Scott Vaughan, former marketing director for the South Carolina Baptist Convention, said he isn’t surprised by LifeWay Research’s findings that most churches aren’t using their websites to their fullest potential.
“Having a website and having a functional website are two different animals,” said Vaughan, a communications consultant to churches and faith groups. “It’s not unusual for a church to contact me about helping with its communication strategy while at the same time expressing embarrassment over the current website. It’s difficult to discuss outreach and evangelism strategy when the church is staring at a website it acknowledges is poor.”
VaughanVaughan, who lives with his family in Lexington, connects with more 3,000 churches across the country, representing more than 25 faith denominations and organizations. Each year, he conducts a communication survey among the members of his database.
He said his most recent research, from 2010, shows that churches use websites for communication more than any other medium, including worship bulletins, printed newsletters, e-mail or verbal announcements during worship.
“When websites went viral in church communication, about 2006, churches launched websites,” he said. “Then reality set in. They have a website, but no one to manage it, no one equipped to manage it. In many cases, they don’t even have access to manage it. So there are a lot of bad, bad church websites.”
Vaughan said 19 percent of churches report using more than one website, a number he believes will increase. “The future of church websites is to have multiple, simple websites targeted to specific audiences with specific messages,” he said. “Churches will have a six-to-eight-page site for guests, one more for members, one for children’s ministry, one for student ministry, and maybe even one to specifically advertise seasonal events. All these sites will web together for a broader church web presence. That alone will enable churches to show up with greater regularity in search engines.”
Currently, however, 74 percent of websites are targeted to both members and guests, Vaughan said, which often leads to bloated websites with too many pages, too much page scrolling, type-heavy and poorly written pages, forgotten pages with outdated information, and general dysfunction. Only 50 percent of churches in his survey reported a site with copy that regularly changes. Only 18 percent of churches reported checking statistics to make future decisions about the church web presentation.
“I encourage churches to minimize the pages, answer guests’ basic questions about the ‘big open doors’ – like worship services – have larger artwork, and have a good system through which people can seek prayer support and information about the church,” Vaughan said.
“Most of all, the site needs to be written well – short sentences and simple words. Tease people into making a telephone call or sending an e-mail to the church.”
– Vaughan served as SCBC director of marketing from 1995-2003, when he started Scott Vaughan Communications. His website: http://www.svministry.com.