While it’s not quite time to pack up your beach chair and put away your sunscreen until next summer, it is time to start preparing your website for the High Holidays. Without question, your website will experience the greatest amount of traffic during this key period. Both prospective members and current supporters are frequently stopping by to learn about services, renew their membership, join your congregation, and get a sense of how they can observe the High Holidays at your shul.
Here’s what you need to do to prepare:
Tune Up Your Website: Ensuring that your site is in tip-top shape is a must. Pay special attention to the visual appearance of your website and, in particular, zoom in on images. Blurry images have got to go. And, if those adorable and smiley preschoolers featured on your homepage slideshow are in fact getting ready to become B’nai Mitzvot, you need to find some more recent pics. Images are powerful and draw folks in. Gathering and strategically placing thoughtful and new photographs of your community are vital in conveying the energy of your congregation. Also, search for broken links, spelling errors and other typos. Check out our Tune Up guide - it’s a great resource to help get your website ready for show time!
Freshen Up Your Homepage and ‘Decorate’ it for the High Holidays: Year after year, you make plans to decorate the bima with flowers so your sanctuary has a beautiful and festive feel. Taking the time to prep your website with such celebratory touches is no different. After all, your website is the virtual door to your community. By prominently displaying attractive content related to the High Holidays on your homepage, you can give visitors a quick and direct jumping off point to learning more. Consider purchasing high quality images from Adobe Stock or another resource to create a professional and welcoming first impression.
Post Key High Holiday Information: Your goal should be for your website to serve as a hub for all-things-High-Holiday. Service times, information on volunteering as an usher or a Torah reader, babysitting registration and more needs to be easy for members to quickly find. Check out Temple Israel Center of White Plains to see how they establish their website as a key member resource. And, don’t forget to add our High Holiday kit to your website. From recipes to crafts to kid-friendly activities, our Kit is carefully designed to provide your community with even more ways to deepen their observance of the Days of Awe. Request your kit >
Include Information for Non-Members: Remember that it’s not just members who are heading to your website during the period leading up to the High Holidays. Are non-members welcome to attend services? Can they purchase tickets? Make the answers to these questions whether they are yes or no simple for supporters to discover. And if the answer to any of the above questions is yes, be sure to include details on how non-members can participate. And as a bonus, consider linking to membership information as well.
High Holiday season is here! Taking the care to prepare your website allows you to better support the needs of your members and showcase your community to prospective members. All around a win!
