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Hi, and welcome to OurChurch.Com's "Questions and Answers", where we have the answers to
your questions. Today we are going to discuss differences in organic search engine optimization
services.
Hi, I'm Mark Steinbrueck with OurChurch.Com, and on this video I'm gonna talk about the
topic on "Best Website Platforms." So the first thing that you need to do is
determine what are your needs for your website. By doing that, it will help you understand
what you need out of a website platform. So if you say to yourself, "I need to be able
to have online event registration, or I need to be able to have a blog or an eNewsletter
or shopping cart," that will help you in your research of best website platforms in determining
whether or not those website platforms will be able to provide that functionality.
Second thing to take into consideration is whether the software is online or it's a desktop
software. Online software simply means that you don't
store the software on your computer, but you login to a website using username and password
to be able to access the backend of your website and make changes.
Desktop software, on the other hand, is stored on your computer. So that means that you have
to have that software and that particular computer to be able to make updates. This
also means that if you have a web team, of multiple people, every single one of those
individuals needs to have that software on their computer that they are going to be using.
So it confines you in exactly where you can access it from, you probably can't do changes
from a smart phone or tablet. And it also it makes it more complicated to add people
to maintain the website. And then lastly, if you want to have additional
work done by people that are not part of your organization, whether it be tech support or
having someone do SEO for your website, going with a desktop platform, makes it nearly impossible
to do that, so you certainly want to select an online platform if all possible.
Next thing to take a look at is whether or not the software is proprietary.
Certainly you want to use an online software platform, and if all possible, try to find
one that's not proprietary. The proprietary simply means that, the organization that hosts
the site, also owns that software so you can't take the website with you when you want to
leave. Now if you're not planning on keeping your
website for a long period of time, or if simply the cost of a particular hosting package and
the software that it comes with it is proprietary, fits your budget, then maybe going with proprietary
software is something that is reasonable and will fit your needs. But if you can, try to
find some kind of software that you can take, that means that you can take your website
with you, if you were to choose to leave and go to a another host.
The next thing to take into consideration is the ease of use.
Research how easy a particular software platform is to use. Go online and see if there are
any online reviews. Talk to other people who may have used this, and these conversations
and advice, can save you a lot of time in using a sub part platform.
In the same sense, research the support of the platform:
Can you even get support? And if so, do you have to pay for it?
Is it free or is it a pay per incident or pay per month or what kind of fee arrangement
is there? How quickly can you get responses when you
are looking for support? And then also, how do they provide support?
Is there phone support? Is it email support?
Is it only through the help desk? Take a look at those things so you know what
to expect if you select a particular platform. So I hope that this has given you a good understanding
of what things to take into consideration when selecting or researching best website
platforms. Determine your needs for a website.
Then look at the online software versus desktop software. And if all possible select an online
software. Also understand the drawbacks and limitations
of proprietary software. Research the ease of use as well as the support
that has been provided for a particular software. And I hope this has been insightful and informative.
If there is anything that we can do for you here at OurChurch.Com to help you achieve
your goals and mission online, please complete the consultation request form below.