Four Easy Ways to Make Your Church Website Feel More Polished

website visitor messaging
Braden East

Got a website for your church but it’s missing that extra-clean, professional look? I’ve got four tips for you today that are guaranteed to make it better.

If you do these things, your web visitors will have an easier time finding what they’re looking for and you’ll have more people walking through your church’s digital front door.

1. Be Selective with Content

The more different pieces of content there are on your site, the less likely visitors are to read any of it.

Reduce the amount of information you’re presenting and cut any text that isn’t absolutely necessary.

Pro tip: write as if you’re explaining your church to a total stranger at a 4th grade reading level.

Here are a few practical ways to slice and dice:

2. Increase Font Sizes

If your content has been distilled to follow the word counts above, you’ll be able to bump up the size of your headings and body copy.

This makes the site easier to skim, and helps older readers who might struggle with small text.

I recommend 20-25px for body text, and 48-72px for your largest heading.

3. Provide a Clear Call to Action

If someone happens to land on your website, you want to give them a clear next step, just like you would for a visitor who to your church on Sunday morning.

Whether that’s filling out a digital connection card or watching your service livestream, make sure that there is a stand-out action someone can take, and that each button says exactly what it does.

Pro tip: Avoid links and buttons that say like “Learn More” or “Click Here.” Instead, use labels that are specific and tell the user what to expect when they click that particular button.

4. Prioritize Menu Items

Just like cutting down text, you also want to reduce the number of options you’re presenting to visitors.

I’m working on a website refresh right now with an organization whose old website had FIFTY FIVE different links in the main menu.

The decision paralysis and brainpower it takes to find what you’re looking for can get overwhelming very fast. Try to limit your main menu to 5 options or less.

You can always link to additional pages from one of those main pages, but this approach keeps everything organized and easy to navigate.


Keep Reading
Using a Visitor Journey to Make Your Church More Memorable
Published on:
Have you heard the term "visitor journey?" A good rule of thumb for churches is that a visitor should have no less than 5 brand “touchpoints," or places where they can interact with your brand. The best way I've found to identify those touchpoints is to think about your visitor journey. What do they see? Who do they talk to? How long do they spend in each place? This is critical to get right for larger churches, but it also applies to a church plant reaching their community for the first time. Here’s a starter outline of a visitor journey: Visitor finds you online (do they see photos of your people, building, or logo?) They drive up to your parking lot (do they see the same people, building, and logo?) They walk inside (do they see wayfinding? A welcome banner? A greeter with a name tag?) They sit down in the sanctuary (do they see at least one announcement slide that is relevant to them? What about in the bulletin?) I’ll let you continue your list from there, but here's the thing: If you can’t remember what your visitor journey looks like, your visitors probably aren’t remembering your church either.
Accidentally Sending the Wrong Message
Published on:
Last year, my wife started selling old-fashioned lye soaps and shampoos made from goats milk. To distribute and label them, she had to make some decisions about packaging. Clear plastic shrink wrap is easy and practical. It turns each bar of soap into a self-contained unit that wont get damaged or worn, shows the entire bar, and makes shipping so much easier. Makes perfect sense, right? After selling countless bars and getting a lot of customer feedback, she realized that her packaging was actually working against her. People were buying her soap because they wanted a more home-grown, organic, less commercialized experience. She was using packaging that was plastic, shiny, and sterile. It was communicating the opposite of her brand! When she made the switch to brown craft paper, she immediately saw a positive response from our customers. “It looks so eco-friendly!” “I love that I can smell it in the store!” Is there anything you’re doing that’s unintentionally sending the wrong message?
Do You Really Need A Website?
Published on:
These days everybody and their dog are expected to have a website. Why is that? The reality is that it’s hard to exist without a digital presence. Tending your brand in the real world is only half the battle. Some churches will leverage social media platforms and tools like Church Center to do their basic functions of event planning, send emails, and make announcements. This can check off the basics, but there’s a critical way your website can make your brand truly galvanizing and memorable. Done right, your website is where your logo, photography, color, and copywriting tone of voice intersect with and reinforce your vision, mission, values, and origin story. I’ll go deeper on these in future posts. The point is: all those things become missed opportunities if you don’t have a digital hub for your brand. Tend your brand digitally too.
How to Choose and Take “On Brand” Church Staff Photos
Published on:
No matter how interesting and engaging your church “About” page is, nothing connects with people and builds trust like real photos of the church’s staff and leaders. Any picture is worth a thousand words, but a carefully chosen picture can say much more than that. If you are lucky enough to be in the minority of churches with a staff photographer, that part of your brand is probably going to be shaped by their personal style. For the rest of us, there are a few tricks we can use to get the most mileage out of our limited resources. Get a dedicated volunteer. This one speaks for itself, but if you can find a willing individual with a nice phone, they can focus on just doing the photography, which will probably have more uniform results. Shoot outside. Unless you have a studio set up, natural light is always going to look better than indoor light. Dress accordingly. If your church brand is more formal and traditional, wear a suit. If your brand is younger and more informal, dress casually. A good rule of thumb is to wear what the majority of your members would typically wear on a Sunday morning. Use consistent settings. If you’re shooting on an iPhone, use portrait mode with the same settings each time. If you have a digital camera, use a tripod for consistent framing and watch a video to help you dial in your settings. Curate. Shoot several photos of each person, and pick ones that are the most flattering and in focus. Staff headshots are just one way to use “on brand” church photography, but they can make a huge difference.
← Back to all posts
Almost there!

Enter your email below to get the weekly Tend Your Brand digest.