Church in the Wottons: Case Study - 27.05.10

• Visit the “Rector puts God on the net” news article from the Woottons website launch


Author of Study: The Reverend Tony Higton, Rector of the Woottons Benefice: 2006-2009


Daniel Gibbins, Senior Project Leader of the Church Website Design Project, set up a new website for the Church in the Woottons in 2007.  Without hesitation, I can say that I have been more than satisfied with what he has done for us, for a modest financial outlay. Daniel is highly professional and creative. He is very conscientious and hardworking and readily and quickly works on material I send him or requests I make of him. Daniel is also very friendly and as a practising Christian, is totally sympathetic to the purpose of our website.

BACKGROUND

North and South Wootton are two villages which have developed into a suburb of King’s Lynn. Some village folk remain but most are incomers, mainly middle class and professional. There are two churches of a central Anglican tradition (although I myself am an Open Evangelical and the new congregation which developed at North Wootton (where there had been a very small congregation before) took on an Evangelical tradition alongside the Central, Sung Eucharist tradition in South Wootton (which I enjoyed and encouraged).

I inherited a website set up by a church volunteer who did his best and I am grateful for that. However that site was obviously planned by an amateur and would really only attract those committed to looking at it.  Basically, it contained ‘Parish Pump’ material and read rather like an Annual General Meeting report. To view a graphic of what the old website looked like, please click here.

AIMS

Our aims in having the new site set up were as follows:

Evangelism and Pre-Evangelism

There is a saying that: “Most people in this country don’t go to church. But it is the Church of England they don’t go to!”  In other words English people when they think of church think of the C of E and own some vague allegiance to it. This gives an opportunity to find a slightly sympathetic audience for well-written evangelistic articles which are specifically designed for the non-churchgoer.

However, many people are not ready to make a commitment of faith so we planned the site also to have content to make people think, to answer basic questions such as ‘ Does God exist?’ ‘What about all the suffering in the world?’ ‘Hasn’t science disproved religion?’ etc.

Current and Controversial Comment

We included a Rector’s Blog Site so that the questions mentioned in section 1, as well as current event issues could be raised and a response invited.  This was to encourage non-churchgoers to think matters through, whether or not they wrote to the blog site, and to stimulate interest. If people came to church (and that is a big ‘if’ they might sit and listen but many would not ask honest and awkward questions. They might feel inhibited by a church context and addressing a priest face to face. Hence the website afforded a safe and less inhibiting context.

Communication to Parishioners

Although some churchmembers still don’t appreciate it, most people do surf the net and look for information on it. If someone wants to know when a Christmas service is they are likely to look up a website which tells them. When they want to get married they will tend to look up the procedures on the net. If a church does not have a suitable website it can at best inconvenience potential enquirers and at worst put them off altogether.

PUBLICITY

Daniel worked very hard in setting up the site and in getting it noticed by search engines. When he took photographs of our morning service he was sensitive and unobtrusive, and he obtained some good photographs. He made great efforts to ensure the site is first rate and, equally important, to ensure it is well advertised and taken seriously by the search engines.

He Submitted Information to:

• Over 300 major international search engines including the likes of Google, Yahoo and MSN.
• Some 25 local websites in King’s Lynn and Norfolk, approaching the web masters with the possibility of  recommending The Church in the Woottons website as part of their links page.
• Some national online websites such as tourist guides etc.
• He also emailed the news editor of the local paper asking if they would be interested in covering the story of the website’s redevelopment and the refocusing of the church’s online outreach to the local community.

RESULTS

The website became very successful at an early stage with:

• Many Visitors

In the second month after the site was launched 700 people visited it (which Daniel said was at that stage “an exceptionally high figure indeed.”This is double the number for the previous month, which normally doesn’t  happen until 8-12 months after a website is re-launched. The visitors read a total of 3000 pages, an average of 23 pages per visitor which Daniel described as “very impressive.”My ‘Rector’s Blog’ was visited 558 times. 53.3% of visitors added the site to their favourite list.

A couple of months after launch the site was awarded to icons “for internet excellence” by the World Wide Web Consortium whose director is Tim Berners-Lee who invented the internet. The site conformed to a good level of ‘best practice.’

One surprise that I certainly didn’t anticipate was the popularity of sermons on the net. Personally I would have thought they would be a big turn-off, but not so.  Nine months after the launch Daniel reported that if one entered “church sermons” into the Yahoo search engine (which lists 30 million websites) the Church in the Woottons website came in on the first page of results in position 4 out of 29,700,000 other websites. Daniel commented: “To achieve that with all the other websites out there is unbelievable!!! I almost fell of my chair.”

In the first year the site had 15,831 visitors and Daniel provided us with the following statistics (NB - statistics were accurate as of 2008 - additions to internet content may mean the phrases used are no longer on their noted position below):

Keyphrase	Woottons site position	Out of total of relevant websites
What is heaven like?	1st on Yahoo	230,000,000
Church Christening	1st on Yahoo	3,470,000,000
Why not be confirmed?	1st on Yahoo	29,500,000
Why get confirmed?	1st on Yahoo	169,000,000
I will be ever only all for thee	1st on Yahoo	37,700,000
What is it like being a Christian in Britain?	1st & 2nd	24,900,000
What does Church of England believe in Holy Communion?	1st on Yahoo	2,580,000
What is marriage?	2nd on Yahoo	517,000,000
What is heaven?	4th on Yahoo	431,000,000
What do Christians believe?	4th on Yahoo	57,000,000
What is the point of life?	4th on Yahoo	1,370,000,000
Is death the end?	6th on Yahoo	571,000,000
What is the church?	9th on Yahoo	1,100,000,000

The local paper took up the story under the heading “Key way to log onto God! – Rector turns to the internet to spread the word."  The local newspaper billboards had the wording: “Rector puts God on the net” which was effective if slightly overstated! The Lynn News article has been re-published on this site - click the link above to view the full article from July 2007.

• Contributors to the Blog

There were a good number of people who wrote to my blog site. The most notable was an American atheist who gave me a run for my money with intelligent and respectful arguments running into many thousands of words. Hopefully this helped people who read it.

• Contact from Parishioners

We did have parishioners contact us after reading the website, particularly those wanting to get married.

• Other Churches Following Suit

We had emails from Christians who were impressed with the site and we know that various fairly local churches decided to go for a website and to use the Church Website Design Project.

REASONS FOR HAVING A WEBSITE

A website is a very valuable ministry arm of the church because, on a 24/7 basis:

• It proclaims the Gospel to parishioners and others who “surf the net” even on a worldwide basis. This is such a fruitful activity that there are Christian organisations set up solely to do internet evangelism.
• It provides “Apologetic” materials, i.e. a defence of the Faith for those who are doubting, enquiring, going through difficulties.
• It enables people to interact, particularly with Blog Site: they can send in questions and comments, which (subject to approval) are published on the site to which one can respond.
• It provides information about the church for parishioners, so that they know what sort of church we are. This information includes practical advice about Baptism, Weddings and Funerals. The wedding pages are particularly popular.
• It shares information about the church so that people moving to or visiting your area will know about you. On one Sunday a family staying 15 miles away chose to attend All Saints.
• It provides information to help those who are trying to learn more about Christianity.
• It provides church leaflets, sermon notes etc., for churchmembers who missed them (without any printing costs).
• It communicates with other Christians, former members, friends, members of other congregations, etc. For example we heard from a previous curate whom I had not met, via the web site.
• It provides written information which people can download which saves the church time, money and energy.
• It appeals to younger people, but nowadays many older people surf the net.
• It shows we are a modern, up-to-date church.
• It has an electronic giving facility so people can donate to the church over the internet (we really didn’t develop this as fundraising was not amongst our priorities).

SERVICING

We were very satisfied with the service provided by Daniel both in setting up the site and in providing us with on-going help, all at a very modest cost. It included:

• Working closely with the clergy and church members to establish a website that is relevant to the work and ministry of the church and which:
• Has a sophisticated and attractive appearance,
• Has simple navigation and clear presentation,
• Downloads quickly
• Is user friendly
• Photographic Services Internal, external and church leadership/member photos
• Domain Registration
• Search Engine Optimisation and Online Marketing Services
• Full domain support,
• Email services,
• Content management which regularly reviews the website statistics, customer trends and feedback, to recognise areas that can be improved further.

CONCLUSION

I have no hesitation in recommending Daniel Gibbins and the Church Website Design Project very highly.

The Rev'd Tony Higton - Rector of Church in the Woottons 2006 - 2009

See also Tony Higton's two other websites created by the Church Website Design Project: Christian Teaching Resources and Prayer for Peace

E-mail: info@churchwebsitedesign.org.uk