Your church or ministry may be in the process of setting up a church website and looking at all the many options available. There may be many things you deem important in choosing the best solution provider. More than anything, you will probably want a solution that not only provides the website, but hosting as well, and both of those should be budget-friendly. You can look at solution providers that are tailored towards churches and ministry, or you can make use of the many secular offerings that provide websites to anyone. The ideal situation for a church would be to pick a company that agrees with their statement of faith. One should take note that many of the secular alternatives also host websites with mature content, which you would not want to support.
Whole Package
When you find a solution provider that provides your church website and hosting in one package, you are off to a good start. If their offering is budget-fitting and they offer multiple templates, user-customization and a free domain, then you are good to go.
The Website Editor
Building a ministry website quickly requires a great editor. Many offerings promise live editing or drag-and-drop, but it’s nothing more than a backwards way of editing as you would still need to preview every single change you make. A church website editor that allows true live editing is not only brilliant, but fast. You can see the changes you make, instantly.
The biggest slowdown in building a ministry website, is when the editor is so advanced and complicated that you cannot understand how to do the most basic of tasks. A solution provider that offers you a smart editor that let’s you customize to your heart’s content, easily tweak and update, and have you do it in real time makes all the difference.
Setting up your church website to the point where it’s ready to go live on the web can take anywhere from a few hours to 1-2 days, max, depending on the ease of use of the website editor you choose. A fantastic editor will give you infinite customization possibilities, but keep you in its designer-standards, so your website always looks amazing!
Support
One of the most important aspects, besides price, is support. You will want to make sure that whoever you choose offers free support via phone, instant messaging and email. You will also want to make sure that their support is available at least 5 days a week. If they are not available, then they should have a brilliant FAQ section where you can find help quickly.
Media & Graphics
Starting a church website does not end with buying a domain, setting up the site, and hosting. Adding content is still a big step. If you can find a solution that offers beautiful graphics at a low price, or include them as part of your website offering, you can create a beautiful church website, very quickly. You should make sure that your solution provider does not charge you for adding new pages or making tweaks to your design. That should be unlimited and included, free!
Features are obviously important as you will want to make sure that your package includes email, high bandwidth, high storage and additional subdomains. The subdomains will let you add additional websites under your domain, for example you could add your youth ministry, worship team or missions website and those could all be unique, but live under one domain.
All the Goodies
Lastly you will want to make sure that your church website solution offers the ability to add video, audio, photos, blogging, social media connection and online tithing. If your offering includes all this in the same package, you are well taken care off. Additionally, if your website offering includes a free mobile church app, you have the best of both worlds.
Your church website is there to aid newcomers and visitors, to showcase your mission and vision, and to connect with your current members. It takes your ministry from local, to global, and helps you to spread the Gospel to the corners of the earth.
Pick the Best Provider For Your Ministry
Setting up and building a church website is not a daunting task. Depending on the solution provider you go with, it can be a breeze or a headache. The fastest way to build a beautiful church website happens when all the above essentials fall in place and are well represented.
Sharefaith surveyed thousands of churches while building our website and hosting solution. We eliminated many frustrations and are the only website solution provider for churches that offers your website, hosting, graphics, worship software, Sunday School curriculum and mobile church app in one membership offering.
You are free to try any of our templates, as well as our award-winning editor.
