Creating a Lutheran Campus Ministry Web Presence

ELCA Campus Ministry staff are glad to see campus ministries designing and establishing their own Web sites. Your site will join the thousands of ELCA Web sites commonly committed to the work of this church and will provide valuable information about your ministry.

(This article will use the term "site," but you can provide most of your information on a single page if space is limited, as is often the case with free Web hosting. Where "page" is referred to, it generally means a single page within a site.)

             ● Table of Contents
             ● Getting started
                 —  Who is your audience?
                 —  Defining your target audience
                 —  Appealing to your audience
                 —  The message you wish to convey
                 —  A welcoming invitation
                 —  Grammar, spelling, and punctuation
             ● Essential items to include on your site
             ● Some other hints
             ● A quick word about copyright
             ● Marketing your site
             ● Where to house your site
             ● Construction tools
             ● Connecting around the church
             ● More resources

Getting started
When people ask the Web staff at the ELCA churchwide office for advice in designing and accomplishing their Web sites, we typically advise them to be specific about the goals they want to accomplish with their site. Who is your audience? How will you appeal to them? What is your message to them? Is your invitation welcoming?

Who is your audience?
All too often organizations attempt to develop a Web site that will be all things to all people, either in hopes of appealing to everyone who visits their site or in an attempt to not alienate any audience group — this goal is rarely achieved. Successful Web sites are those that have developed their online presence for what is called a “target audience.”

Defining you target audience
Defining one’s audience is the first and most important decision that needs to be made when developing a Web site. Once the audience is defined, content and design can be developed that will target this audience. This is not to say, however, that the target audience needs to be overly-defined; it is simply to say the most successful sites are those that providing information to users who are going to use it. Realistic decisions need to be made during this phase of development, but are always based on your “best guess.” Some Web sites almost divide their content into two: half for general information and education for "seekers" and half for those who are more actively involved and desire updated information; these are two types of content are respectively known as “static content” — material that does not change — and “dynamic content” — content that is frequently updated. One consideration regarding the percentage of static-to-dynamic content is how much time can be devoted to maintaining and updating the site. Organizations with zero staff time committed to their site need to get by with entirely static content (although this is certainly not the norm).

Some considerations of who your target audience might be:

1. Are your users absolute newcomers to any form of campus ministry? Or are do they already have some knowledge of your ministry?
    

2. What are the expectations of your users? Are they coming to your site with predisposed assumptions of what they'll find? Can you surprise them?
    

3. Are they Lutheran? Will your content appeal to and be understood by a member of any denominational? Are they Christian? Un-churched? De-churched? Is this a place for your ministry to evangelize?
    

4. What are your users' needs for coming to your site? What information do they hope to find by clicking on a link to your site? Basically, what do you have to offer that another Web site doesn’t have?

Appealing to your audience
Once you have determined who you feel your target audience will be, then it is time to develop content for them. If, for example, you have decided that your target audience is a Lutheran at a small college, you may want to develop content that is significantly different than if you have decided that your audience is an unchurched Christian at a large, metropolitan university.

The message you wish to convey
If there was one thing you could want each of your visitors to come away with from their Web experience with you, what would that one thing be? Would it be to take some sort of action? Make a contact? Show up for worship? Or, if you have multiple audiences you are providing for, can you identify something for each?

A welcoming invitation
Sincerity without sounding artificial is a difficult task. Consider having the members of your gathered community write this portion.

Grammar, spelling, and punctuation
Not everyone got A's in English, but use your spell check and have someone proofread your content for the basics. Too often we become too close to our work and miss "the big ones."

Essential items to include on your site

• Your ministry's name, address, phone number, and e-mail (if someone regularly checks it);

• The names and contact information for your campus ministry leadership. (The harsh realities of online life, however, is that this information is bought and sold daily. Avoid using personal e-mail accounts and phone numbers and being too specific about who your student leaders are);

• Any upcoming events; and

• The ELCA emblem with a link to the ELCA home page (www.elca.org) and links to ELCA Campus Ministry (www.elca.org/campusministry) and Lutheran Student Movement (www.lsm-usa.org ) (well, not essential, but a nice touch!)

Some other hints

• Make your site welcoming. This may be the first exposure to your campus ministry for many of your users. Use photos of where you meet and worship, show people, open doors, a sense of community;

• Consider developing a tag line — something that sets your ministry apart and will set the tone for your online experience;

• Make the site descriptive of your ministry and show its uniqueness. Do you have a traditional worship? Or is it a little edgier? Let your colors fly!;

• Avoid long bodies of text (like this page!) — break your information down into a logical hierarchy of pages or at least divide it up into paragraphs;

• Some common items to include on campus ministry home pages are:

  • A service schedule,

  • Upcoming events,

  • Special programs, and

  • Staff info;

• Use graphics sparingly. One moderately-sized graphic or a couple of small ones on a page make it more interesting to the eye; too many graphics can make the page look gaudy and confusing — and may take too long to load, trying the patience of your visitor. Watch that copyright — the Seventh Commandment applies to the Web! More information on this appears below;

• Avoid unusual fonts, since they will not display on any computer that does not have that particular font loaded. Times New Roman and Arial are common standards.

• Add dynamically changing ELCA content to your Web site such as Bible verses, Prayer Ventures, lectionary readings (this is content that changes daily on your site without anyone on your staff doing anything);

• View your home site with several different browsers; each browser interprets HTML differently;

• Browse the Web and look at other ELCA campus ministry's sites and see what you like and what you don't, what works and what doesn't;

• Join other ELCA Web stewards in an online discussion;

• While the "ELCA Web Standards" are meant for pages appearing on elca.org, there is good information to help you create an accessible and useful site; and

• Let us know when your site is completed and we will add a link on the Campus Ministry Web Sites page.

A quick word about copyright
Images that are taken of adults in a public place may be used on the Internet without written consent, but we suggest that you strive to have an ethical responsibility to the people you are documenting. Therefore, we suggest that you ask permission of any person whose identifiable image will be put online. Children, on the other hand, always need parental/guardian consent for images to be used online.

Content that is developed by someone who is not officially affiliated with your campus ministry organization or ELCA Lutheran Campus Ministry, or is copyright other than these two organizations, should provide a simple permission release to your ministry for your records.

Marketing your site
Consider ways to advertise your site in various publications such as college newspapers, synod newsletters, or direct appeals. Ask for local ELCA congregations to place a link to your site on their sites. One idea that is very useful are business cards for the Web site — they’re extremely cheap to print and are handy for people to slip into a pocket (as opposed to a pamphlet or sheet of paper), or at least put your URL on your own card when it comes time to reprint.

Submit your site's URL to the major search engines. (Directions for doing this are normally easy to find on their sites.) Be sure to add it in as many places within the Web directory structure that seems appropriate. Proper use of meta data (keywords, description) really pays off here.

Where to house your site
We recommend, if possible, finding a provider that will allow you access to your site. (This is sometimes not the case if another institutions grants you server space.) You will want to have easy access to update your content and create a dynamic presence on the Web. Check with your Internet service provider, since very often limited free Web space is a part of the service for which you pay. You may also want to ask your college or university for space, as most campus ministry sites are fairly small and is easily housed on an academic server.

Connecting around the church
Campus ministry and other church leaders are encouraged to look into LutherLink/Ecunet for optimal communication with colleagues around the church and the world, both within the ELCA and throughout the ecumenical community.

Many people have been asking about bulletin board or listserv possibilities in order to publish newsletters and other items and to have discussion groups with their members. There are several responsible listserv providers who will make such a service possible at little or no cost, though usually there is some advertising involved, perhaps appearing as a banner or a "signature line" on each message.  For a small sum, the list manager can sometimes arrange to have such advertising removed from her/his list. Topica.com explains more about listservs and how they operate.

When considering group communication online, it is probably best to go with a server that makes e-mail the main method of delivery, or at least offers it as an option. A Web-only system may make it impossible for some of your potential subscribers to participate. You might want to look into www.egroups.com and/or www.topica.com.

More resources
Susan Brumbaugh at the University of Colorado at Boulder has created an online manual called "Creating and Housing a Church Home Page." It is an excellent starting place and the information is easily adapted to campus ministry use.

ELCA Web stewards is an online community of over 450 ELCA folk committed to strengthening the online presence of this church.

Webmonkey: the web developer's resource offers quality information on just about every aspect of Web development.

Google FAQs, Help, and Tutorials offers a list of Web sites to help you work-through the basics of Web development. Be sure to check out Google Beginner Tutorials if you are new to Web development.