Thinking of You
You may have heard the saying that there are two ways to enter a room. The first is to say, “There you are.” And the second is to say, “Here I am.” Each speaker has a different focus. The same might be said of the welcome messages on parish (and other ministry) websites. Some focus on the visitor and others focus on the parish. Both tell the visitor what to expect.
Parish websites are an extension of the mission of the parish to the online world where many people seek information and in the case of believers seek a faith community they may want to visit, join or return to. The time spent on any website is often less than one minute. What and how a parish communicates online is very important.
The most engaging websites are those that show some love and care to the visitor—that communicate “we are here for you.” Here are few simple ways to do that on the home page:
- The word “Welcome”
- A welcome message that focuses on the visitor
- Complete contact information (address including zip code) and phone number (including area code)
- Mass Schedule
- A link to directions
Enhancements to the basics above include good images that reflect the life and ministry of the parish-a community that someone might want to visit or join.
A Random Search
Out of curiosity, I did a very random search on Google for Catholic parishes across the U.S. I searched for a name (St. Mary, St. Peter, St. Joseph, etc.) and a state. I clicked on the first name to come up and simply looked at the home pages. I did this 14 times and looked at each site to see if my five points above were in evidence. Here is what I found:
Seven of the parishes or 50% had the word welcome on the Home Page. Of those, five had a message with some focus on the visitors.
Ten of the parishes provided complete contact information. Four provided a link to directions and seven had a least one photo of life and/or ministry at the parish.
My Take Away
The good news is that more parishes have websites now and that from this very, very small sample I would say that they are using them to communicate with their members and the public.
While the website design was not my focus, I can report that some of these parishes had 2021 Copyrights and were created by companies that design parish websites. In my opinion, most of the designs were okay, some less so, but none stood out as great. It takes a lot of skill and constant updating to maintain a well-designed and engaging website. This is a ministry area that we need to keep developing.
If there is a parish website that you visit, why not check it out regarding the points above and see what you find.
