On your home page, you should start to tell your story; the story of the church. I mentioned covering some of this on the About Us page and you can certainly put it there but truly, the first image of your church for the new visitor will be your home page. 75% of new visitors say they visit churches online before coming to the actual building. That makes the website and other online channels the most important welcoming ministry for your entire church. Your message to them must be engaging, personal and it must draw them in. A great home page creates interest in the user so that they continue clicking around your site and hopefully decide to come to you church.
Three mediums through which to tell your story are text, images and video. Text is important in explaining concepts that images cannot. However, a professional photo of your pastor, or your congregation, or your local ministry working in the community goes a long way to drawing the new visitor in deeper, telling your story. Images are vital into today’s visual world. It allows the user to move faster because they don’t have to read paragraph after paragraph of written text. When I talk about images, I’m talking about photos and/or graphics. I will talk more about video in the multimedia section, but for now let me state that videos are the one of the most engaging form of multimedia. Videos can take text, images and audio, put it all together and create a form of media that can tell your entire church story. Just know that crafting your story to show the user who you are and what you are all about it a must and it should mix text, high quality images and video.
For more information on this and other topics, get your copy of "The iChurch Method Volume 1: How to Advance Your Ministry Online." or The iChurch Method Volume 2: Changing the World When You Login or even sign up for the iChurch Method Online School.