My first car was an old BMW 533i. That car made me fall in love with the BMW brand; they are just a great car, in my opinion. I have not had a Bimmer since then but recently was shopping for a used car. Surprisingly, I found several new(ish) BMWs in my low-budget price range.
But what I learned in my early ownership of this piece of German ingenuity, is that it is one thing to be able to get INTO a car—it is a whole new story to be able to stay in a vehicle like this with the high cost of maintenance and upkeep.
The same is true for a website—it can be relatively easy to get your church website done in this day and age. It is, however, a whole different task to get into a site that you can affordably and easily maintain over time.
I am giving you ways to fail in developing your website because these are mistakes I have made and am currently working out of. So I know first hand the high cost of the following mindsets when working to get your site live.
So if you would like to destroy any potential success of your church’s website—follow these steps to the letter!
- Don’t plan, just feel.
Wireframes are a waste of time. Plans are for people without an imagination. The best way to have an awesome website is to just start throwing stuff onto the page until the design and experience just feels good. - Forget about responsive design—it’s just a fad anyway.
This too will pass. Besides, it can take a lot of work and know-how to get this done right. Most people actually want to go back to flip-phones anyway, so this will be time wasted. - Don’t implement a Content Management System (CMS).
The best way to keep others out of your work of art is to make it as confusing and complex to edit and update as possible. The harder it is for someone else to understand the backend—the better. - Keep all the information to yourself. In your head.
Why waste time and write things down when you have the memory of a legend? Not to mention, there is nothing more secure in guarding your information than keeping it only in your head—that is until mind-reading applications and dream states are perfected. - Do not train or enlist the help of others, it takes too much time anyway.
Teaching people can be hard and time consuming. To have more time to play with web fonts on your site, forget about showing others how to update your church’s content and media. Chances are they will break something anyway, and you will have to go back and fix it. Just remember—only you can be trusted in there. - Bonus: Whatever you do—avoid talking to your users about the website.
Trust me, they don’t know what is best for them anyhow. Questions like: What’s important to you? Why do you visit the site? How do you use the site? These questions are a waste of time. No one knows the web better than you. Besides, it is so much more fun to build something that fits you perfectly rather than something the fits everyone well.
These are some of my favorite (and biggest) fails in developing a church website. What about you? How have you or would you completely tank your church website?
