Looking for Web site critiques

[Audax]

We have recently been evaluating our Web ministry and how we want to move forward with it. We have implemented some new ideas and features and have a few that we are still thinking about.

Any comments or suggestions you have would be great, please be honest, while good critiques make us feel good, it doesn't help us build a better ministry.

Thanks in advance!

oaklandbaptistchurch.net

[KeckCreative]

First off the site looks really nice. My only criticism, is other than the staff page, I don't see the people of the church. The text and graphics are good and the theme is consistent, but it needs a more personal touch that photos of the church in action can bring. Reading about it is good, but seeing it will create a relationship based response to an impersonal text based online interaction. I don't think you need to clutter up the various pages with tons of photos, just some well thought out selections (i.e. Surge, Livewire, Sunday school, worship service, food pantry, etc.)

[Audax]

Thanks, we are working on some page footers that will have a collage of a couple pictures for pages like that. We just don't know how we want to execute it yet. Thanks for your suggestion!

[mickmel]

Overall you've got a very solid site. I'm not going to get into the good stuff on there, but know that this isn't meant as a harsh criticism, just some areas where it could be made even better.

Jon made a great point about the lack of photos. A few other things:

-- Your Facebook is set up as a "profile" and not a "page", which violates their TOS and they'll delete it (without warning) very soon. You need to get a page going asap to avoid losing everything you've built.

-- On the "Locations & Times" page, some of the items aren't linked. Why can't I click on "Small Groups" for more info?

-- On "Meet the Staff" I'd suggest two things. One, simplify it and then allow users to click on each photo/name for more info. Having separate pages for each staff member is quite helpful. Also, are none of the staff on Facebook or Twitter, or even have a phone number? Email is certainly the best way to contact them, but that appears to be the only choice.

-- The "Announcements" are all underlined, which makes them appear to be linked. Only use underlines for links.

-- Tell me more about your facility. On the calendar page I see that Small Groups meet in the "Education Building". What is that? Where is that? Give first-time visitors some confidence that they have some idea of where they're going when the arrive.

I hope those help. Nice work on the site!

[[Admin] osborn4]

Ditto what was said above. Very nice looking site.

On the staff page, I could crop the pictures tighter to show more face and less background.

Also, I would consider linking bible references to an online bible, so folks could look them up right away.

[Audax]

Thanks for all of your ideas! I went ahead and implemented some of them, and passed the rest along to the rest of the staff; still waiting to hear from them on the rest of the changes.

Thanks again!