Relying on their websites to easily share large amounts of content with their congregations, churches, temples, monasteries, mosques and similar places of worship are increasingly looking for next generation websites to enhance their online presence and grow their spiritual family.
Religious organizations of all sizes can build beautiful, powerful websites with unparalleled security and scalability without compromising design.
Recently, Bridgeway Community Church (BCC) — a non-denominational, multicultural fellowship located in Columbia, Maryland — partnered with Solodev to launch its new website.
Designed, built and hosted on Solodev’s web experience platform, the new site features cutting-edge design and accessibility that connects the organization with its local community and site visitors around the world.
“After attracting worldwide attention based on our bridge-building principles, we knew that Bridgeway needed a new website that matched its image and message. We also needed a solution that could better accommodate the growth and success we’re experiencing,” said Tim Simms, director of technology and Internet services at Bridgeway Community Church. “After partnering with Solodev, we’re thrilled by the results—a highly dynamic website, boasting a beautiful design, engaging content and compelling multimedia. Regardless of how they reach our website, we are proud of the experience we now provide our viewers.”
BCC’s newly redesigned website is mobile responsive and built with tools that empower the church’s team to own their digital experience, making them completely self-sufficient.
Advanced features include a dynamic homepage scheduler, a live broadcast of BCC’s services on the homepage, and a dynamic testimonials section. Backed by the rock solid infrastructure of Amazon Web Services tools such as EC2 and CloudFront, BCC now has a cutting-edge design and the infrastructure to support it.
“Overall, religious organizations are behind the times when it comes to their digital presence. Many have old, static websites that no longer serve the organization’s needs or the needs of their community,” said Shawn Moore, CTO at Solodev. “Our partnership with BCC highlights our ability to collaborate remotely and scale to meet our client’s needs. It also showcases Solodev’s total design freedom which allows BCC to remain true to its unique message—and makes that message accessible to a much wider audience.”
In addition to Solodev being optimized for religious organizations, the web experience software company identifies five website trend predictions for the industry in 2017:
1. Mobile compatibility
According to the Pew Research Center, 77 percent of U.S. adults own a smartphone, and that number continues to rise. With a majority of the country utilizing smart devices to access the Internet, churches must remain accessible and relevant by updating their websites to be mobile compatible.
2. Video integration
As churches adopt live broadcasts of their services, it’s imperative that the video is featured in a prominent place on their website’s homepage so that it can easily be found by visitors.
By integrating live broadcasts with API services, anyone in the world can tune into a church’s service from any device with Internet capabilities.
3. Empower back-end users
Churches can empower their staff to become completely self-sufficient and own their digital experience by choosing a solution that is easy to operate for the back-end user.
Such solutions offer time-saving tools like a multimedia scheduler, which schedules large amounts of content efficiently, and a custom landing page manager, which allows the team to easily build landing pages with content tailored to different audiences.
4. Moving to the cloud
With cybersecurity threats on the rise, churches should look for solutions that are built on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud to avoid data breaches that could put the organization and congregation members’ sensitive data at risk.
In addition to offering world-class security, AWS drastically increases the delivery speed of a church’s site and quickly auto-scales capacity up and down as their computing requirements change.
5. Push for engagement
Churches must identify their desired call to action and make sure it’s located in a prominent place on their website homepage.
Additionally, increased engagement can also come from creative strategies like a story room where congregation members can share their stories online and a dynamic testimonials section.
This information is courtesy of Solodev, an industry-leading web experience software solution that empowers organizations with Total Design Freedom, www.solodev.com.
