Media Outreach

First Impressions is facilitated through Guest Reflections. People are asked to pick a website from a church in their area at random and review it. These sites may or may not be powered by faithHighway.

Church Location: Waxhaw, NC

User Profile:

• Female
• 50 to 59 years old
• Caucasian
• Area Resident 6 to 10 years
• Attends Church 2 or more times per month

Final Grade: Overall the site was average, nothing really exciting graphically and some important information was not provided or, as with the staff pages, was too generalized.

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The visitor was able to fairly easily locate directions and contact information for the church. However, the navigation didn’t lead to any type of belief statement. “I’m still not sure whether this church has a denominational affiliation.”
While none of the pages were broken on the site, not everything loaded quickly for the visitor.
“I liked reading about the educational and experience background of the staff. The staff pictures are kind of similar. I don’t think I could recognize one from the other without a more close-up headshot. The logo on the site did not match the logo used on the forms that downloaded for registration for children, etc. I couldn’t tell who actually oversees the children’s programs, or what material are used in teaching the children.”
“It’s not exciting, but it is appealing. The site presents a church that is new, however, it has a foundation in another church, which has been around for a long time.”

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What is your overall first impression of this site?

“The site looked contemporary, bold, and solid. The colors are kind of earthy and fit the name of the church well.”

What would make this site better?

• Re-do the staff photos.
• Have more information about the children’s programs and curriculum.
• Include information on church affiliations.

Would you visit this church based on the site?

“Definitely.”

faithHighway Tips for improvement…
…from a design expert:

“Include more large images in their content, and a lot of the stuff in the about us section could be eliminated or combined with other pages.”

…from a programming expert:

“This site is missing “Keyword” and “Description” Meta Tags, which can increase visibility in search engines.”

…from a web outreach expert:

“I would recommend giving each staff member their own page where the personality of each person can really shine through. This would help visitors really connect with someone through the website.”

Photo by  Schlusselbein2007