Ministry websites can be fancy. Complex. Colorful. Flash-enabled. And spendy!
For just a few dollars a year, you or your ministry will have a great website, with perks.
Just follow these easy steps
1. Rent a domain name from www.namecheap.com
This is the *almost* free part of free. It costs less than–hold your breath–$10 a year. A year!
If you don’t rent a name, your address will be something like webhost.myministry.com. A domain name is the address of your website, such as myministry.org. Make it easy for people to find you. Rent a domain name.
2. Post your site at www.Wordpress.com
Wordpress is a great place for a website. It was originally made for blogs, sites where you post new articles all the time. But WordPress works great for ministries because:
- Their Help area will explain how to do almost anything
- They offer static pages–pages that don’t change. You can make one your home page, another your “About Us” page, etc.
- The blog features make it easy to add up-to-date announcements and events.
3. Connect your domain name to your website.
This is a one-time procedure.
At WordPress, your site is called myministry.wordpress.com. Double-check the name. Go back to namecheap.com. Login, and add a CNAME entry, with this WordPress address.
Now, when someone types in myministry.org, they’ll be taken to your website at WordPress.
3.1. Optional: map your WordPress site (blog) to your domain name.
Once visitors arrive at your site, guess what they see? myministry.wordpress.com. Mapping your domain name to your WordPress site fixes that.
Again, be prepared to shell out some cash–a few bucks a year. This money goes to WordPress.
Now, when people visit your site, they’ll see myministry.org.
4. Get free mail at Google Apps
Where is your ministry’s email address? Is it me@internetprovider.com? With Google Apps, at http://www.google.com/apps/, your email address will be me@myministry.org — for free!
Google Apps also offers a calendar, so you can keep everyone up to date.
There you are–a very low cost, usable website and email to match. Now, tell all your friends about your new site!
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