Three Mistakes Catholic Vocation Directors Make With Their Websites

Dec. 3, 2008 - PRLog -- The website looked perfect – pious-looking priests at prayer, beautiful chapel photos, and a clear description of a men’s order of priests. But no one was coming to their website.
The problem was that the website was not friendly to search engines, says a Chicago-area web designer.
“Many religious communities build a pretty website, but they are almost invisible to the search engines,” states Kevin Banet, president of TreeFrogClick, which specializes in websites for Catholic religious communities and small businesses. “In this case, the page-linking method they had sealed off pages from search engines, and the title and other metatags within the page’s code were a disaster.”
Websites such as these lose their lifeline to those who are looking to become priests, sisters and brothers, who use the search engines. Such mistakes, often made by web designers who specialize in graphics but know nothing about what is called search engine optimization, cost non-profits and religious communities a lot of money, according to Banet, who has been designing website since 2003.
“I’ve seen it again and again – some web design companies are blind to this. You don’t have to spend a ton of money – you just have to follow some fundamentals,” Banet said, adding that he regularly tries to explain it to religious vocation directors.
TreeFrogClick offers a free whitepaper, “Three Mistakes Religious Communities Make with their Websites,” at http://treefrogclick.com/3Mistakes.
Vocation directors are also invited to take advantage of special ad rates on the website of the largest parish-based vocations conference in the country, Here I Am Lord, in St. Charles, IL March 5-8. Learn more at http://treefrogclick.com/religious_ads.htm.

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