Media Outreach

Apologies for my extended absence, my loyal reader(s). The intrepid souls that populate the halls of faithHighway are so devoted to their work, that some choose even to come to the office when infected with unidentified strains of the influenza virus. While I admire their devotion, if someone here gives me the flu or any other virus again, I will unleash a barrage of Nerf darts upon them so fierce that they will endure suction cup nightmares for the rest of their natural born lives.

Picking up where we left off 2 weeks ago, one of the most common questions I’m asked is how to best organize content on a page. For a long time, one of the prevailing theories of web content is that everything should be kept, “above the fold.” I’ve heard arguments both supporting and denying this theory, even from people within our own office here. Personally, I don’t feel that staying “above the fold,” is cardinal law when it comes to web content… especially since there is no fold on a website, until such time as the good folks at Apple give us the iFoldingMonitor, which in my head will be kind of like silly putty, but with a high definition monitor built in. However, I do think that people should avoid having excessive content on any one page.  The definition of excessive is also up for debate, but to keep it simple, if the majority of people who visit your site stop reading one of your pages part way because they’ve gotten bored, then you probably have too much content on there.

So how then, you might ask, can one include all the information they want to appear on a page without overburdening the visitor with excessive text? Here are a few solutions that faithHighway offers on their sites:

1. Splash / Landing Pages: There are some categories on church websites that, for most church, would have far too much information to fit on one page. Ministries, for example, can take up an entire section of a website rather than just one page.  By using a landing page for a Ministries section, a church can provide general ministry information, and then a series of links to additional ministry pages, perhaps accompanied with 1 – 2 line description of each ministry. This will enable the church to organize their information in an easily navigable manner, and will “whet the appetite” of the visitor as they seek to learn more about the ministry that has piqued their interest.
2. Anchors: If for some reason additional pages are not available, and the content on a page has grown to an excessive level, then page anchors can be used to create an index within the page itself. By creating anchor links at the top of a page, a visitor is given the option to jump down to the specific topic on the page that they’re interested in rather than having to scroll through other topics that do not hold their interest.
3. Group Content Manager: One of faithHighway’s newer tool offerings is the Group Content Manager (seen here). This tool enables users to include a great deal of content on a single page without presenting it all at one time to the viewer. This is an excellent option for topics such as ministries, staff directories, or in the case of my parents, inn room descriptions. While the latter may not apply so much to most churches, you can clearly see the organizational benefits of a tool like this.

A church should never inhibit themselves if they have a lot to say on a specific topic, and good, pertinent information should never be left off a site just to avoid overcrowding a page. By utilizing the organizational tips above, you can make sure that your site has all the information it needs, and that it is presented to the viewer in an easy-to-read manner.

Photo By: lotyloty