Vocation Directors know they need a strong web presence, but are often faced with a vexing decision: stay inside the frequently cluttered diocesan web site, or build a stand-alone site for the Vocation Office?
We argue strongly for the latter, for ten good reasons:
1) If priestly vocations are a top priority for the diocese, this needs to be reflected in your internet presence.
2) Having a separate domain name allows you to more easily direct men to your site.
3) The target audience of a vocations website is different than the average user of a diocesan website.
4) A young man needs to be immediately inspired when he visits your site! He should not have to mine through the main diocesan site to find the vocations section.
5) Vocations to priesthood, which are so needed in most dioceses, should not be clumped together with the other vocations (which are obviously good as well). A separate and intense focus on priestly vocations is warranted.
6) The Vocation Office web site needs to have a large number of sections and sub-sections. This is difficult to do if you are already a sub-sub-sub-section of the diocesan web site. (This problem is widespread and leads to really awkward navigation structures.)
7) Developing an independent website should be part of a larger strategy to be present in digital and social media.
8) A separate site means you can make changes very quickly, without having to request help from the diocesan IT department, which is responding to requests from numerous other departments.
9) A lot of people have examined this issue closely, and most major dioceses have decided to build stand-alone vocations websites.
10) It is difficult to to articulate compelling reasons to stay under the umbrella of the main diocesan web site. The advantage is unclear since the Web, of course, is interconnected. Just have the diocesan site link to the Vocation Office site.
Compiled with help from Fr. Bryan Duggen