Choosing a Web Builder for your Church Website

in this video i'm going to help you choose a website building platform for your church [Music] hey welcome to creative church media where i dive deep into church media training on anything from producing videos to building websites you can check out more videos by clicking subscribe button below and hit the like button as well so youtube shows this video to more people like i said earlier i'm going to help you choose a website building platform for your church to do this i'm going to go over a simple platform like squarespace and also a more complex and customizable platform like wordpress okay so first let's talk about the simplest way to get your website up and running that would be using something like squarespace you can use something else like wix but for the purpose of saving time i'll only be going over squarespace in detail because it's what i've used in the past but just know that these have very similar subscriptions and capabilities so what are some of the pros for using a platform like squarespace the biggest and most important selling point is ease of use you can get a website up and running in less than a couple of hours all without writing any code you sign up for a subscription that comes with hosting and a domain you choose a template and immediately start putting your information on the site so there's no huge roadblocks to slow you down in this process another pro is that all the templates are built with proper coding to work on any device no matter what media or text you throw at it it will look great on a phone or a desktop this takes a lot of the headache and troubleshooting and designing out of the way so what are some of the cons well that's interesting because some of the features that make the pros list actually make the cons list as well for example you pay a flat rate each month for as long as you want the squarespace website this makes it easy because hosting and a domain are wrapped up in that subscription and upgrading to a bigger subscription or adding more domains is as easy as clicking a button however this means you can't shop around for better or cheaper hosting costs and it will cost you more money over time than hosting your own website somewhere else so how much does a website with squarespace cost per year well if you look at their website the cheapest plan is around 12 dollars a month or 144 a year i would recommend most of you even smaller churches to use the business plan which is the second one up and that's 18 a month or 216 a year this gives you unlimited people to contribute better analytics and a way to accept donations if you don't already have that one thing to know is that these are the prices when you pay annually if you truly pay monthly it'll cost about 30 percent more than what's on the website okay let me talk about the other web building platform wordpress now there is one other platform similar to the capabilities of wordpress that i would recommend if you want to do that as well and that is webflow but for this video i'm only going to be talking about wordpress so what are some of the pros of wordpress first is the highly customizable themes or templates if you're looking to design a unique website then this is a much better option than squarespace there are many different themes to use on wordpress but my favorite one is called pro from theme dot co i'll link that in the description below and there's a small one time 79 dollar licensing fee but it's totally worth it another pro is that over time you'll save money compared to using squarespace you can find cheaper hosting and domains that will save you a few hundred dollars a year in comparison now let's talk about what i think the con is of using wordpress it takes much more time to design develop and sometimes code the website to function well on every device you'll have to pour more time into making your website function the way you want and look the way you want you'll also have to do more troubleshooting when something breaks in the code or a plug-in needs updated and isn't working properly overall if you're wanting to go this route i think you should have some knowledge of coding or at least some experience with wordpress websites so on the one hand you have squarespace and easy-to-use all-in-one web building platform that costs you more money in the long run and on the other hand you have wordpress a highly customizable feature-rich web building platform that will be cheaper over time but require much more time and effort to function the way you want so with all that said what website building platform should you choose for your church well if you're a smaller church that doesn't have staff or volunteers who have the time or knowledge to design a unique website then i think squarespace would be the best bet ultimately a couple hundred dollars a year is well worth it to have a solid website that functions great but if you're a church that has staff or volunteers that can pour some time into designing and developing a more unique website experience then wordpress is the way to go it will cost less and give you the ultimate chance to design something that truly functions the way your church needs it to without any sacrifice on a personal note i have used each platform extensively for both church and non-church organizations and i've enjoyed each one i think no matter which one you go with you can get a great result and truly be happy with your church website it's just up to you and your church to figure out what fits best all right so that's it for this video thanks again for watching i hope that helped and hit the subscribe and like button below for more videos like this one and i'll see you guys in the next one

Channel: Church Creative

Views: 704

Keywords: Choosing a Web Builder for your Church Website, church website design, church, how to build a church website, church website, church website builder, squarespace, church websites, church website squarespace, building a church website, ministry, church communications, web design, nucleus, how to build a church website with wordpress, how to build a church website with squarespace, free church website builder and hosting, website builder, build a website, church media

Id: NmwPXLTmoHE

Length: 5min 37sec (337 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 18 2021