What to put on a church website
A church website needs four pages before anything else: a homepage with service time and address, a page explaining a first visit, a contact page, and an about page. Everything beyond that should only exist if someone has committed to keeping it current.
What belongs on the homepage?
Service time and address, visible without scrolling and without opening a menu. Then a photograph of the actual congregation, and a single sentence saying who you are.
That is the whole requirement. Homepages fail by containing too much, not too little: a visitor scanning for a time should not have to read a welcome message first.
What should the first-visit page say?
The practical things nobody publishes: how long a service lasts, what people wear, where to park, whether there is childcare, and what a newcomer will be asked to do. Be specific: "about 75 minutes" is useful, "not too long" is not.
Answer the last one honestly. Someone deciding whether to attend is often worried about being singled out, and "we do not ask visitors to stand or introduce themselves" removes a real barrier.
This page is unusually persuasive and almost no church has one, which makes it the highest-value page a congregation can add.
What goes on the contact page?
A tappable phone number, an email address, the full postal address, and a map. Plus who reads the messages and how long a reply takes.
A form alone is not enough. Some people will not use a form and want a number, and a number that cannot be tapped on a phone forces them to memorise it. Keep the form to 3 or 4 fields; every extra required field costs replies.
State the response time explicitly. "We reply within 2 working days" removes a specific worry, and a form that has never been tested is the most common silent failure on a church website.
What should be left out?
Anything requiring regular feeding without a named owner: blogs, event calendars, sermon archives, member portals, photo galleries.
Each of these is valuable when maintained and actively harmful when not. A calendar whose last entry is from 14 months ago says the congregation stopped paying attention, which is a stronger message than anything the page contains.
The test is simple. Name the person who will update it, and ask whether they know they have agreed.
What order should we build in?
Homepage first, then first visit, then contact, then about. Those 4 pages serve every common visitor and take 2 to 4 weeks to produce.
Add giving when there is a reason: irregular attendance, a specific project, or support from outside the area. Add sermons when they are recorded consistently, since an archive that stops is worse than none.
What about a statement of faith?
Include it, on its own page rather than the homepage. People looking for it will find it, and people deciding whether to visit are answering a different question first.
Write it in plain language. A statement that requires theological training to parse serves the people who already agree and excludes the people considering a first visit.
| Page | Priority | Condition |
|---|---|---|
| Homepage | First | Always |
| What a first visit is like | Second | Always; most churches skip it |
| Contact | Third | Always |
| About and beliefs | Fourth | Always |
| Giving | Later | Irregular attendance or outside support |
| Sermons | Later | Only if recorded consistently |
| Events | Later | Only with a named owner |
| Member portal | Rarely | Only if it does what email cannot |
Work in this area
Frequently asked questions
How many pages should a church website have?
As many as the congregation will keep current, which for most is 3 to 6. Three accurate pages beat twelve with stale corners.
Do we need a photo gallery?
Rarely. A few well-chosen photographs across the site do more than a gallery nobody has added to since 2023.
Should we list every ministry and group?
One page listing them with a contact each is enough. Separate pages per group need separate owners, and most will not get one.
Do we need staff photographs?
For anyone a visitor might meet or contact, yes. Names without faces are less reassuring than either names alone or full profiles.
What about service times that change seasonally?
Put the current time in the header and note the change explicitly. A time that silently differs in summer is the error visitors notice hardest.
Talk it through first
A short call costs nothing and usually clarifies whether this is the right next step for your organisation.
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