Spring clean your website (5 tips)

Mark McDonald May 3, 2020

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You’re busy. You juggle a ton of details and maybe even manage a group of chaotic people. And that’s in your personal life!

Then you duplicate that in your ministry life and it doesn’t leave much time for anything else. On top of that, you know you should keep up with the news cycles, your favorite podcast, that book that everyone’s raving about, and the ton of emails you receive.

HELP! Stop the madness and let me (I mean, you) off. The world (your life and your church) has so much going on that we need to prioritize what we have time for or we run out of time! Perhaps why the gym gets left out of most daily routines? Why many ignore most of their emails? Yep. Why?

Because the things dropped are perceived as being “not critical.” And we’re all in the same boat. You. Me. Your congregation. Your community.

In fact, in the quest to take it “all” in (and remain sane), most people have to edit. Half listen. Or ignore. What’s even easier? We gravitate to informational sources of that edit for us. Those who say less (but still have great content), we listen to more. Our church websites (and all communication for that matter) needs to take heed and spring clean. Or we risk being ignored.

Here are 5 spring cleaning tips:

Develop a communication thread. Every brand must know their simplified lane of relevant and beneficial information and then stick to it, weaving it through everything we do. Our information should be limited to what our audience feels is a solution to their needs or a path to their goals. Then we become known for the thread and people pursue our content and consider it “needed” in their lives.

Remove unnecessary words. Look through all content and consider how you can say it with fewer words. People don’t want to tackle content that appears to take too much time. Remove redundancy, use shorter words, edit so you use bullet points with “just the facts."

Tell a story with pictures. It’s worth a thousand words, right? Ensure your pictures tell a story and extend your thread and message. If they don't, don't use them — they're only wasting space.

Say it with a short video. People prefer short (<2 min) informational (shareable) videos, if they’re packed with information theyfind relevant. Start videos by naming the audience, discussing their concerns or goals, then end by clearly giving them a reward (a solution!). Make sure you caption your video since most people watch videos with the sound off (think workplace or bathrooms).

Lead to secondary pages. Every page doesn’t require all your content. Instead, link to pages with fuller information. This way your pages won't be cluttered. Watch your web metrics (Google Analytics) to see if anyone really cares about the deeper dive (most aren’t as interested as the one who creates the content).

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