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A few years ago a church website was not very necessary. It was more of a luxury and cool thing to show people. However times have really changed in the past few years. When someone is looking for a church to attend the first thing they do is google it. I found this out just recently as I found my family and I looking for a new church. We knew of some churches in our area however we wanted more information about them. I was amazed that the information that I was looking for was nowhere to be found. So I began to ponder on what makes a good church website? Of course I am not saying a good biblically sound church needs a website to preach the gospel and to proclaim Jesus. I am saying that a good church site should give people the information about your church that they are looking for. It also should provide your current members a place to go and find resources for ministry or even messages, study tools, and more to help them in their walk with God. I found that many churches use their website as a yellow pages. They give a name, logo, address, service times and phone numbers. That of course is fine. A web page should offer so much more than what the yellow pages can. Why would you want to waste your money for just a yellow pages ad when people get that information for free from google and many other sites. Why not give them something more.

So what makes a good church website? Now of course this is not an exhaustive list and it is catered more towards a person who has never been to your church. I will cover what your site should have for your attendees in a later post. You may not agree with me. But  I am writing this and your not. If you have more ideas feel free to comment and add to what I left out.

1. Easy Navigation

The user should be able to get around your site easily and quickly. If they are looking for your location, podcast, blogs, or even your burrito ministry it should be easy to find. Think about what people would be looking for first as they come to your site? They might not start at your homepage. Will they be able to navigate around if they start at your youth page?  Don’t make it so complex and have 25 navigation tabs. Break them down and think about how to make it as easy to navigate as possible. Use words that people understand. If you have a tab called “Shekinah” no one knows what the heck “shekinah” means. To the average person “Shekinah” is not a word that they understand. So make a navigation system that that is simple to use and simple to understand.

2. Keep It Updated

There is nothing worse than going to a webpage and seeing an event announcement from 2007. This tells me that this site does not have the current information that I am looking for. It even leaves me with more questions. Is the pastor still the same? Do they still have a children’s ministry? Am I sure that they are in the same location? If I have to call the church for that info then the website has failed. Keep the information updated and current weekly or even daily. If it is too difficult because no one knows how to work on your website then maybe you should began looking for alternatives. If possible hire someone? If its not  in the budget to hire someone to maintain it then maybe you need to look for a simpler alternative. Maybe a free blog at wordpress, blogger, or typepad. These sites offer a free service with an easy interface to maintain your site for FREE! You can’t beat that it fits anyones budget. If you have someone that loves to tinker and you have a budget of at least $8.00 a month you can join Squarespace.com. You can choose a great predesigned site that doesn’t require any super techyness(is that a word) or domain names or IP’s or any FTP’s. etc. You sign up, pick a template and your ready to go. If you want to tinker in changing the look of the site Squarespace has built in editors that doesn’t require any CSS, HTML, or any code knowledge. If later God brings you the techy guy you’ve been waiting for you can also code in there as well. Just keep it up to date.

3. Informative

Another words give the visitor the information that they need. Church service starts at 8:00am but what about the kids? And the youth? Do they go in the service with the parents or do they have their own classes. What is the dress like? Should I show up in a suit or is this a casual encounter? Tell me what you believe. The Doctrine page is great(personally I like it) but speak english to a person who just wants to find Jesus and know that your not gonna make them where some holy underwear. Whats the worship like? Is it traditional? Opera? Contemporary? Alternative? Gospel? What is the preaching/teaching like? Are you going to be yelling at me? Or are you going to talk? How long is the message? (Pastors be truthful) You might be thinking people know these things. No they don’t! You may ask how I know? I was a person this last month looking for a new church and was not finding out the information I needed from your sites. Looking for a well grounded church is what I knew I wanted. By going to sites I found that they gave me no information that I couldn’t get by driving by. Websites should offer information about your church that they cannot get by driving by or looking in the phonebook. Be informative and don’t forget to give them an email that actually works. Respond as quickly to their emails as possible. Be informative.

4. Design

I know that most churches don’t have the budget to hire designers. But design still matters. You don’t want your church site looking like a Satanist church when you are a christian church. Find sites you like and feed off of them. Buy a template at Themeforest and have someone set it up for you. Whatever you do stay away from animated gifs, and fancy flash pages that take forever to load for no reason. That was great back in 1995 but now it’s just an irritation.

These are just a few of the things that can make a great church website. Of course I can go on forever but I know you will turn me off by then. These are the basics. If you can have a good navigation. Keep your site updated. Be informative and have a great design. Your on your way to make your website a great experience for someone that  has never been to your church before. Of course you can throw in a podcast or a video so they can hear a message and see what your services are like but well get to that in an other post. I hope this has helped you in making your church site a good one. Keep up the good work we do it for His name sake.

Jason

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