As a member of St. Peter’s, I was acutely aware of the need for a new website. The church needed advertising in the community as well as a way for existing members to connect with others in the congregation.
As the project lead, developer, and designer, I performed an audit on the existing website. While it was running on WordPress, the commercial theme the site was running on was simultaneously too complex for staff to use, and also too limited in functionality. The architecture of the site also needed help, and a complete restructuring was completed to better organize content for visitors. A dynamic homepage brings users into the various areas of St. Peter’s ministry. For church staff, updates to this page are simple, with a simple backend interface. The restructured architecture simplifies the website down to a few short menu items to allow visitors to better explore the offerings of the church.
On top of the website redesign and development, I also guided St. Peter’s Community Relations Committee in the creation of a communications plan for the website and social media. This plan involved a schedule for publication, including ideas for new ways to engage members and the community in content on the website. In the months following the website launch, traffic to the website doubled, with users spending more time on average per visit.
