Living Open Source

Whether you are a blogging church or one that is still bloated with those old-fashioned static websites, the most important item to have on your site is a location map. While many church web sites seem to be designed for their existing congregation, the most important function of a church web site is providing a window into your church for those contemplating that risky few steps up into your front door. A blog, and especially a WordPress blog, does this better than your existing church web site but you do need a map. Using Google Map’s new embed feature makes this much easier.

There are a number of WordPress plugins for adding mapping to your blog, and I have one running on the SHINE website that shows every church in St Helens. But for your church’s blog, you only need to show one location. Google have recently added the ability to embed their interactive maps, which can be put on any web page. And here is how you do it:

1. First you need a Google account. This is free if you haven’t already got one.
2. Then go to Google Maps and click the My Maps tab on the left.
3. Then select Create New Map. Give it a name.
4. Find your church on the map (or put the post code in the search box at the top).
5. Then use the blue place marker button to add a place marker to this map.
6. Give the marker a title and description, click OK and then Save your Google Map.
7. Click Link to this Page and copy the code in the ‘Paste HTML code‘ box into a WordPress page. You can also use the link to customise the map too.

When you are done it should look something like this:

View Larger Map
Cool eh?