What is the BOTH/AND Point System?
This is not a perfect system!
There are things that you will think should have been omitted or things added, and you will probably be right. An exhaustive review would include much more, but this does serve as a baseline that will show areas where Orthodox websites are doing well and where they could improve.
Much of our Orthodox websites are not much more than website “business cards” and that in itself is actually a good thing. There was a time when we didn’t even have that! However at BOTH/AND designs we hope to create websites that are friendly, engaging, and beautiful. I don’t think many people would disagree that most of our Orthodox sites are not that.
Of course, we would love that Orthodox parishes would choose BOTH/AND designs to fix these issues, but if they choose not to, we hope that this data would be used to create websites with any designer or platform that are friendly, engaging, and beautiful.
What follows are the details on how the point system is calculated.
Minimum (9 Points)
Beauty/Not Cluttered
This is the one point that is subjective. The others are all data driven. When you first look at the page, does it seem beautiful? Is there too much on the page? Is it too cluttered? Has everything been deemed important, so that nothing becomes important?
Main Navigation have 7 items or less
There is data that shows that more than 7 items in your main navigation creates confusion in the visitor and they become overwhelmed. If possible, try to keep your main navigation to 7 items or less, not including a “Home” option.
Mobile Friendly
Most of your visitors will come from mobile these days. If you have a site that is not mobile friendly and you have to zoom in and out, you will lose visitors.
Desktop Website Loads in 2 seconds or less
Data shows that if your desktop site takes longer than 2 seconds to load, visitors will leave your site. One of the rankings that Google uses to determine where your website lands in search engines is the loading time of your site. Too slow or slower than other church websites in your local area and you will be shown lower in the search results.
Mobile Website Loads in 3 Seconds or Less
Data shows that if your mobile site takes longer than 3 seconds to load, visitors will leave your site. One of the rankings that Google uses to determine where your website lands in search engines is the loading time of your site. Too slow or slower than other church websites in your local area and you will be shown lower in the search results.
Services Times Displayed on the Front Page
Websites should serve the major needs or desires of your visitors. One of those needs are your basic service times. Sunday services and your regular weekly services. Do you have other services? Provide a link to a more detailed calendar. Your services need to be on the frontpage and easily accessible. The higher up the page the better. If the visitor goes to your website, sees the service times, and leaves, you should see that as a win. They got the info they need and will be visiting your church!
Service Times Displayed in the Footer
It is a common misconception that visitors come to your homepage first. I bet if you were to look at your website analytics you would discover that 50% of your visitors go to your homepage first and the other 50% enter your website from other pages. For that other half, where are the service times? Do they have to go to the homepage to find it? Service times are too important to be only found on your homepage. They need to be on every page! Place your service times in your footer, so that on every page that a visitor enters will have your service times.
Contact Featured in the Main Navigation
The ability to contact your church/priest is vital. Othodox will want to contact you to see about visiting. Non-Orthodox will want to contact you to see about visiting as well and the may have questions to ask. Site visitors will need to contact you on whatever page they are on. Make it as easy as possible for your site visitors to get in contact with you!
Contact Information Featured in the Footer
The same goes for providing contact info in the navigation as it does for your footer. Data shows that site visitors have been conditioned to know that contact information is in the footer. Is your contact information there? Put it there!
Friendly
Is your website friendly to your site visitors? Is it meeting their basic needs and questions? Does it consider the visitors who are non-orthodox and looking for our ancient faith?
English? Does it “feel” ethnic?
If you are to reach visitors in America, your site needs to be in English. You know that already. What you might not realize is that your website should not “feel” ethnic. If your website features too much that emphasizes the ethnicity of your parish, you will turn away American visitors. If you want to focus on ethnic visitors, keep doing what you are doing, but if you want to reach your neighbors that are not tied to the ethnicity of your parish, this must be changed.
Photo Gallery with Images Less than 4 Months Old
Do you have a gallery of images of life at your parish? If you do, are those images out of date, from years ago? Site visitors looking to visit your parish will always look for images to give them an idea of what your parish is like. Present them with images that show your parish is alive and active!
Content Less than 4 Months Old
Do you have content that is old and outdated? Create content that is new and shows your parish is active! Old content is worse than no content. It doesn’t take much. It can be sermons or weekly bulletins. Anything that shows you are alive and active.
“Visit” tab in the Main Navigation
Is your website for your parishioners or for visitors seeking the faith? If you determine that your site is for your parishioners, do nothing, this part is not important. If you care about visitors, it is important to meet their needs by putting a “visit” section in your main navigation. Then you need to write content for those visitors with information about what they should expect at your church and directions to get there. Is there guest parking? How does your parish deal with children? Non-orthodox have no idea what they are getting into. Write it all down. Don’t leave room for surprises! Come and See Websites have templates for this sort of information that you can edit, so you don’t have to start from scratch.
Visitor Section on the Front Page
Adding a “visit” section to your homepage demonstrates that you want new visitors in your church. If you don’t have a “visit” section you are stating, perhaps unintentionally, that visitors are not welcome at your church. This doesn’t have to be anything fancy, just a button linking to content about visiting will show that you care and are welcoming to new visitors.
“Learn” Section in the Main Navigation
Visitors will come to your site and they may have little knowledge about the Orthodox faith. They may have picked up something here or there, but by creating a section about the faith on your website you will create a personal connection with learning the faith and your parish. Some may come with no knowledge about the faith and your website may be the first place where they learn about the faith. Create a place to answer their questions!
Learn Section on the Front Page
By placing a “learn” section of your homepage you are demonstrating that you are a parish who will answer their questions. That you are open to answer questions and are a place for seekers. To not do so, is to imply, perhaps unintentionally, that you are closed off and unwelcoming.
Welcome Message
I go back and forth on this one. We should of course be welcoming and a “welcome message” may do just that. However, if you are doing the prior things on this list, your website will be demonstrating it is welcoming by the structure itself. To have a “welcome message” and not do the previous items demonstrates that you are actually not. That being said, do you need a welcome message? I suppose it can’t hurt. But please, do me a favor, and don’t say, “Welcome to our website”. It comes off very outdated. Just say a few lines that you are happy and love when people are looking into the faith and would be happy to meet them in person.
Engaging
Is your website designed in such a way that you can interact and engage with the real people of your community who are visiting your website? Is it only a 1 way style of communication where you are just presenting the facts? Your website can be a place that provides opportunity to interact with the people of your community in a meaningful way. What about your presence on social media? Love it or hate it, your church community is on social media and so is your unchurched community. It is the modern day Mars Hill. Are you there to meet them?
Ask about the Orthodox Faith
Many site visitors will come with questions about the faith. Do you have a way for them to ask those questions? Not just a generic “Contact us” button, but that demonstrates the ability to ask questions about the Orthodox faith to help prompt a discussion. Your website can be a powerful tool to engage your local community. Make that option available to them.
Prayer Requests
Many visitors to your website will come with broken hearts and souls, in need of prayer. Are you able to meet the prayer needs of your community. Create a space where their local church can ask the Lord for mercy!
Facebook Church Presence and Link on Your Website
Facebook is the king of Social Media right now. Most of your parishioners have Facebook accounts. Your local community has Facebook accounts. If you have no other social media presence, Facebook is the place you need to have a church page for. I guarantee that after your website, Facebook is the next place that people evaluate your church.
I see a surprising amount of Orthodox churches that have Facebook pages, but the link is not found anywhere on their site. Take the time to create that link in the footer of your website.
Facebook Postings in the Last Month
What is on your page? How often do you post? When evaluating Orthodox Facebook pages I count all the posts in the last month(streaming services are excluded) and then points are awarded as follows:
- 1 Point – 4 posts or more (weekly)
- 2 Points – 8 Posts or more (twice a week)
- 3 Points – 16 Posts or more (almost every other day)
What do I recommend? Start small and do the best you can. If you can maintain 1 post a week you are for above the curve on what is currently taking place on Orthodox social media. Beyond that, all the better, but to maintain minimum social media engagement, I suggest once a week. Share an article, share an image, etc. Put Orthodox beauty in the social media feed of your community!
Instagram Church Presence and Link on Your Website
After Facebook, you need an Instagram presence. If you have parishioners that are 40 years old or less, they have an Instagram account. You get down in to younger than 25 and many in that age group do not have Facebook accounts, but only Instagram accounts. Are you there to meet them in that social feed?
Same goes for what was said previously about Facebook links. I have come across many churches who have Instagram accounts, but no link to the Instagram account from their website. This can be easily fixed in less than 30 minutes!
Instagram Postings in the Last Month
What is on your page? How often do you post? The same process is used to evaluate Instagram as is used for Facebook. When evaluating Orthodox Instagram pages I count all the posts in the last month(streaming services are excluded) and then points are awarded as follows:
- 1 Point – 4 posts or more (weekly)
- 2 Points – 8 Posts or more (twice a week)
- 3 Points – 16 Posts or more (almost every other day)
What do I recommend? Start small and do the best you can. If you can maintain 1 post a week you are for above the curve on what is currently taking place on Orthodox social media. Beyond that, all the better, but to maintain minimum social media engagement, I suggest once a week. Share an article, share an image, etc. Put Orthodox beauty in the social media feed of your community!
YouTube Church Presence and Link on Your Website
After Facebook and Instagram throw in YouTube. It is a natural fit. Are you streaming or recording your services? People spend hours and hours going through YouTube one recommended video after the next. Make Sundays sermons an option for those visitors. Protestants love this stuff. They want to know what an Orthodox sermon is like. Please give them that opportunity!
Same goes for what was said previously about Facebook links. I have come across many churches who have Instagram accounts, but no link to the Instagram account from their website. This can be easily fixed in less than 30 minutes!
Youtube Postings in the Last Month
The same process is used to evaluate Instagram and Facebook is used for YouTube, with a bit of a modified point system. I count all the posts in the last month(streaming services are excluded) and then points are awarded as follows:
- 1 Point – 4 posts or more (weekly)
- 2 Points – More than 4 (anything extra)
What do I recommend? Start small and do the best you can. Post Sunday sermons once a week. Beyond that, all the better, but to maintain minimum social media engagement, I suggest once a week. Put Orthodox beauty in the social media feed of your community!
Other Social Media Presence
Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube are the big three, but if you post on other social media accounts and they are linked from your website, you are given 1 extra bonus point.
Conclusion
Well, if you made it this far, I assume you would like to see the results. They are not currently ready in a web format, but is just info I have collected on a spread sheet. I am starting with my jurisdiction in the GOA and will soon be developing a page to display the results. But they are not ready yet.
Hopefully you can take the information from this system and apply it your local Orthodox website!