This is the third in a series of posts on church web strategy. You can find the previous posts here and here. You will also want to check out the guest post by Bryan Logan here. This post is dedicated more to the actual implementation and less to the why behind the implementation.
There are tons of options for how to set up a church site out there. At the church where i’m on staff, we have historically kept the web development portion of our site “in-house”. With that being said, I also have some thoughts on how to view them and which are the best.
First, on my list is Ekklesia360 from Monk Development. It’s an expensive solution, but the assistance they give and Drew Goodmanson’s experience as a church planter are invaluable. You can it out here and go to Drew’s blog here while you’re at it.
Next is Clover, which is actually a really great price when you move past the $1000 setup fee. $20 per month ($240 per year) takes care of EVERYTHING else. They also just came out with a new donations service that is a really great price if you are looking at doing any electronic giving in the future (they only charge you 1% based on usage for the service, as opposed to paying a monthly fee for something you may not utilize much). You can check our Clover here and Clover Donations here.
Third, is SquareSpace. Think of Clover, but cheaper. They have an $8 per month and a $16 per month plan with no entry fees. You should really check it out. It’s a great service. Find it here.
Finally, there is the self hosted solution. It’s not a bad route to go since you can fully customize what you’re getting. Hostgator has several good plans from $3.96 – $10.36 per month. Also, Blogcelerator is a company that I run (shameless plug) to host multiple blogs and sites for $45 per year with domain registration and $30 per year without. 🙂
Hostgator is here and for Blogcelerator contact me via comments below. I would suggest using a CMS of some sort, you may have guessed that my prefered is WordPress. There are multiple templates that you can use. Several good samples can be found http://www.tripwiremagazine.com/2012/09/church-website-templates.html Also, if you’re looking to do podcasting and haven’t started or are wanting to switch services, then PodPress is a great plugin that you can utilize. I have set it up multiple times in case you have any questions.
Are there other decent solutions you can think of that weren’t listed? What do you use?
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