Creating a Church Web Site Tutorial
Chapter 8: Organization is the key to navigation
Because you couldn’t
(and don’t want to) fit everything about your church
on one page, you’ll have to develop a navigational scheme
for your Web site. A common way to do this is to divide everything
into categories, and include a menu of links to those categories
down the left side of each page and possibly the top of each
page.
 Church
of the Covenant, Boston has a good navigational menu.
Remember that the majority of users won’t scroll down
a Web page to see what is hidden at the bottom - meaning crucial
content and links must show up on the part of the page that
will be seen on the computer screen when the page first loads.
Remember that the links you use and their placement convey
a message of their own. If, for example, links leading to information
about your church’s education program or mission work
are featured prominently, a visitor will know these are important
to your church. If a welcome message from the pastor, directions
or a map to the church and a telephone number or email address
are prominent, a visitor will know they are welcome. But if
a "members only" link is the most prominent feature,
a visitor may feel just the opposite. And if the first link
leads to your church’s history, visitors may wonder if
the past is more important than the present to your congregation.
Don’t clutter your main page with links to everything
on the site — limit it to between 6 and 12 links to major
categories within the site, and then have
additional
links
on those pages, gradually leading the user through your site
in the direction of whatever is of particular interest to that
person.
Finally, no matter what page of the site the person is on,
he or she should always be able to tell whose site it is and
how to get back to the home or main page of the site. The most
common way of accomplishing this is to have the church’s
name and/or logo across the top of every page on the site,
along with an easy-to-find link back to the home page.
Next: Chapter 9: Getting your site hosted
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