How To Build A Church Website With WordPress
Just as a church makes an effort to meet people in the community to engage with them, they also must be present online and engage over digital media with the community, who are increasingly spending their most precious hours and attention online. The first step to do so is to build and manage a website that is:
- Smartly planned
- Well designed
- Easy to maintain
- Allows visitors to access it from any device
A WordPress website meets all the above criteria and more and is in fact the preferred website building solution for millions of websites. Yes, millions! The trust and support enjoyed by WordPress is unparalleled and I recommend it wholeheartedly for any church that is considering overhauling their website or building a new one. A WordPress site can cut down the time required for the website to be completed, keep the size of the team low and allow you to manage content on your website in a manner as simple as writing email!
Sounds great – where do I begin?
Well, if you too have decided to work with WordPress, good move! You could now head directly to Easy Church Tech or read the below to get into the “nuts and bolts”:
- Domain Name
- Hosting
- WordPress Installation
If that sounds a bit overwhelming, don’t fret as we will demystify it all very soon and you could be on your way to seeing your website going live in a few hours to a day!
Domain Name
What’s in a name, they say? Well, if you’re on the internet, a lot is at stake. People love shorter names (not just because they are easier to type) that make it simple to understand what the business is all about and are easy to remember. As a church, you might have to have a slightly longer name, but don’t worry – keep it as simple as you can and you should be good! It might be worthwhile to note that while .com domain names are most popular, there is now a .church extension which might help you shorten your website URL i.e. domain name. Just like the .com, .church too is available at most popular registrars like Google Domains, Namecheap & Godaddy.
Hosting
Hosting is the space required to store your website’s contents (eg. articles, pictures, videos and the code that keeps the website running) on the internet. There are several reliable companies that provide Hosting services for as low as 3$ per month (some of them even throw in a free domain name!) which includes technical support as well. Getting hosting and ‘connecting’ your website to it is essential. Pro tip: Registering your domain name & purchasing hosting from the same company will make things easier for you!
WordPress Installation
Several hosting companies make it easier to install WordPress in a single-click within their own system (also called control panel or cpanel). What this means for you is that you do not have to be a coding ninja and tame databases and code to be able to install WordPress. The hosting company’s system will do it for you in a process less than a couple of minutes and provide you with a username and password to manage your church website.