Maintaining web sites

COIN members have been involved in developing some of the key Christian Internet sites in Britain and Ireland. Three of the earliest dioceses of the Church of England to have an Internet presence were Ely, Oxford, and Rochester, and many other sites have followed the style set by these. Many members have developed pages for their local churches, so there is much experience to draw on. COIN has been closely involved in developing the Internet strategy for the Church of England and a strategy and web site for the Church of Ireland.

A World-Wide Web site can be complex or simple. A simple site for a local church may consist of a handful of pages -- perhaps just one -- acting as a noticeboard, publicising service times and other activities and providing contact addresses (e-mail, telephone and postal) for further information.

A more complex site may contain dozens -- even hundreds -- of interlinked pages, with complex graphics and layout, up to date news and press releases, resource libraries, large directories backed by databases and other applications.

Most sites will lie somewhere between these two, but there are several points which are common to the development of all web sites, and they are similar in many ways to the development of, for example, a church magazine:

Who is the site aimed at -- existing members, or occasional visitors, or people outside the current membership, or some other group?: A site should be easy and friendly for occasional visitors but it should be possible for experienced internet users to navigate easily too.
Who is going to maintain the site?: Maintaining a complex site can be a very demanding business. Remember that the impressive commercial sites are probably maintained by one or more full-time professionals. It will be impossible in most cases to match the resources available to such sites, but unless your site looks reasonably professional it will be hard for it to compete with them.
Who is responsible for the site?: Or, conversely, to what extent is the site an official one which reflects the official views of the organization? Clarifying this as early as possible can prevent problems later. Possibilities include making the site entirely unofficial, or being official but not authoritative (in the same way that a magazine is an official publication but may not necessarily reflect the views of anyone other than the authors), or authoritative. It is possible to combine aspects of all three of these by careful use, but it is probably best not to mix them on the same page, and each page should make it clear whether it is official or not. If necessary this should be checked with legal advisers, just as might be done for a traditional paper publication.
What server will your site run on?: Have you access to a server with a full connection to the Internet? Can you upload files easily? Can you run other applications (for example, 'cgi' scripts)? Have you access to the log files generated by the WWW server? Have you an Internet address which you can use independently of your service provider? These are some of the technical questions you will need to answer before you can launch your web site. For many small sites, full accessibility and choice of address is not essential, but any large organization will want to ensure that this aspect of its public face is consistent with other aspects.

COIN can provide further advice on these and other related topics. See also our notes on writing web pages.

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