Presentation
Website presentation and appearance are quite subjective issues, but that doesn't mean that all ideas are equally good. A church website exists to serve its audiences, and should be rooted in what is practical, friendly, attractive and usable. A church website is not an experiment in unconventional web art or user interfaces.
Look around the web, and see what kinds of layout and designs are in common use for the kind of site you want to have.
Follow the broad conventions: then people will find your site easy to use.
Entry points to your site
First impressions are very important to the casual visitor. On your front page, and on key 'head of section' pages, get your messages across clearly and succinctly. It should be possible to take in the broad content and purpose of the page at a glance. So, everything important has to be visible without scrolling down. (If people need to scroll across using a "normal" sized browser window, something is wrong.)
Entry points and search engines
Make sure that your pages have proper page titles - these are the things that appear in the very top bar of your broswer window, and which sometimes get overlooked. They are important because search engines use them as titles in their results listings.
Last updated: July 2008