WebCudgel.com

The following article was written based on a simple question I received via email from a friend who finally wants to develop a website for his congregation (it’s small, but they feel the need to be on “da web”). His question was “The [insert name of church here] is considering creating a web site. What would you advise?” Here is what I advise:

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Define WHO

In this case, the “who” is “who is going to design/maintain the website?” You have any of the following choices:

1. Marketing firm
   • Pros:
     • The website will be developed by an experienced team and look professional.
     • They will guarantee everything on the website works.
     • Available 24/7 (sometimes, just depends on their customer service department)
   • Cons
     • Cost. You’re paying for the experience.
     • They may charge fees for making changes over time unless they hand it over to you for future maintenance.
     • Probably the most expensive choice out of this list.
     • They may just hand you a CD with the files and it’s up to you to upload the site to your hosting company.
     • May require that you choose one of their preferred hosting partners.
2. Hosting company that offers services to build the website for you.
   • Pros
     • They’ll post the site for you so you don’t have to handle that.
     • They know what the servers can or cannot do so that they provide all the functionality you want.
     • Available 24/7 (usually)
     • Not as expensive as a Marketing firm. However…
   • Cons
     • They will also charge fees for changes they are asked to make.
     • Usually limited to a few choice “templates” to choose from for the look of your website. Anything other than the basic stuff will start costing you as much as the Marketing Firm
3. Current member of your congregation who offers to do it (either free or for money)
   • Pros
     • Usually free or just a nominal charge (usually even smaller than the hosting service charge.)
     • Also can probably make changes on the fly much faster than the process for using either of the above options.
   • Cons
     • May or may not know how to use all of the technology available to do the interactive features (mentioned below) of a website.
     • Not always available 24/7 for problems that come up.
4. Independent developer (such as myself)
   • Pros
     • Same as previous, but may have more experience in development than existing members of the congregation.
     • Will take a more serious professional view of doing the project versus someone “working in their spare time”.
   • Cons
     • May not be available on the same days as you might expect your congregation members to be.
     • May share contrary views of the content of the site (i.e., wanting to make the logo a huge cross or a whole bunch of angels).
     • Many are more graphic designers than web designers and may not be able to handle the interactive features requested.

If the congregation cannot afford to pay someone, then you may have to rely on #3 (although that may end up being yourself)

Define WHAT

What will the website contain?

For example, you can create a basic static site that just lists your beliefs, where you meet and who to contact (along with a few articles and such).

Or it can be an interactive one as well with forums, email forms (not the same as just sending an email, but if you want someone to request stuff via an online form), weekly updates of who is speaking or what book/tape you may be offering, etc. Anything on the webpage that will change more frequently than once a month.

A big deal that makes or breaks a choice in the other two subsections is whether or not you’ll need a shopping cart. As a church, that’s extremely unlikely, but it does happen (selling a particular book at cost or a set of video tapes). You may find the right hosting service, but then don’t have a developer who can do the work necessary. That’s why each of these subsections affects choices in the other two.

Will the website contain a lot of photos or files such as MP3s of recent sermons, etc.?

Finally under “what”, will you choose to have a domain name purchased? All of these requirements affect your choice in the next section.

Define WHERE

Based on your answers in the previous two sections, you may decide on one of the following:

1. A free site offered by Yahoo (or similar service)
   • Pros
     • Free (exceptions listed in Cons)
     • No need for domain name (although they do park domains for a nominal fee if you use them for purchasing the domain to begin with).
   • Cons
     • Yahoo advertises on all free websites (and there is nothing you can do to remove it unless you pay to have it removed.)
     • No interactive functions such as forums (unless you create a Yahoo! Group for your congregation), email forms, video streaming, etc.
     • Limited file space (which limits how many photos/videos you may post online.)
2. Hosting service
   • Pros
     • Greater freedom to do what you want.
     • No ads inserted by the hosting service.
     • Larger filespace for your website (you will find that hosting services offer several packages with increasing file space and even some just charge a fee per xMegabytes over your limit). Most allow for the interactive functions and even include the ability to use a database on their server.
     • Guaranteed uptime (very little downtime for your website).
     • Regular backups of your website should anything happen to the server.
   • Cons
     • MUST have a domain name.
     • Have yet to find a free one (although some are really cheap. If you go this option, please let me know as I have a few possible cheaper hosting services that won’t set you back very much.)
3. Personal hosting (someone in your group has a computer on DSL with a static IP address that they can host the website at home)
   • Pros
     • No costs except maintaining the computer.
     • The only limitations on space and interactivity is the computer itself and what’s installed on it (most of which is open source and free and hard drives are real cheap too)
   • Cons
     • No guaranteed uptime (DSL or Cable goes out regularly and your website could be down for hours or days).
     • You’re responsible for protecting against virus attacks and such.
     • Website is only backed up if you choose to do so.
     • Slower connection times because you’re limited to the speed of the DSL/Cable connection.
     • Must have a domain address pointed to the static IP address.

Define WHEN

Just how little time do you want this to take? How much money are you willing to throw into it? When will you be able to get some of the prerequisites handled before development can begin (i.e., purchasing a domain name or choosing a hosting option)?

Planning it all out

I personally recommend a two phase plan for doing the website. I was in the process of doing this and had completed Phase 1 in my last job when I finally left that company (this plan worked rather well, but I was gone before we got sign-off on Phase 1, so I doubt they’ll ever use it). If you do not wish to have any interactive features as described, then it’s just one phase as described below:

Phase 1

Put up a basic website that only has the static information that will rarely change: a contact page, a page of map and directions, a list of beliefs, how you perform the weekly service and so on. This will help define the basic look and feel of the entire website and is the fastest thing to do. You can then get this out there while your choice of developer is working on the more complex features in Phase 2.

Phase 2

Implement all of the bells and whistles. This Phase usually takes 2-3 times longer than the first phase, but at least the hard part of choosing a look and all the other steps are done.

Just remember that if you want to do Phase 2 at a much later date, it would still be best to make your other hosting and developer options based on what will happen in the future rather than find that the hosting service is limited or you have to find a new developer for the second phase due to the first developer’s lack of programming skills or something along those lines.

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I really hope all this information helps those of you who have requested this information and are now reading this. I also hope it helps others who were just ‘wondering’.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 18th, 2005 at 6:06 pm and is filed under Article, Development, Internet. You can follow any comments to this post through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.