Community Directory · Case study
Airdrie AliveA city's churches, events and prayer in one place — listed, not ranked.
- Client
- Airdrie Alive
- Industry
- Community Directory
- Market
- Airdrie, Alberta
- Built
- 2026
- Published
- Client domain
- airdriealive.ca
- Status
- Complete on the studio's deployment preview; airdriealive.ca was not yet serving at the time of writing (21 October 2026).
Overview
Airdrie Alive is a community directory for the Christian church across Airdrie, Alberta: twenty-one churches, dozens of dated events, prayer gatherings, youth groups, schools, ministries and support services, with a two-question 'start here' for anyone who does not know what they are looking for. Local Cochrane Web Design built it as a prerendered, data-driven site whose stated purpose is to be 'connective tissue, not headquarters' — a map of what already exists, in which no church is ranked, recommended over another, or given paid placement.
A directory lives or dies on the honesty of its listings, so the build treats every entry as a researched record with provenance. Each church profile says where its details came from and when they were last checked; each event carries 'The details, as the host published them' and a line that the site does not take registrations or guarantee attendance; and sections that are still being confirmed say so in place rather than filling the gap. Underneath, every listing is a plain data file — thirty-five churches researched, twenty-one included — and the build strips anything not marked public before it is published. At the time of writing the site was complete on the studio's deployment preview and waiting on its domain.
The live site
Built to be judged in the only place that counts.
Captured from the studio's deployment preview — the client's domain was not yet public at the time of writing. Real pixels, no mockups.
The client
The site describes itself as 'a shared effort of pastors and believers across Airdrie's churches, connected through the Airdrie Ministerial', with the mantra 'One Church. One City. Fully Alive.' Its reader may be new to the city, exploring Christianity, looking for a church, a parent, a student, a pastor, or someone who needs support right now.
Its material is other people's: twenty-one congregations' service times and addresses, events published by their hosts, prayer gatherings in church buildings and living rooms. The site's value is in collecting and checking that material, and its risk is in misrepresenting any of it.
The challenge
A church directory invites two failures. One is favouritism — real or perceived — the moment one congregation appears above another for any reason but the alphabet. The other is staleness: a service time that changed, an event that was cancelled, a ministry that stopped meeting.
The audience is also unusually varied. The person in crisis and the pastor looking for a leaders' prayer meeting arrive at the same homepage, and the site had to route each of them in a tap or two without a search box most of them would not use.
Strategic objectives
What the build had to accomplish.
List every included church the same way, alphabetically, with its own tradition, service times, address and directions — and say so.
Show every confirmed event with its host, date, place and the host's own link, grouped by month, and drop past and cancelled events automatically.
Give a visitor who does not know what to look for a two-question router to the right page.
Put provenance on every record: where the details came from and when they were last checked.
Generate every page — including one per church and one per event — as complete HTML, with a plain-text map for assistants and a contact path for corrections and submissions.
The insights that shaped the work
Neutrality has to be visible to be believed. 'Listed alphabetically, no paid placement' is a sentence on the page, not a policy in a drawer.
The honest answer to 'is this still accurate?' is a date. Every record carries one.
A directory's best search is a question. Two questions — who are you, what do you need — route better than a search box for most of this audience.
Chapter
Twenty-one churches, A to Z, and a sentence that says why
Insight
The first thing a visitor wonders about a church list is who put it in that order, and what it cost to be there.
Decision
The Churches page lists twenty-one congregations alphabetically, each card the same: tradition tag, service time, address, 'View church'. A text search ('Search by name, tradition or area') and a row of tradition filters — Anglican, Baptist, Catholic, Evangelical, Lutheran, Mainline Protestant, Pentecostal, Reformed — narrow the list with a live count. Beneath them an editorial note states the rule outright: 'Airdrie Alive is neutral connective infrastructure. Churches are listed alphabetically; no church is ranked, recommended over another, or given paid placement.' and the criterion for inclusion — in Airdrie, open to anyone, and verifiably meeting. Each profile page carries a description, service times, directions, kids and youth notes, and a provenance line: 'Details are taken from [the church]'s own website and were last checked [month]. Please confirm times before visiting. Something out of date? Let us know.'
Effect
Every congregation can see it is treated identically, and every visitor can see where a detail came from and how old it is. The directory earns the trust of the churches it lists, which is the only way it keeps getting their updates.
Chapter
Events as the hosts published them
Insight
An events list is wrong within weeks unless it is built to expire, and dangerous if it implies the directory is the organiser.
Decision
Events are grouped by month with a count per month, each card showing the date, the host church, the title, when and where, and two actions — the host's own page and a details panel. The detail view is headed 'The details, as the host published them.' and ends with 'Airdrie Alive doesn't take registrations or guarantee attendance — please confirm with the host.' Past events and anything marked cancelled are dropped automatically using the city's own day boundaries, and each event is published with Event structured data carrying its place or virtual location and its registration link. A callout invites churches to 'Put your event on the map', which opens the contact panel with 'Submit an event' preselected; an entry appears only once it has been confirmed.
Effect
The list is always current and never claims a role the directory does not have. A church sees its event presented exactly as it published it, with a link back to its own page.
Chapter
Start here: two questions instead of a search box
Insight
Most of this site's visitors cannot name what they need in search terms. A parent, a newcomer, a student and a person in crisis all arrive with a situation, not a keyword.
Decision
The 'Start' page asks two things. First, 'Which best describes you?' — new to Airdrie, exploring Christianity, looking for a church, a parent or caregiver, a student or young adult, a pastor or ministry leader, looking for support, just browsing. Then, 'What are you looking for today?' — a church, a school, youth, events, prayer, support, resources for pastors, something else. The page states 'Nothing you choose here is saved or sent anywhere.' and routes to the matching page. A crisis block with 9-8-8, 911 and local lines sits on the same page and on the Need Support hub, where support is organised by life need — pregnancy, family, marriage, recovery, food, counselling, newcomers — with named services and the churches' own ministries listed under each.
Effect
The visitor who would never have typed a query gets to the right page in two taps, and the person who needs help now finds the number before anything else loads.
Chapter
Being confirmed, said in place
Insight
A directory under construction has gaps, and the usual move is to hide the section until it is full.
Decision
The site keeps the sections and states the status inside them. The Pray page opens with 'Prayer is already happening throughout Airdrie — in church buildings, living rooms and around kitchen tables. This page will make it visible.' and lists fifteen gatherings with host, time, place and 'Who can come' — 'Open to anyone, as the host says' or 'Check with the host'. The About page's leadership section reads 'Leadership details and governance will be published here as they are confirmed.' Ministries and support entries that are still being confirmed with their leadership say so where they will appear. The data files themselves carry a publish state per record, and the build removes anything not marked public, so an unconfirmed entry can never leak into a page by accident.
Effect
Readers can see the directory's edges and trust that what is published has passed the same check as what is withheld. The site can launch complete in shape while still filling in.
Recognize your own business in this problem? The same system builds yours.
The mobile experience
A church directory is consulted on a Saturday night and a Sunday morning, on a phone. The hero fits one screen with 'Find a church' as the first action; the church cards reflow to a single column with the service time and address readable without zooming; the events list keeps its month headings as sticky anchors; and the 'Start' router is two tap-sized groups that fit a thumb. The contact panel slides in from the edge with its reason buttons first, so 'Submit an event' or 'Church update' is one tap before any typing.
Colour & type
The palette below is sampled from the live Airdrie Alive site — the exact tones the brand is built on.
#181813
#4C4730
#5C6053
#5A7278
#77796E
#9FA9A8
Search & discoverability
Every route is prerendered to complete HTML at build time, including one page per included church and one per public event, so a search engine or an assistant asked about churches or events in Airdrie receives the listing in the first response. The site publishes Organization structured data for itself, BreadcrumbList on inner pages and Event structured data per event with place, organiser and registration link; a robots file names eleven AI agents individually and points at both a plain-text llms.txt and a fuller llms-full.txt generated from the same data. Because the client's domain was not yet serving at the time of writing, the search-console and sitemap steps in the repository's plan were still marked for 'when the domain is live', and nothing about indexing or rankings is claimed here.
Technology & ownership
The directory is a static site generated from plain data files — thirty-five researched church records of which twenty-one are included, plus directories for events, prayer, schools, youth, support and pastoral resources, each record carrying its sources and a last-verified date. A build plugin strips non-public records and internal notes before anything ships, and fifteen test files guard the data, the time handling and the absence of fabrication markers. The only server-side piece is a small function that delivers contact-panel messages by email. Photographs of Airdrie are licensed Commons images, credited in frame; church imagery is referenced from each church's own site.
Immediate outcomes at launch
Twenty-one churches listed alphabetically with the neutrality rule stated on the page, each profile carrying its source and last-checked date.
Fifty-nine dated events grouped by month, each presented as the host published it, with past and cancelled events removed automatically and Event structured data per entry.
A two-question 'Start' router and a Need Support hub organised by life need, with crisis lines first.
Fifteen prayer gatherings, fifteen ministries, schools and youth listings, and sections that are still being confirmed stated as such in place.
Every page — including one per church and per event — prerendered to complete HTML, with llms.txt and a crawler policy naming AI agents individually.
A contact panel with six reasons, including 'Submit an event' and 'Church update', delivering by email.
Common questions
What owners ask before commissioning a build like this one.
How is a community directory different from a brochure website?
A brochure speaks for one organisation; a directory speaks for many and must be seen to be fair. Airdrie Alive lists twenty-one churches alphabetically, states on the page that none is ranked or given paid placement, and carries a source and last-checked date on every profile — the structure is the credibility.
How does the structure help a visitor find a relevant resource?
With a question instead of a search box. The 'Start' page asks who you are and what you need today, then routes to the matching page; the Need Support hub is organised by life need with crisis lines first; and the church list filters by tradition with a live count. Nothing a visitor chooses is saved.
How are listings grouped and maintained?
Every listing is a plain data record with its sources and a last-verified date, grouped into churches, events, prayer, schools, youth, support and pastoral resources. The build publishes only records marked public, drops past and cancelled events automatically, and the contact panel's 'Church update' and 'Submit an event' reasons route corrections to the editors.
Is Airdrie Alive live?
Not at its own domain at the time of writing. The site is complete on the studio's deployment preview, which is where these captures come from, and airdriealive.ca did not yet resolve. This case study documents the completed build; it does not describe a public launch.
What results does this case study claim?
None that were not observed. No traffic, submissions or rankings appear here, because the site had not launched at its domain. What is documented is the build — its listing rules, provenance, routing, data model and discovery layer — verified against the deployment preview and the studio's repository on 21 October 2026.
Where it stands
Airdrie Alive set out to be a map and not a destination, and the build holds it to that: the same card for every church, the host's own words for every event, a date on every fact, and the gaps stated where they are. When the domain goes live, the city will get a directory that has already earned the right to be trusted by the churches it lists.
- Web Design
- Directory Data Model
- Prerendered HTML
- AI Search Optimization
More case studies
The same system, a different market.
Your project
Your business may have outgrown its website.
Airdrie Alive needed more than a redesign — it needed its real-world strengths made visible online. If that sounds familiar, tell us about your business. A written, itemised proposal comes back within one business day.
Free · No obligation · Written quote within 24 hours
Building Websites That Work as Hard as You Do