Make a Beautiful Church Website on the Cheap

Dean Soto — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:49:25 +0000

It amazes me how an institution like the Catholic Church, which dominated art in the west for over 1500 years, seems to be content with websites that look as though they were created for a third grade science project. I apologize for any hurt feelings, but it’s the truth. That being the case, I have taken the liberty of giving some ideas on how to remedy the situation in the most cost-effective way possible. Get ready for the tools to help your parish have an extreme website makeover.

Photo by Paul Soucy

Find a Host for $150 (or Less) Every 2 Years

It is not expensive to have a website hosted. There a ton of hosting companies out there that have plans that literally cost around $3.95 – $5.95 a month. That is nothing when you consider how much exposure a good website can bring to your parish, and how it can create solid communities that wouldn’t exist otherwise. Here are three web hosts that offer low prices, and great service. I am not getting a dime from them for this:

Bluehost – These are the guys that I use. They offer unlimited space and bandwidth for a very low price. They’ve been good to me and I definitely recommend them.
Hostgator – I’ve heard good things about these guys. They are generally the same as Bluehost as far as pricing.
Dreamhost – Another well-like web host service.

Install a Content Management System (CMS)

Once you’ve picked a host, it’s time to choose a Content Management System (CMS). A CMS allows you to quickly add content to a site in an orderly manner. Two CMSs that I really like are Drupal, and even more so, Joomla.

I’ve used Joomla on a number of sites and I really feel that it is one of the easiest tools to create and manage a website that demands a lot of content. You can write articles, make communities and groups, and create scalable ecommerce sites. It is a very powerful product, and it is absolutely FREE! Yes, I said free.

So pick a CMS that you like, and move on.

Download a Free Template and Add a Personal Touch

You don’t have to be a professional web developer to have a clean-looking website for your parish. There are tons of free templates out there that only require you to change a header logo or two in order to make it unique. A really good place to look is Joomla24, which has thousands of FREE (there’s that word again) Joomla templates.

If there are no free templates out there, you can always join a template club like Joomlart for approximately $75 a year. Not bad for some really cool looking templates.

Conclusion

Websites don’t need to be expensive and they don’t require you to hire a software engineer in order to maintain it. With a little time and research, you can have a professional looking website for your church that will cost less than a cup of coffee a day.

Update: For more tips, check out this article on the Catholic Tech Tips blog: “Can I get some ‘good’ Catholic artwork, Please?”

Productive Catholic » cheap design

Make a Beautiful Church Website on the Cheap

Find a Host for $150 (or Less) Every 2 Years

Install a Content Management System (CMS)

Download a Free Template and Add a Personal Touch

Conclusion