Blog

A new year means many of may be looking to do something new with your church’s website.  If you’re starting from scratch or tweaking what you already have, here are a few things to keep in mind.

• It all starts with vision.  What is the purpose of your website?  Who is it supposed to serve?  How does it fit it with all the other communication things you do? Casting vision is a step that people like to skip mainly because it can lead to difficult decisions.  Yet if you fly past vision, your website will never reach its full potential.  Every church seems to have a vision statement, but challenge yourself to go beyond saying your website is just an online expression of that statement.
• Keep the homepage clean by creating navigational paths for various users.  You may have a lot of stuff to share, but it doesn’t all have to go on the front page.  Organize your information in chunks and create various navigational paths for the various users that may come to your site.  For example, the popular trend is to simply have a button on the front page that says, “I’m new here” for visitors.  Once someone clicks on that, they go to a page with a lot more basic information about the church.  Create similar paths for people to get to other information. 
• Don’t make people click to find worship times and location.  The ultimate goal is to get people to actually come to your church, right?  Why make it hard for them to find you? 
• Give visitors a sample of who you are.  Give first timers a feel for your church from the parking lot to the pew.  Let them see your church in action.  Let them know your passions.  Give them a sample of what a typical Sunday is like.  How? Welcome videos are an awesome option.  You could accomplish something similar with a picture slideshow.  Real pictures trump stock photography.  And pictures with the people of your church will always be more compelling than empty building shots.     
• Create something you can actually maintain. You can have grandiose plans for a full-featured website, but it will be completely ineffective in the long run if no one can keep it maintained.  If you have limited resources, keep it simple.  A smaller website that’s up to date will always be more effective than a larger one that’s full of old information.
• Think mobile.  What does your website look like on an iPhone, Android or any other mobile devices?  Increasingly, people are using their phones more as a primary web serving device.  If your website uses Flash, iPhone users will never see it.  There are various ways to be mobile-friendly that range from having a separate mobile version or creating one website that functions across all platforms.  Do what’s right for you.  Giving your website a mobile-friendly makeover is probably one of the best things you can do online this year.
• Tell stories.  Your website is your chance to tell the story of your church and invite people to be a part of it.  Think about how all the individual elements of your website melt together to tell one bigger narrative.  Also use stories of life change from people in your congregation.  Don’t say you have a recovery program, but tell the story of that ministry through someone who was a part of it.

Looking for more tips?  Check out this post or our free resource, Website 101.