Tips for Local Church Websites

Creating a Local Church presence on Facebook

Facebook Fan Page Design
Creating a Facebook Page for Your Church
Is Your Church Social? Part 9: Facebook – Give Your Church A "Face" Lift

Is your Facebook Page address too long, like http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ebenezer-United-Church-of-Christ-Stratford-Wisconsin/125583797454177? and you would like a easy to use address like http://www.facebook.com/UnitedChurchofChrist? Just have the creator of your page log into Facebook and go to http://www.facebook.com/username/

A very useful resource is the book "Reaching Out in a Networked World: Expressing Your Congregation's Heart and Soul" by Lynne M. Baab (The Alban Institute). Lynne has also written a handy guide to basic website design "Websites that Work", which you can view here or download as a .pdf here.

Webmasters across the UCC share tips, tricks and ideas in our forum.

Let's begin by pointing you towards a few free or less expensive web hosting services with relatively easy "WYSIWYG" ("What You See Is What You Get") editors. Here's a short list:

Connected Word - http://www.connectedword.com/ucc/ (Designers of over 40 UCC churches)
http://churchwebsiteprogram.com/
http://www.freechurchonline.net
http://www.churchonline.net (enter coupon code UCC25OFF for 25% off your order!)
http://forministry.com
http://webmedley.com
http://sites.google.com

UCC graphics for downloading.

Need help creating a privacy policy for your website? Try this link.

Looking for free web hosting? There is an extensive search engine for those services here.

Want to compare paid hosting services? findmyhosting.com

For web browsing the web team prefers Firefox.

Kickapps - Lets you create your own online community site and integrate those elements with your existing site. The integration of your online community site with your own site is crucial to delivering a seamless, branded experience for your audience and community members. Create Widgets and embeddable applications using the KickApps App Studio, that feature your community's media and content (photos, blogs and videos) and contextually deploy the Widgets on your website alongside editorially produced content to drive traffic between your site and its community experiences.