The most important page on your church website

When we begin to create a custom website for a church, we always spend some time talking about the most important pages on the site. Pages to learn about the staff & leadership, planning a visit, and sermon library are all very important, but the page I keep coming back to as the most important is the homepage.

Maybe it’s because the homepage is such a standard part of any website, but I actually don’t see a lot of conversation dedicated to the primary importance of a thoughtful and well designed homepage.

Why is the homepage so important? Yes it’s because it’s usually the first thing visitors see. Yes it’s because it allows you to provide a snapshot of the rest of the website. But the most important reason is because it determines whether or not the visitor is going to continue to explore your website OR if they hit the back button and look at the next church website on their search results.

What i’m talking about here is something called “bounce rate,” which is the percentage of people who land on your homepage and immediately “bounce” off your site to find something else.

So today I’m going to provide you with the top content and direction for a meaningful church website homepage that helps convert website visitors into church visitors.

Give people a reason to learn more or attend

If someone lands on your website, don’t assume anything. Maybe there’s looking for a new church. Maybe they’re looking for answers. Maybe they’re trying to find a handout. Maybe they’re looking for someone to scam. Maybe they will like your church…and maybe it’s not really their style.

So when you design your homepage, don’t just think about how it will look, but think first about who you are trying to attract and what those people will need to experience on your website into order to continue to explore the website and/or visit the church.

In other words, don’t just give them the who, what, where and when…but instead focus on the why. Why is your church a place and community that will be good for them? Don’t forget to make it clear and accessible to someone who doesn’t “speak Christian.”

Provide visitors with a quick window into your church

Instead of filing the homepage with paragraphs of copywriting, consider using quality, strategic photography and/or videography in order to give visitors quick and powerful insight into your church.

You see, people in ministry sometimes tend to over-explaining things. We want people to know all about our story, our vision, our ministries, and it’s important to give people easy access to these things. But you don’t want to crowd your homepage with tons of information.

Instead, you want to use that valuable space to get the visitor comfortable with the idea of visiting your church. You can do this by providing a short background video, a testimony video, or a thumbnail library of links to key ministries.

This way, you’ve got their attention and they’re willing to click deeper into your website.

Display upcoming big ticket events

Most churches have a lot going on. But don’t assume that your website visitor is ready to sign-up for a small group, attend youth ministry, or go to your next potluck.

Instead, have a place on your homepage where you display the next 3-4 big ticket events. What I’m talking about here are things like a Fall Family Night, Truck-or-Treat, or Easter Services. The lower commitment and easier to attend/access the better. Think of these events as “outreach events,” things that new people would feel comfortable attending.

Clearly display service information

This one seems so obvious but you’d be surprised how often a church puts a ton of thought into a beautiful homepage but completely neglects to display when and where their Sunday services are. I recommend putting them somewhere above the fold, (top of the page) so people see them right away.

Highlight your primary ministries

I mentioned this in passing when I was talking about thumbnail links, but I’ll restate it here.

Create a well designed quick link section that points people to the most important pages on your website. Typically I recommend something like thumbnail images with the titles of the pages overlaid and clear button links. Typically I like to link to pages like: Plan Your Visit, Children’s Ministry, Youth Ministry, Small Groups, Giving, Next Steps, Connect…things like that. But you should highlight ministries that are most important to YOUR church, not someone elses.