, you must include specific keyword
phrases within the HTML code of your website. First, determine the specific keyword phrases you believe
your target audiences would use to try to locate your website or the types of information you provide on your
webpages. Include your Web ministry team in this process since specific keywords phrases you think of may
be different than others’ suggestions or insights. Then, test your specific keywords phrases by searching for
these on the Internet. Go to the top 10 sites that use your exact keyword phrases and view the source HTML
code for each of these pages to discover the keywords they have in their meta tags. To view the source
HTML code, simply click the “view” at the top of your Web browser then select “source,” or “page source.”
Without question the title tag of your page is the single most important factor to consider when optimizing
your webpages for the search engine. This is because most engines and directories place a high level of
importance on keywords that are found in your title tag. The title tag is also what the search engines usually
use for the title of your listing in the search results.
Title Tag:
Here’s an example of what the HTML code looks like for a title tag:
<TITLE>Your Title Tag – learn to optimize your title tag</TITLE>
• Include one or two of your most important keyword phrases in the title tag, BUT be
careful not to just list keywords. If you just list keywords you risk being viewed as
“spamming” the engines, which can ultimately lead to your being blacklisted by the
search engines. Your title tag should include your keyword phrases while remaining as
close to a readable sentence as possible to avoid any problems.
• Make your title enticing! Don’t forget that even if you get the #1 listing in the search
engines, your listing still needs to say something that makes the surfer want to click
through and visit your site.
• Each page of your site should have its own title tag with its own keywords that relate to
that page.
• The correct placement for the title tag is between the <HEAD> and </HEAD> tags within
the HTML that makes up your page. We recommend that your title tag be between
50–80 characters long, including spaces. Since the length of your title tag could be too
long for some engines, we suggest placing the keywords at the beginning of the tag
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Step #23:
when possible so that you do not risk having them cut off. The length that the different
search engines accept varies, but as long as you keep within this limit you should be
fine.
Meta tags help search engines discover important information about your webpages, such as keywords and
descriptions of the content displayed on each page of your website. In particular, search engines crawl your
webpages looking for a combination of description meta tags and keyword meta tags.
Description Meta:
<META NAME=”description” content=”This would be your description of what is on your page.
Your most important keyword phrases should appear in this description.”>
• Make sure you accurately describe the content of your page while trying to entice
visitors to click on your listing. Include three or four of your most important keyword
phrases, especially those used in your title tag and page copy.
• Try to have your most important keywords appear at the beginning of your description.
This often brings better results and will help avoid having any search engine cut off your
keywords if they limit the length of your description.
Keywords Meta:
<META NAME=”keywords” content=”keyword phrase 1, keyword phrase 2, keyword phrase
3, etc.”>
• Use only those keywords or keyword phrases that appear in the copy of your page, title
tag, meta description, and other tags.
• Don’t forget plurals, such as “church” and “churches” so that they show up in both
searches.
• If you know of a common misspelling of a popular keyword that could be used to find
your site, you should enter it in your keywords meta tag.
• If your site has content of interest to a specific geographic location, be sure to include
the actual location in your keyword meta tag, such as the city and state of your local
church.
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• The correct placement for both meta tags is between the <HEAD> and </HEAD> tags
within the HTML that makes up your page. Their order does not really matter, but most
people usually place the description first then the keywords meta. We recommend that
your keywords meta tag not exceed 1024 characters including spaces and that your
description meta tag not exceed 250 characters including spaces.
Here is a list of the most popular search engines and a link to the sign up page for free search engine listing
of your church website:
• AltaVista (requires advanced submission to Yahoo)

• Enhance (formerly Excite)
• Google Search
• Open Directory Project or DMOZ
• Search Sight
• Submit Express, both paid and free submissions
• Yahoo
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Step #24:
Launch Your Website
It’s time to launch your website! All the while you are building your webpages, you have been creating them
offline where they are not accessible to the general public. To take your website online, you will launch it, or
go live, by uploading your completed webpages to the hosting service or server. Each hosting service will
have a specific set of instructions for how you are to upload your pages, so be sure to get all of this
information ahead of time and test it to make sure it is working as promised. It is a good idea to take your
website live a week or two prior to your advertised launch date and have several people test drive the site
to make sure everything is working as planned. This way, you can work out the kinks, if any, before your site
is advertised for the entire world to see and use.
Pre-Launch Checklist
Before you go live with your church’s website, we recommend that you complete this checklist.
• Make sure your website is complete. It can be tempting to rush online with a site that still has
key elements under construction. If a user comes to your site expecting something to be there
and instead they get an “under construction” page, they may never return.
• Find and fix all broken links. A “page not found” error is not the kind of first impression you want
to make with your visitors either. Before you go live with your site, click on every single link within
your site and make sure it works.
• Double check your HTML (for non-template-based sites). Just because you didn’t notice
anything wrong with your new website on your browser, it doesn’t mean all of the HTML is
correct. Some browsers are more forgiving than others when it comes to incorrectly formatted
HTML because they use different proprietary engines for rendering the code into webpages.
What wasn’t noticeable on your browser could be a big problem for one of your site’s users on
a different browser. If you can, test your website using PC and Mac computers as well as the
popular browsers.
• Try your page loads on a 56 KB dial-up modem. If one of your pages loads slowly (more than
20 seconds), you should rethink your content and/or graphics on that page. Most users still don’t
have high-speed Internet connections; so if you want to appeal to everyone, don’t put too much
data on one webpage. Too much content per page = slow downloads = lost users.
• Don’t forget to check for spelling and grammatical errors. Sometimes the most obvious and
simple errors are overlooked because everyone’s too busy checking for broken links and HTML
formatting problems. Proofread and spellcheck your entire site carefully one more time before
you go live.
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Step #24:
Launch Your Website
• Optimize Search Engine submissions with META tags. META description tags are information
and keywords inserted into the header area of your webpages that aren’t seen by visitors to your
site but can influence the description of your page by search engine Web crawlers that support
those tags. This can give you control over what description is seen by users when your site
comes up in search engine results and might boost your ranking with some search engines, thus
sending more traffic to your website. See Step #23 for more details on search engines and
keywords/phrases.
• Are you ready for responses? Think through the “what ifs” when visitors to your website start
responding to your site. If your site includes your phone number, how will you handle the calls?
Use common sense and be ready to give your users what you promise them.
Pre-Launch Testing
Here are some suggestions for testing your website with people from your target audience groups prior to
launching your site to the entire World Wide Web.
• Select a cross-section of people from your target audience groups and give them access to your
church’s website to conduct a pre-launch test.
• Ask them to click through your website, trying every page and link.
• Get feedback from them regarding the length of time it took to load pages and which pages or
items on a page seemed to load more slowly. Find out what connection type and speed they
used to access your website. Ask them what browser they used to view your website.
• Ask them to comment on how the colors looked to them; if they were appealing or made it
difficult to view the content, etc.
• Get feedback on how things looked on each page. Was everything in the right place. Were there
any missing pictures or graphics, etc.
• Ask them to share any spelling errors or broken hyperlinks.
With prior testing and tweaking, your website should be up and running with ease by the time your advertised
launch date arrives. Then, it’s time to celebrate. We recommend that you plan an official celebration of some
sort with your congregation, perhaps during worship, to highlight the new Web presence and ministry your
church has launched.
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Step #25:
Conduct Website Reviews and Evaluations
For an effective Web ministry to meet its goals and objectives, your website, which is a major tool, must
remain vibrant, dynamic, and relevant. Likewise, you must constantly be seeking feedback and input from
your target audiences and those within your church who have a vested interest in your Web ministry
regarding the effectiveness and usefulness of your website. These are the stakeholders in your Web ministry,
and their input and feedback are crucial to your continued success. Therefore, we recommend regular
evaluation of your website that continually points back to your Web ministry purpose, goals, and objectives.
That’s why, almost immediately after launching your website, you will want to schedule and conduct at least
quarterly Web ministry team meetings to review your overall Web ministry goals and plans for updates to
your website. Regular meetings and reviews will enable you and your team to stay on top of things and make
sure your Web presence remains fresh and dynamic.
Every so often, but at least once a year, your Web ministry team will want to do a more thorough evaluation
of your website and its effectiveness to determine if more advanced elements are needed or appropriate. In
addition, the technology for website development is constantly changing, and every day new features and
elements become available to improve and enhance Web ministry. We recommend that you visit our Web
Ministry Resource Center frequently to learn the latest in Web ministry tools and technologies.
Stakeholder Evaluation Tools

Create online surveys using Survey Monkey or another free survey tool. Consider asking the following
questions to gain feedback from users regarding your website:
1. How often do you visit our site?

• Every day
• Several times a week
• About once a week
• Several times a month
• Less than once a month
• This is my first visit
2. How would you rate our website in the following areas? (Rating choices are one of the best,
above average, average, below average, one of the worst.)
• Ease of navigation
• Speed of page loading
• Quality of content
• Quantity of content
• Visual attractiveness
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3. How likely are you to: (Rating choices are definitely, probably, not certain, probably not,
definitely not.)
• Return to this website
• Recommend this website to someone else
4. Did you find what you were looking for on our website?
• Yes
• No
• Not Sure
If you answered “No” or “Not Sure,” please tell us what you were looking for on our website.
(open-ended question)
5. What do you like most about this site? (open-ended question)
6. What do you like least about this site? (open-ended question)
7. What features would you like added, or what changes would you like made to this site? (open-
ended question or generate a list of options)
8. How frequently do you use the Internet?

• Every day
• Several times a week
• About once a week
• Several times a month
• About once a month
• Less than once a month
• This is my first time on the Internet
9. In a typical week, how many hours do you spend on the Internet?

• 0–5
• 6–10
• 11–20
• 21–30
• 31–40
• More than 40
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10. How did you first hear about our website?

• Friend
• Search Engine
• Another website
• Newspaper/Magazine/Newsletter/Email
• Advertisement
• Don’t know/unsure
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Step #25:
What Can Traffic Reports Tell You?

Web traffic analysis generates a report when it is run on the server’s log. These reports contain lots of useful
information, presented in tables and in graphs. Listed here are some of the basic types of reports and
information generated from traffic to a website. Reports and information varies depending upon the traffic
report system your website hosting service uses. Following these descriptions, you will find a few sample
views of traffic reports as well as links to more resources related to traffic reports.
Hits. Hit information is actually not very useful. A single webpage may have many files attached to
it—a typical home page may have over 20 files! Each of these files is requested separately and
shows up as an individual line in the access log, and therefore counted as a “hit”. If you wanted to
increase your hits, you could add a bunch of small graphics to the home page and voila, more hits.
Because of this you would generally ignore the total number of hits listed in the report.
Page views. Page views statistics are more useful than hits information. They tell you how many
pages (not counting graphics) were viewed on the site. Although this is a more helpful indicator than
hits, page views information does not tell you the total number of visitors, because it does not
distinguish between sessions. If one person views 1,000 pages, they may artificially inflate the
overall use of the site.
User sessions. User sessions are a great indicator of site traffic. It’s the one number that gives you
a good baseline for the growth of site traffic. Whether a visitor goes to one page or to 1,000 pages,
these visits are counted as one session. Although this number is not 100% accurate (a single visitor
may come to the site more than one time), it’s still the best indicator and is useful for monthly
comparisons.
Average visitor session length. Another good number to review is the average visitor session
length. This indicator provides information about how long visitors stay on the site. Of course, this
number is relative to the goals of your site. If the goal is first contact with a user, longer times are
better. If it’s to provide day to day information to users, a lower number might be better (i.e. they can
locate and access the information they need quickly).
Most Requested Pages. This information is of obvious interest as is the opposite, Least Requested
Pages. Knowing what information is looked at the most (or least) will help fine-tune future plans for
site content and features. Keep in mind that you may need to examine your information design. If
content you think is relevant is not being viewed, it may be because people can’t find it!
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Top Entry Pages. Top entry pages show you how many people access your site by linking directly
to a subpage. This often occurs when site visitors come from a search engine result page which may
have hit on a keyword or phrase on that subpage.
Top Exit Pages. Everyone leaves from somewhere, but this information can be useful to see if there
are any trends where people may leave prematurely due to structural or navigational problems.
Single Access Pages. You will want to keep an eye on the home page percentage here. It is usually
the top single access page, and on average, ranges 15–20%. Often, people who bookmark the site
page will hit the home page frequently, but then move on to other sites. Also search engine “spiders”
may hit your home page and increase this number. If your rate goes higher than 20%, this should
be examined.
Top Paths Through Site. It is revealing to see what paths are typically chosen by users of the site.
If you see high percentages of traffic taking the same route, you may want to adjust your information
design (unless, of course, that’s the path you want them to take).
Visitor demographics. Visitor demographics are quite hard to pin down from the server’s access
logs. Every computer that accesses the internet has an IP address associated with it. An IP address
is a series of four numbers between zero and 255. For example, 210.56.100.12 is an IP address. An
IP address is either assigned to you when you dial up to the internet, or assigned to your computer
by your system administrator to identify you within your network (a static IP address). When you
request a file, you tell the server to send a particular file back to your IP address; when your
computer receives it, it is displayed in your browser. Unfortunately (or fortunately from a privacy
perspective), the server cannot tell much about you from your IP address, so many of the visitor
demographics are skewed. For example, the “visitors by state” report often shows Virginia as an
exceptionally high traffic state—this is because AOL is located there.
Visitors by Number of Visits. The list of visitors by number of visits is one of the useful
demographic items. It indexes and compares the visits based on how many times a visitor returned
to the site in a given month. This gives a good sense for how many one-time visits versus return
visits there are to your site.
Activity averages. Site activity can be broken down to show most active times by week, day, hour,
and minute. This information can be helpful to see if a specific marketing effort made an impact in
site traffic, because you can see the spikes in visitor activity.
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Page Not Found (404) Errors. The page not found error (404) list will show you which files were
requested but not found. These can result from broken links on the site, or from users typing in an
incorrect URL (specific webpage address).
Server Errors. You should expect some server errors because computers are not perfect; however,
these errors should constitute a very low percentage of total requested files or processes. If you see
many internal server errors (500) or temporary overload errors (502), you should contact your
website hosting service to look into the problem.
Referrers and Keywords. When someone follows a link from another page to your website (search
engine, site directory, or general links on other sites), the server logs the URL (Web address) the
request came from. From this information, you will have excellent data on traffic from the sites and
keywords used in the search engines.
Top Referring Sites. Information about top referring sites simply tells you how much traffic came
from a specific site (domain ex. www.somesite.com). This can be particularly useful if you purchased
a link or banner ad from another site.
Top Referring URLs. The top URLs tell you specifically which page on a particular site sent your
request. From these full URLs, you can access the keywords used to find your link when generated
from a search engine result page.
Top Search Engines. Search engine registration and positioning is a challenging effort; this list of
traffic from search engines can help define how frequently traffic comes from each search engine
broken down by keyword.
Top Search Phrases. Top Search Phrases and Top Search Keywords both show you the terms
used to generate your listing in the search engine. This can be very helpful in further defining a
search engine strategy. For example, if many people find you through a certain keyword, you may
want to use that word more often to continue to leverage your advantage in that area.
Browsers and Platforms. Knowing which browsers, versions, and platforms hit your site can help
define technical parameters for future developments. This information is often more useful to
developers, but it can also give solid data for ideas to implement new features in a website (Flash,
dynamic menus, cascading style sheets etc.).
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Samples of Website Traffic Reports

Shown here are a few sample views of traffic reports from an actual United Methodist church website. These
views were generated from the church’s website hosting service, Ready Hosting, and are produced by
Webalizer, a free website traffic report generation and analysis system.
Figure 1. This graphic represents traffic to this local United Methodist church’s website from November 2005–October 2006. The
blue graph represents the number pages (light blue), files (dark blue), and hits (green). The yellow graph represents the number
of visits (yellow) and sites (orange). The red graph represents the total number of kilobytes (KB) accessed from the website.
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Figure 2. This graphic represents the basic traffic analysis for the month of June 2006. This was an especially high-traffic month
for this particular local United Methodist church’s website.
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Figure 3. Similar to Figure 1, his graphic represents daily traffic to this local United Methodist church’s website for June 2006.
The blue graph represents the number pages (light blue), files (dark blue), and hits (green). The yellow graph represents the
number of visits (yellow) and sites (orange). The red graph represents the total number of kilobytes (KB) accessed from the
website.
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Figure 4. This chart shows the number of hits generate to each page (top 25 included here) of this local United Methodist church’s
website. With this information, a church can make better decisions about what content users are looking for when visiting their
website.
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Figure 5. This chart shows the number of hits, files, kilobytes, and visits generate to this local United Methodist church’s website
from the top 10 IP addresses. With this information, a church can know how users are accessing the website. If your traffic report
contains IP addresses rather than names with links to the sites, you can find out WHOIS each IP address by using this free
services from Network Solutions.
Website Traffic Services

If you host your own website or want additional website traffic reports for your hosted website, visit these
services for more information and resources.
• ClickTracks
• Site Meter
• Web Trends
Other Website Analysis Tools

Consider some of these other analysis tools for gaining feedback on your website’s performance.
• Site Report Card, analyzes your website for free in just a few seconds and produces a report of
broken links, misspelled words, HTML validator, page load time, meta tags, search engine
inclusion, site popularity, and keyword analysis.
• Sitening, free analysis of your website design and usability. Sign up required, but worth it.
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Step #25:
Full-Circle Evaluation
With all that you gain from stakeholder surveys, feedback and website traffic reports, you and your Web
ministry team will be able to effectively conduct thorough reviews and evaluations of your Web ministry. This
ongoing process requires that you continually reflect upon your Web ministry purpose and goals as well as
remain attentive to your target audiences’ needs.
Discovery
Evaluation Strategy
Web Ministry
Planning and Design
Implementation
Maintanence
Process
Building
Launch
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Seven Phases
of Web Ministry Planning and Implementation
In essence, the seven phases of Web ministry planning and implementation create a framework for
developing your church’s website and conducting ongoing review and evaluation to keep your website fresh
and dynamic. Shown here is a timeline and checklist for working through the initial process of developing
and launching a website.
ü TASK ESTIMATED TIME START DATE COMPLETION DATE
PHASE #1: DISCOVERY
STEP #1: Form a Web Ministry up to one month

Team
STEP #2: Secure Buy-In from Key up to one month

People and Groups
STEP #3: Browse Websites up to 2 weeks
STEP #4: Develop a Purpose and up to two months

Goals
STEP #5: Identify Your Target up to two months

Audiences and Their Needs
STEP #6: Choose a Web Presence up to 1 week

Type
STEP #7: Utilize Find-A-Church up to one week
PHASE #2: STRATEGY
STEP #8: Acquire Basic up to two months

Technology Resources
STEP #9: Select and Register a up to one week

Domain Name
STEP #10: Choose Website up to one month

Design and Hosting Services
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Seven Phases
PHASE #2: STRATEGY (continued)
STEP #11: Choose Human up to two months

Resources
STEP #12: Consider Budgetary up to one month

Components
STEP #15: Create a Site Map up to two weeks

(preliminary planning)
PHASE #3: DESIGN
STEP #13: Create a Unique Image up to two months

and Design
STEP #14: Create a Welcoming up to one month

Home Page
STEP #15: Create a Site Map and up to one month

Navigation Tools
STEP #16: Create Main Sections up to six months

and Subpages
PHASE #4: BUILDING
STEP #17: Populate Your Website up to six months

with Engaging Content
STEP #18: Develop Content up to two weeks

Protocols
STEP #19: Add Photographs and up to six months

Graphics to Enhance Content
STEP #20: Protect Users and up to one month

Members Privacy
155
Seven Phases
PHASE #5: LAUNCH
STEP #23: Develop Strategies for up to one month

Marketing Your Website
STEP #24: Launch Your Website up to two weeks
PHASE #6: MAINTENANCE
STEP #21: Develop a Schedule for up to one week

Maintaining Your Website
STEP #22: Use Really Simple up to one week

Syndication (RSS)
PHASE #7: EVALUATION
STEP #25: Conduct Website ongoing

Reviews and Evaluations
156

Planning Guide Part Four

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Planning Guide Part Four

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Part Four:

Maintaining a Fresh and Dynamic Web Ministry

This is part four of the four-part training for Web Ministry

• Develop a schedule for regular and routine

The main question we want to answer in today’s training

advantage of dynamic content tools and establish a

As we discussed in part one of this Web Ministry 101

One of the best examples of this is The Upper Room Daily

the day’s devotional, and a link to the full devotion on The

If you select the small-sized display, you can include the

To make your selections and preview the display you have

There are other RSS feeds available through United

If you are using E-zekiel, the process is even easier. All

page 134 of this Guide for links to United Methodist and

Okay, you’ve designed and populated a website with

To begin with, you will want to add your Web address to

Another excellent location to display your church website

Next, check to see if your district of The United Methodist

posted to your local church website from the district site.

Another effective way to market your church’s website is

There are several free online directories that offer links to

To broaden the circle beyond the Church, visit the website

If your church collects email addresses for its members,

What’s most important about marketing strategies and

There is one other powerful, free resource for marketing

The key to using search engines to generate traffic to your

to your website, they start reading with the page’s title.

Of course, there are many website marketing resources

With prior testing and tweaking, your website should be up

that you plan an official celebration of some sort with your

Okay, so you have your website up and running. Now it’s

For an effective Web ministry to meet its goals and

Every so often, but at least once a year, your Web ministry

elements become available to improve and enhance Web

Another tool that will aid in evaluating the success of your

In addition to knowing the number of hits and sessions

steps we have covered throughout this training by

First, as we discussed in part one of this training, your Phase #1:

So, the first phase of your Web ministry planning and

Next, with everything you’ve gathered in the Discovery

In the second phase of your Web ministry planning and

The Design phase encompasses steps 13–16. These

creating a site map and navigation tools; and designing

With the design phase completed, it’s time to populate, or

The Building phase includes steps 17–20, which

Phase five in your Web ministry planning and

The Maintenance phase of your Web ministry planning Phase #6:

like Really Simple Syndication or RSS. This phase begins

These seven phases become a spinning circle versus a

Before we conclude this fourth and final training session

If you are looking for electronic and print resources, visit

We will be providing online discussion groups specifically

Finally, we are committed to your long-term success, and

• Automated Email From Websites to Customers from Jacob Nielsen

Cascading Stylesheets (CSS):

• Content created in 2006

Learn More About Copyrights:

Regular and Routine Content Maintenance

• 5 Easy Steps To Write More Effective Headlines

• 3 Steps to Great Copy

Website Content Inventory

Filename Section Date Original Update Last Status

Webpage Content Update Log