Media Outreach

I’ve had a few pastors ask me how to maximize the content areas of their site. These are usually the pastors and administrators who find themselves staring at a blank screen for hours on end, thinking, “Where do I begin?!” To those I say, “Don’t cast away your confidence.” I have some personal tips that I think may help enhance this feature that can so easily be taken for granted

Avoiding the “Double-Stuffed Oreo” Effect
I have often found myself in the middle of the cookie aisle of a grocery store right in front of the Oreos weighing in on two choices: regular, or double-stuffed! While the Double-Stuffed Oreos seem enticing at first – twice the sugary fun in half-the time – many times I find myself eating a cookie or two, feeling like a glutton, and ultimately, throwing away the whole bag. Whereas when I get a regular pack I indulge myself in a cookie, feel okay about my singular consumption, and continue to go back for more!

This being said, your content areas are meant to be an aid, especially when applied to your home page. Don’t forget that the home page is the tasty bait at the end of an extensive fishing line; it is the attention-grabber that draws visitors in to those inside pages, where you can illuminate in full the heart of your church. Sometimes, we can get so excited to show visitors everything there is to know about our ministry that we inundate them with too much information – in essence, we double-stuff them.

Ministry researcher George Barna states that we have 6-10 seconds to capture the attention of web searchers and get them to the inside pages of our site. Since that is the case, get creative with your content areas! Take advantage of all the features found within your editor for adding images, creating links, and even the simple things like using your basic font feature to bold, underline, and italicize information that is important for people to know. Ask your faithHighway representative about setting up a User Folder for your home page graphics as a way to heighten your ability to add information in addition to text.

A great way to streamline your focus is to simply put yourself in that visitor’s shoes. Always keep in mind the people you want to reach and that should help direct your choices.

So if nothing else, friends, remember DON’T DOUBLE STUFF!

Check out www.livingwatersworship.com for a church that is maximizing their content without double stuffing.