Once you add content to each page, you can now refine it more, and then test it, and finally release it so the whole world can see. It's a major task to get everything done, but here are the steps and some details about them:

Refine 

You and your staff and/or team should go through the site and double-check the work and determine any changes or improvements that should be done. You will be looking for spelling and grammar issues, but also analyzing overall content to see what message you want to get across. You should check for consistency between pages and sections, especially if certain sections were written by different people.

 
 
 

Test 

Once you have refined the site, the next step is Testing. Testing can be quite a process and these are the types of tests we recommend you do:

#1 Test with users to see how they like it

What you want to know is if users who come to your site, get it. Do they get what your about as a church? Do you they find the site appealing to them? Is there too many words? too many images? 

#2 Test how long it takes for pages to load

If you have added many graphics or videos, or are running on a "budget" web host, you may find that it takes a long time for a web page to load. If it does consistently, people will just not come to your site. A normal web page should load in 5-10 seconds at most. Sometimes, the Internet has hiccups and slowdowns where it may take 15-30 seconds for a site to load but that should be atypical.

Also, if you have a very fast internet connection at your church or where you are, you need to test at other places too. Even if it means going to a local coffeehouse or restaurant with wireless to see how well it works. However, if you can find someone with DSL or even a modem, you can see how well your site does.

A few tools we recommend to test site speed are:

#3 Test in different browsers

If you have any customization to your template or have a custom template, this is a must do. If you are using a WEC template, then we already test each one thoroughly. We would recommend to test with Internet Explorer 7 and 8, Firefox, and Safari. You can download for free Firefox and Safari for Windows and Mac computers, while Internet Explorer will need to find a Windows machine. In a year or more, hopefully Internet Explorer version 6 and 7 will no longer be used as much. New browsers such as Google Chrome may become popular enough for you to test.

There are some free and paid ways to test your site in a web program:

  • Browser Shots -- see screenshots in many different browsers
  • Adobe BrowserLab -- use in your browser, but will install Adobe Air
  • IETester -- Windows software to download that can test all IE versions
 
 
 

Release 

Once you feel good about your site, you are ready to release the site and make it public. Depending on how you have set it up, you need to either move your site to your live site, or unhide (show) the Home page.