In a previous post, I talked about the 3 most common mistakes churches make with their websites. Beyond avoiding those mistakes, here are some simple ways to make your church website more inviting and easier to use for visitors.
Remember: Your church website is the front door to your church – often people will check out your church website before they ever visit for worship.
We are quickly approaching the start of a new academic year – a time when many families are starting new routines and habits. A perfect time to throw out the welcome mat by doing a little bit of work on your website.
3 Simple Ways to Improve Your Church Website
Every church website can be improved. As I consult with churches about their websites, I have found these easy ways that you can make a big difference in your website.
Real Pictures of Real People
A picture is worth a thousand words. And the best thing you can do for your website is use pictures that tell the story of your congregation’s ministry.
If you are using stock images, stop. Get some real pictures.
If your website features only pictures of your building or your empty worship space, stop. Get pictures of real people.
At Spirit of Joy! we recently hired a photographer to come and take pictures during our worship service. Those pictures are amazing, and if you have the opportunity to hire a photographer you should do it – it is worth the financial investment.
Until you are ready to fund the cost of a photographer, encourage people to take out their phones and snap some pictures during worship.
As potential visitors consider worshiping with you, real pictures of real people give them a sense of what they can expect when the show up for worship.
Cut Out the Clutter
Most church websites are FULL of information. And because every committee, organization, and ministry of the church thinks that their information is the most important it ALL winds up on the front page of the website.
The reality is your visitors don’t need all that information. You are giving them so much information, that they may actually be missing the most important information.
Cut out the clutter. Strip back the amount of information that is on the front page of your website to the most important. When do you worship? How do I get there?
And while you’re at it go ahead and delete out of date information and posts from your site.
Simple is Better
Fonts and colors are fun. But sometimes we go a little overboard.
You should really only be using two fonts across your website (one for headings, and one for content). This is not the place to get creative and use a different font for each ministry in your church!
The same is true of colors. Trying to spice up a page with different colored text and backgrounds usually backfires. One or two colors across your whole website is more than enough.
Use pictures and white space on the page to draw attention to important information, rather than differing fonts and colors.
If you are ready for a full on upgrade to your website, I highly recommend the folks at Worship Times – they have helped me with not only this site, but with numerous congregational websites and projects.
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