We launched a new website today for the Cleora Community Church serving the Cleora, Vinita, and Ketchum, Oklahoma communities. We actually started building this website quite some time ago but COVID-19 lock down and restrictions lead to significant delays for obtaining and working on the information and photos going into the new website.
The Cleora Community Church is just a few miles from Grand Lake and with that in mind, we gave the website a "woods and water" theme to fit with this rural, lakeside church. You can see their new site at www.cleoracommunitychurch.com.
So you may be thinking "Great! The website is launched. Now what?" Well, folks. Our work does not stop there. There are a great many things that can only be done after a website is live with a custom domain name. Here is a quick look at the main areas and actions taken to help ensure a successful and useful website for an organization or business.
1. After-Launch Optimization and Support
We are very pleased with launching this new website and the Cleora Community Church leaders and congregation couldn't be happier. As with any new website launch from Trigger-Switch, we also provided:
Full Search Engine Optimization for the new website for both desktop and mobile versions
NEW Custom Favicon - for branding the web browser tab
Registration of new website with Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tool
Set up website in Google Analytics
Update Google Business Profile with new website address
Update Church Facebook Page with new website address
and More!
2. Post-Launch Performance Monitoring & Improvements
Our team will also be keeping a close eye on the website for the next 30 days to ensure all pages, images and content are loading quickly and operating well. If we see anything slowing the website down or may not be working correctly, we will address and fix as soon as possible. This not only impacts the overall appeal of the website to the intended audience i.e. church congregation and visitors; but it also impacts how well Google and Bing score the website for search results.
3. Helping the Church Help Themselves!
With any new launch of a website, it is critical to drive as many members of your community, your existing customers, professional contacts and more to go to the website, browse the pages and content, and in general spend time on the new site. For the Cleora Community Church, we specifically advised them of the following:
Facebook – We encouraged the church leadership to create a post announcing the new website and including the link to the website – www.CleoraCommunityChurch.com. We asked them to be sure to ask everyone to take time to go to at least 3 pages on the website and to also like or share the Facebook post so their friends can see it and hopefully take time to learn more about the church themselves.
Email - We encouraged the church leadership to send out an email to all church members and other contacts announcing the new website. With this effort, they need to be sure to include the link and encourage them to visit at least three pages on the website.
Other Website Profiles - Finally, we asked the church leadership to update all profiles and church information on other websites with a link to the new website. Specifically for the church, this includes: national church directories, Yellow Pages, Alignable.com, ChurchFinder.com, LinkedIn.com, and CharityNavigator.org. Adding the website to these other locations creates backlinks to their new website and helps drive additional traffic. Both are things that help move them higher in Google Search.
Quick Note on Google: The reason we emphasize encouraging people to visit at least three pages on the website is that Google not only watches how many people go to your website, but they also watch closely to see how many pages they go to and how much time overall they spend on the website. Higher number of pages visited and longer time on the website both serve to reinforce the websites reputation score. This has significant impact on how well the church website will show up in future searches.
Be sure to go to the Cleora Community Church website at www.CleoraCommunityChurch. If your business or organization needs a new website or just assistance with an old one, we would love to help. Feel free to learn more about our website design approach at trigger-switch.com/website-design, call our team at 918-268-8555 or email our Executive Consultant, Scott Roy, at scott.roy@trigger-switch.com for a free discussion and ideas.