We all want an awesome website that engages our readers and visitors. We all want a site or blog that is top-notch and that we feel worthy of showing the world. And we all want to have that sweet church website or church blog without spending a fortune to do it. Well, I have a couple of ways for you to do that!

I have been working with a web-publishing platform called SquareSpace – and I absolutely love it! There are many reasons for this including:

• You can start with many of the pre-designed templates or modify the existing ones.
• You can totally create your own site if you know CSS or HTML.
• Their modules are easy to set-up and use.
• You can easily track visitors stats, site references, and inquiries.
• You can have a website AND blog all in one.
• They continue to build new features into the system. Right now you can use photo galleries, RSS, Google Maps, Message Boards, E-mail Contact and Membership Sign-up, and have various levels of permissions and users for the site, to name a few.
• The monthly fee is great for the ability to manage your own site with ease.

The more you spend time exploring the more you can learn and do. I am not a programmer by any means – I like to design and make things look cool – and SquareSpace has provided me the flexibility to do just that.

Here are a few sites that I am currently working on and a couple that haven’t been made public yet:

• The Branding Shed
• Grace Church of Frisco Texas
• New Direction Church

Another thing is you don’t have to spend $2,500 – $4,000 to get set-up with a semi-custom site and then spend $50 – $100 per month just to be able to manage your content and features. I have been setting up these sites for around $1,000 with full customization including headers, backgrounds, colors, graphics, RSS, and favicons. The client pays SquareSpace for their account which can run between $25 and $45 depending on the options you need. You can also increase your bandwidth and other goodies. I have been extremely impressed with this system.

You can also look at using Element Fusion and Discover Sky. You can have them develop your site for you, have a branding or design company create your website skin and send your Photoshop files to them, or do it all yourself if you know how. I have also created church websites using this platform and it is another excellent option for getting a custom website for a whole lot less. Plus, they have all kinds of great features as well.

Look at the options available and determine what works best for your church needs and budget but realize that you can look like a million dollars without spending it!

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