Website Proposal

Siloam Baptist Church

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Where you are — and where we can take you

A BETTER FRONT DOOR. NO MONTHLY CONTRACT.

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You said it plainly: the website right now is a poor front door. It doesn’t reflect who Siloam is, and it doesn’t match the quality of what you’re already doing on Facebook. You’re not looking for a membership hub or a site that’s meant to generate activity—you’re looking for something that represents the church well so that when someone finds you online, they get an honest, welcoming first impression.

That’s exactly what we should build. A simple, quality front door. Easy for Marc to keep updated with the weekly sermon. No monthly contract lock-in—just straightforward hosting you can pay annually and bake into the budget, and you can leave anytime if your needs change.

One more thing you may not have thought about: you’ve been writing those long, thoughtful devotional posts on your personal Facebook page. That’s great content. Right now it lives only on Facebook—which is fine for the people who already follow you, but it doesn’t help someone in Ninety Six or Greenwood who’s searching for a church or for encouragement. (It also doesn't help with the church showing up in search results.)

If that same content lived on the church website as a blog, it becomes searchable, shareable, and permanent. The website can become the single source for that material: you write it once (or republish from Facebook), and it works for both your existing audience and for people who discover you through search. I’d recommend we consider that in the right package—it’s a way to make the site useful without turning it into something complicated.

Below are three ways we can get there. The middle option is the one I’d recommend.

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How hosting works

SECURITY-FIRST. NO LOCK-IN.

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Every site I design is hosted with me. That isn’t about lock-in—it’s about keeping your site safe and fast. Churches are targets for hackers; the last thing you need is your site displaying crypto ads (yes, I remember what happened to your Facebook account) or worse. I run hosting with a security-first mindset: updates, backups, and monitoring so you don’t have to think about it.

  • Cost: $32/month, billed annually ($384/year) so you can treat it as a line item in the budget.
  • No contract. You can leave anytime. If you ever move on, we’ll hand everything over cleanly.
  • On-call support. You can reach me via text to say "hey the website looks funky" and moments later I'll text you back "fixed!"
  • Hosting is included in the totals below for the first year; after that it renews annually unless you tell me otherwise.

Choose your path

THREE OPTIONS. ONE RECOMMENDED.

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Essential

$500
one-time build
+ $384 hosting (year 1) → $884 total
  • New WordPress site, core pages
  • Home, About, Services, Ministries, Giving (Flocknote)
  • Mobile-friendly, easy to update
  • No audio on site — link to Facebook / YouTube
  • Training for Marc
  • Hosting with me (security-first, no contract)

Best for: Getting off the ground with minimal ongoing responsibility. You can always add more later.

RECOMMENDED

Growth

$1,450
one-time build
+ $384 hosting (year 1) → $1,834 total
  • Everything in Essential
  • Sermon archive on the site (we host audio; new sermons from launch)
  • Blog (SEO-tuned) for your devotional content — single source
  • Stronger About & first-impression content
  • Training for Marc (sermons + blog)
  • Hosting with me (security-first, no contract)

Best for: A real front door plus sermon archive and a place for pastoral content to be found. This is the option I recommend for Siloam.

Complete

$2,650
one-time build
+ $384 hosting (year 1) → $3,034 total
  • Everything in Growth
  • Full migration of existing sermon audio from Squarespace
  • Complete archive from day one
  • Training for Marc
  • Hosting with me (security-first, no contract)

Best for: When you want the new site to be the only place people need to go for sermons—past and future.

Essential Growth Complete
Build $500 $1,450 $2,650
Hosting (year 1) $384 $384 $384
Total (year 1) $884 $1,834 $3,034
Core pages, Flocknote ✓ ✓ ✓
Sermon archive on site — ✓ (new only) ✓ (new + migrated)
Blog for devotionals / SEO — ✓ ✓
Migrate old audio from Squarespace — — ✓

Next steps

  1. Choose an option (or tell me where you’re leaning and what questions you have).
  2. Two quick details so we can finalize:
    • Photography: Do you have quality photos of the church and services you’d like to use, or should we plan on a photo shoot or licensed imagery?
    • Sermon migration (Option 3 only): Roughly how many sermons are on the current site, and are they uploaded into Squarespace or linked from elsewhere?
  3. Agreement and deposit. We’ll put the scope in writing and I’ll ask for a deposit to schedule the work. Timeline is flexible—no rush.

I’m not trying to sell you more than you need. I am trying to give you a site that serves as the front door you described—and, in the Growth and Complete options, a single place where your best content (sermons and devotionals) can work for Siloam for a long time. If you’d like to talk through any of this on a short call, I’m happy to do that.

— Ben and Jacqueline Meredith, WP Steward