Have you ever done something and wondered why you seem to be wasting your time? Perhaps talking to your teenage kids or telling a mechanic what seems to be the problem with your car. Or maybe it’s when you preach a passionate sermon about stewardship. Are you just wasting time?
No one wants to “waste time”. But the Church (sadly) often wastes time on its website.
I’m privileged to talk to dozens and dozens of churches about how to improve their websites. We offer this Web Analysis in conferences and via Skype or a phone call. Most times, I see symptoms of churches doing websites so wrong, that very few would want to “use” their website. So it’s a waste of time to work on it. So, please. Stop wasting your time doing your church website wrong!
Are you wasting your time? Here are 3 Reasons:
- People spend very little time on web pages. In fact, most analytics will show that most people spend about 30 seconds on a website. And most people click about 3 times. So the average person spends less than 10 seconds per page. Some statistics say that the homepage is about 3 seconds.
- More and more people are reading less and less. The average American reads about 300 words/minute, so in 10 seconds they can only take in about 50 words. All pages should aim for 50 or fewer words.
- Exceeding what people want; pushes them away. It’s proven that pages that exceed 50 words actually encourage people not to read the page. Especially if it’s written in paragraph form. The more its over; the more it repels. (Think what you do about long emails)
If you’re repelling people from your website; you’re wasting your time. Edit. Reduce. Calm your pages. And it’ll attract more. But make sure you have GREAT content!
