It happened again today and it wasn’t the first time.
On Twitter, I came across a link to an article called ’10 Foolproof Ways to Alienate Visitors to your Church’. It’s a tongue-in-cheek article about making people feel welcome in church.
At least, that’s what I think it was.
You see, I never quite made to to the actual article. When I clicked on the link, the site opened, but I couldn’t see the content. I had to watch a pop-up ad first.
Usually, that’s reason enough for me to click away, but since I know the author to be pretty funny, I decided to watch the ad. That wasn’t easy, since at the same time, an auto-play ad on the site itself had started playing as well, so I heard two audio tracks at the same time.
Oops?
I read the first paragraph—after muting the autoplay video—and then this happened:
Yeah, that.
I had to answer a survey question before being able to see and read the rest of the content (‘Greatness needs no Introduction’ was the headline of the second paragraph by the way—quite ironic). So to read an article, I had to watch an ad, mute another ad (that kept starting up by the way and every time I had to mute it all over again), and answer a survey.
And did I mention the many, many ads at the bottom of the post, some of which were not quite suitable for a Christian website? I’m putting it mildly here. Really, are these the kind of links and ads you want on your site?
See below:
I get that many Christian websites struggle with funding and turn to ads to cover some of their costs. But it’s hard for me to take a site seriously that looks like this. And this is a serious site, not some hobby-project from someone stuck in the nineties. They have great content on this site…it’s just quite hard to actually read it.
By the way, while writing this post, I still had the site open. The auto-play ads and videos kept starting up, and every single time I had to mute them all over again. On a positive note: that was quite the effective training in the fruits of the Spirit, especially patience…
In short, here are 4 foolproof ways to alienate visitors to you website:
- Pop up ads that can’t be clicked away
- Auto-play videos and ads that can’t be muted and/or stopped
- Surveys that have to be answered before content becomes visible
- Weird, creepy, and link-bait ads
Surely we can do better than this?
Sean Leacy says
And the worst part about those ads at the bottom of the page is that they are the SAME ads no matter what site you visit. The ad agency slips my mind right now but it’s a commonly used on.
Rachel Blom says
Yup, true. Another reason why they are so irritating.
Eric Dye says
Ugh…I hate those ads…
Pam @Spiritual Gifts Today says
There are definitely sites that I leave immediately, for all the reasons you list. I can’t stand being bombarded with music or a pitch, the second I get to a site. Nor do I want to answer a questionnaire. I am not quite sure who producers of these types of sites cannot tell how terrible they are! Let me come in look around and get to know you a little first!
Rachel Blom says
The auto-music is a reason for me to close a site as well. I can’t believe people think this actually works! It’s so intrusive…
Keith Alberts says
I’ve had a number of conversations with churches who use WordPress and have ads pop up that were not relevant. I’ve seen worse Rachel. If you remember the shirtless Jeff Goldblum GE ad, that was on a church website. But someone set it up for FREE!!!
Rachel Blom says
Oh, I’ve seen worse for sure. Still, I can’t understand you’d agree to this as a church site, it’s not like hosting costs THAT much…
Phil Schneider says
You’re a much better person than I, Rachel. I’d have posted the site name.
Rachel Blom says
The only reason I didn’t, is because I know they mean well. I try not to tear down brothers and sisters over stupidity, only over intentional ‘sins’…
Rod Carlson says
What puzzles me about church websites is why the contact info is not displayed clearly and somewhat prominently on the home page. We conduct an itinerate ministry and visit church websites for address/phone information, especially the churches hosting Living Logos. Too often this info is hidden behind two, sometimes three, search icons. I often bieve we allow ‘creativity’ or ‘artistry’ to trump functionality.
Most church websites say very similar things on their home page which, by the way, differ very little from every other church. I have been on a surprising number of sites that have no contact info!
People will discover whether your. church is ‘right for them’ okay by visiting. Don’t make them hunt for contact/location info. Put it out from and center.
Rachel Blom says
I couldn’t agree with you more Rod. Contact info is notoriously hard to find – and not just at church websites by the way. I spent 5 minutes the other day clicking through the site of a store to find out where they were located. Plain dumb. It shows how little thought is given to WHY people would visit a site, what they would need and look for.
Robin G Jordan says
I encounter these problems on two websites in particular, one in the UK and the other in the US, which appear to have a connection with each other. I regularly visit these websites in search of articles for my blog. However,I have seriously considered not visiting them anymore as the number and appropriateness of the ads keeps getting worse and worse.
I do not bother muting individual ads. I mute the sound on my laptop altogether. On one of these sites whenever I click on an article, an ad window opens in its place. I am instructed first watch a video before reading the article. No video plays.The ad window does not go away. I have resorted to refreshing the page. The article usually appears without another ad page opening.
I also watch anime on the Internet. A particular episode may be preceded by a brief ad or interspersed with brief ads but I do get to see the episode. Also I can close some ads after watching the opening part of the ad since website is paid on the basis of clicks on this type of ad. This, however, not the case with the ads on these two websites. The ads on these websites even override my pop-up countermeasures.
The websites do not benefit from this kind of aggressive advertising. As you point out, it makes folks want to shy away from the websites.
Rachel Blom says
Experiences like you describe are too common. How much trouble do you as user or reader want to go through just to read something or see something? Not that much, meaning sites that keep doing this will see a decline in traffic. It’s just not worth it, especially for Christian sites…You can’t tell me the revenue in advertising makes up for this; I don’t believe that.