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: Lone Jack, MO

User Profile:

• Female
• 40 to 49 years old
• Caucasian
• Area Resident for 11 or more years
• Attends Church 2 or more time per month

Final Grade: Confusing links, banner ads, simplistic graphics and insufficient information lead to an almost failing website. ____________________________________________________________________________________

“Making the links on the side appear like links would help the website’s visual appeal. Also, the bottom links were so close together, that I had trouble navigating to the site.”
“The pages did load quickly and easily. I did not encounter any error messages or typos.”
“I never found online sermons, a church newsletter, or web logs. It did not tell me what to expect when I visited. The website itself seemed very simplistic and a little outdated.”
“This website was very simple. It reminded me of how websites were five or more years ago. The main page looked like something a child would make for a school project. The ads on the side made it seem like it was not a professional website.”

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What is your overall first impression of this site?

“When I first entered the [site], I was confused by what I perceived as ads on the top and left sides. In reality, these were links on the website, but they were flashing and appeared to be banner ads. The main body of the page was simple and plain, but the information it contained was clear. It was easy to see the church location and service times.”

What would make this site better?

“It would have been nice to see a church newsletter or view a sermon video. This would have helped me know what to expect.”

Would you visit this church based on the site?

“Based on this website, I doubt I would visit this church. It was not very engaging or interesting.”

faithHighway Tips for improvement…
…from a design expert:

“It looks like this Church has not had an opportunity to update the look of their website in a while. The homepage of your website should drive visitors to some sort of immediate action. As this design stands now, it is hard for users to tell where they are supposed to go from here.”

…from a programming expert:

“The recommended links open multiple windows, and many of the links are dead links. Also, the pages do not have names that are very good for search engines. Instead of having pages with urls ending in random letter and number combinations, have them end in words descriptive of the page’s content (ie. www.yourchurch.com/aboutus.php or www.yourchurch.com/pastor/php).”

…from a web outreach expert:

“I would remove the banner ads from the site. Your church website should be an advertisement for your church, not other companies…”

Photo By: takomabibelot