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BEFORE YOU START....
Before you start on your own web page, visit other church websites and decide what you like and don't like. Then come up with a basic design document. Don't start out with too much. Keep it simple. And do not consider graphics and photos as an afterthought. The web is a visual medium. Take advantage of it to tell your church's story and express your church's personality.

THEN...

1. Find help. The church's website is no place for you to display your beginner mistakes. Do that with your family's site, not the church's. You probably have a member, or teenager, or neighbor who has created a website before. Get their help and then work with them.

2. You'll need to sign up with an internet service provider. This is the company which will actually "host" your domain. It's where your files will be published to. This will cost you between $8 and $15 a month on average. Look on the web under ISP's or look in your local phonebook.

I use nghosting.com because they have easy to use tools, good prices, and excellent tech support. But there are many many web providers.

3. Create and Register a Domain Name for your website. When you sign up with your internet service provider, many offer a service that will register your web address on the internet.  Register a Domain name, such as, "www.yourchurch'sname.org" Do not host your website  at www.joe'scomputers.com/~our church  or on AOL. That's unprofessional, and someday your church have its own domain name, so why not now. Make sure your site's address is memorable and easy to spell.  It will cost you about $30 a year for the registration, but it's worth it.

4. Get two pieces of software to create a good webpage.

     #1. A webpage editor ("html editor"). Frontpage 2003 is good. (Frontpage 2002 was terrible). Stick with something inexpensive and easy. This is not the time to buy the high-end Dreamweaver and try to learn.

Frontpage works just like a wordprocessor. It's learning curve to achieve "beginner status" is about one evening's worth of practice.

    #2. An Image & Photo Editing program. Every year, Photoshop Elements (from Adobe) wins the editors award in most computer magazines. It's under $100 and can help you make graphics, but more importantly, compress them down to small file sizes for better web viewing. If you have a 4 megabyte photo from a digital camera, Photoshop Elements (3.0) can edit it down to 35kb and still make it look good -for web use.

        At some time in the future you may want a program that converts documents into easy to download PDF files. But that's sort of advanced for now.

Site Creation Options:

You can go with a webpage creation company to create your basic site, then take over content management from them. This can run you between $200 and $1000.

Go to a company like www.e-zekiel.com  which specializes in church websites. They have templates you can fill out on the web that will generate your site content for you. You'll pay a monthly fee, but the results can be very good and the learning curve can be short. They also have all sorts of "add on" options/services, such as setting up a church email list and message boards which are part of their packages you pay for.

GRAPHICS:

You can make your own graphics with Photoshop Elements. Just remember to compress them for fast web loading. Photoshop Elements has a built in "compress for web" button. Keep it simple at first. Compressing graphics is an art because some look better than others when compressed.

There are many web-art CDs and websites you can get graphics from. You can also borrow graphics from other church websites (ask their permission). There are web page graphic collections websites which give things away for free -which you can then modify for you use.

Church Web-creation/hosting companies offer graphics as part of their package. This is really worth looking into if you are graphic challenged.

Best Advice: a photo is usually better than a graphic. Start taking digital photos at church today.

Read my full article on how to create a GOOD church website
http://www.sundaysoftware.com/webpage.htm

Visit my list of good and bad church websites.