Coming Soon in January 2022!
What is a “Come and See” website?
It is not quite a custom website and it is not just a basic theme.
Come and see websites are beautiful, modern, and evangelism focused.
If your parish is not interested in evangelism, this is not the website for you.
Managed Themes
We can create a custom website for you, if that is what you are looking for. Just ask.
Themes are generally a one time purchase that you add to WordPress on your own without any support.
A Come and See website is something we are calling a managed theme.
We will host your website, setup your website theme, and provide support for your website.
30 Point Inspection
A 30 point inspection, in 3 parts, was created to evaluate the current state of Orthodox websites in America.
The inspection evaluates if a website meets minimum basic website best practices, if the website is friendly to guests and visitors, and lastly if the website engages with the community.
All of our websites will pass the first two parts “out of the box”, and set you up for success to engage your community.
Core Features
A BOTH/AND website is not just a website, but a connection system. A system designed to engage your community.
Yes, we cover the basics. A blog, sermons, maps/directions, a contact page, SEO, analytics. Those things are all built in. Where we go above and beyond is sections to let your community ask for prayer, to ask your priest questions about the faith, sections for visitors to learn about the faith through articles, podcasts, and videos.
All designs will meet all 7 criteria designated by the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America for evangelistic websites.
On top of all that we provide hosting for your website with one of the best companies in the business.
We have a lot to offer and we will only be adding more to our services.
Evangelism Focused
It is important to understand that our websites are first and foremost designed to help you evangelize your local community with the Orthodox faith. First guests, then parishioners. Your parishioners and the information they need will not be neglected as we have specific solutions to meet their needs.
Info Hub
Our designs focus on the needs of the visitor, but your parish is not neglected. For the sake of the guests, we ask that your parishioners sacrifice one click. All of the information that is parishioner centric is moved to a central Info Hub. It is easy for your parishioners to remember as well if they want to navigate to it directly. yoursitename.com/info.
Media
To keep our costs low while offering high end functionality, to do more with less, we have a different approach in regards to the distribution of media. As much as possible, videos, podcasts, sermons, images, etc are hosted on other services. If these media items are hosted with other services it reduces the load on our servers, giving all of our managed sites a better response time, but also puts your content out into the greater internet, rather than keeping it walled up in your website. The hope is to put more Orthodox beauty in your local digital world.
Friendly Sites
There are not many Orthodox websites that meet basic best practices for web design, but there are even fewer that most guest would be able to characterize as friendly.
There could be a few reasons for that. Maybe the website doesn’t offer the tools to make a site friendly to guests. Maybe those tools are there, but they are awkward or complicated. Maybe your parish isn’t concerned about making you website friendly for your guest knocking on your digital door.
A Come and See website goes out of the way to provide you with the tools to make a friendly website, as well as make them extremely simple and intuitive. We also provide content that is already written, that you are free to leave as is or edit as much as you like. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel!
We also have functionality that will hide content on the frontpage if it get too old. Your site, even if it starts to become neglected, will never feel like it is inactive.
Engaging Sites
Your website can be a tool to reach out to your local community. Too many Orthodox websites only put forth information. It is rare to come across a church website that makes it easy for it’s local population to engage with their parish.
We do this in two ways. The first way is by having your social media listed and easy to find. Secondly, we have a series of forms that go beyond just your standard contact us form. We have a form to specifically ask the parish priest a question about the Orthodox faith. There is a form to have people in your local community’s name added to the church’s prayer list. Then lastly, we have a form for a guest to schedule a time to get coffee with the parish priest.
If you would like to engage with your community, a Come and See website might be right for your parish.
If you would rather not engage with your community, this is not the website for you.