General principles for church web sites

• Each hour of planning saves 12 hours of changes later.
• Web site visitors mostly "scan" pages
. They don't really "read" all the nice text web designers and content people put there. So plan on it and design based around that.
• Less is more. That goes for design as well as content. A big block of text is visually discouraging. Tons of clip art or small photos is distracting and gives pages a "circusy" look -- not exactly what your church has in mind, I'm sure.
• Use Cascading Style Sheets, which will make site-wide changes much easier and faster to accomplish.
• Aim for a strict HTML 4.01 code. If you can't get there, make as much meet the strict standard as possible. That will save time later, when recoding might be required due to web browsers becoming more standards-oriented.
• Start small in both scope and content. Let the site grow naturally. If your site seems to have a ton of information but not a great organization, consider cutting back content as you think through site organization.Don't post what you can't maintain. There's nothing worse than an obviously outdated site to give your web site visitors a negative impression.
• The only thing constant is change. Go with the flow; expect changes. The web you have in one year should not resemble what it looks like now unless nobody is maintaining it. Every few years, plan on a change in "looks" and features.