Your church website is often a guest’s first impression of your church. During last week’s #cmschat on Twitter, our followers shared what they thought were the major complaints when first visiting a church website. Here were some of their top issues:
- Hidden Information: Because everyone wants to try a church that doesn’t even tell you when they meet or where they’re located. Your service times and location should be one of the first things your audience sees on the church website.
- Out-of-Date Material: No one likes a sudden time shift, especially if it means you just walked into the service 20 minutes late. Make sure all your service times are accurate, especially around the holidays.
- Insider Language: Christian jargon is bad enough, but referencing locations in the church by nicknames or worse, acronyms on the church website? Steer clear of this.
- Too Many “Extras”: Too often, visitors are accosted on the homepage with information about the latest shift in treats in the coffee bar rather than the newest sermon series. Your visitors will be overwhelmed with the information, so insert only facts that are needed for potential visitors. These facts include service times, dress attire, driving directions and more.
- Unclear Theology: Most of our users agreed they were hesitant to visit a church if the theology seemed vague. Make sure your mission statement and other doctrinal details are easy to find.
- No Mobile Version: In a world of smartphones, there’s no reason your church website shouldn’t have a mobile version. This is especially helpful when your visitors need to double-check directions while driving to your church.
- Clunky Language: When you’re writing for the Internet, it’s almost guaranteed that your readers will skim. Make sure your copy is quick and easy to read, breaking it up by using bullets, headers and more. You should also group basic visitor information on a single page.
A2 on avg new visitors view 2.5 pages and churches have new visitor content spread across 5 to 7 pages. #cmschat
— A.J. Fenlason (@AJFenlason) May 29, 2015
Pay Attention to Stats
Several in the #cmschat community advised improving your church’s website by paying attention to your analytics. When you know which pages have the most clicks and returns, you’ll understand what sort of information your audience wants as well as which parts they consider clutter.
A3: Analytics are super important for your site. You should know why people are visiting and what info they want. #cmschat
— Shayla Kenworthy (@shaylakenworthy) May 29, 2015
Example Church Websites
If you need some inspiration, check out some of these great examples of effective visitor experience websites shared by our community:
- Trinity Grace Church
- Bayview Glen Church
- Fellowship Church
- All Shores Wesleyan Church
- Eagle Brook Church
- Greentree Community Church
Final Website Thoughts
But most importantly, some of the closing advice from our #cmschat community:
A6: Ask yourself, if you had never been to church before. What would you need to know before you showed up? #cmschat
— Steven Fogg (@Stevefogg) May 29, 2015
A6 always make sure they know you care about them individually. All about relationships #cmschat
— Liz Leach (@LiztheLeach) May 29, 2015
More
- For more insight on creating effective web experiences for your church, read the full #cmschat transcript.
- For more specific ideas, check out 8 Ways Your Church Website Can Welcome First-Time Visitors Before They Arrive.
- For more on reaching out to visitors, you can check out Unwelcome: 50 Ways Churches Drive Away First-Time Visitors or our related blog posts.
- For more community insight, join us every Thursday at 9 p.m. ET for the #cmschat on Twitter.
Jeremy Smith
June 6, 2015
As someone that went looking for churches via websites recently, you missed a big one. Ministries for teens, yourh, and childcare. We knew we wanted these services and if a church didn’t have it on their site, we didn’t even mess with visiting.