Your church website does not work properly on phones
Most visits to a church website happen on a phone, often while someone decides whether to attend on Sunday. A site that requires zooming, has buttons too small to tap, or takes ten seconds to load loses that visitor. Four causes account for nearly all of it.
How do we test this properly?
On a real phone, on mobile data rather than church wifi. Emulators and narrow browser windows hide the two problems that matter most: slow connections and thumbs.
Then attempt the three things a visitor does: find the service time, find the address, and tap the phone number. Anything requiring a zoom is a failure.
Is the layout fixed-width?
Sites built before roughly 2015 often assume a desktop screen. On a phone the whole page shrinks, text becomes unreadable, and the visitor must zoom and pan to read anything.
This cannot be patched. A fixed-width site needs rebuilding responsively, which in practice means a redesign.
Are the tap targets too small?
Links and buttons need roughly 44 by 44 pixels to be reliably tappable. Navigation menus designed for a mouse frequently fail this, and adjacent links become impossible to hit accurately.
Phone numbers deserve particular attention. A number that is not tappable forces the visitor to memorise and retype it, and many simply do not.
Is it just slow?
Often. A page carrying thirty megabytes of unoptimised photographs works acceptably on a desktop connection and is unusable on mobile data.
This is the cheapest of the four to fix and produces the largest improvement. Details are on the slow church website page.
Does this affect our Google ranking?
Yes. Google indexes the mobile version of a site, so a site that works on desktop but not on mobile is judged on the version that does not work.
The larger cost is still the visitor who leaves, since they were deciding whether to attend.
What does a mobile fix cost?
Image optimisation is the cheapest and usually the most effective: resizing photographs and converting them to WebP typically cuts 70 to 90 percent of page weight and needs no rebuild.
Tap targets and navigation are small changes on a site that is otherwise responsive. A fixed-width layout from before about 2015 cannot be patched, and a responsive rebuild starts at $2,000 depending on page count.
Establish which of the 4 causes applies before spending anything. Moving hosting is wasted money when the real problem is 30 megabytes of photographs.
Work in this area
Frequently asked questions
Can we fix this without rebuilding?
Sometimes. Slow loading and small tap targets are repairable. A fixed-width layout is not, and a redesign is the honest answer there.
Do we need a separate mobile site?
No. Separate mobile sites were a workaround from over a decade ago and create two sites to maintain. One responsive site is the current approach.
Do we need an app?
Almost certainly not. Apps must be installed, updated and maintained, and a good mobile website reaches everyone without any of that.
How much does a mobile fix cost?
Image optimisation is a small job. A responsive rebuild is closer to a redesign, which starts at $2,000 depending on page count.
How do we know how many visitors use phones?
Google Search Console shows this free of charge. For most church websites it is well over half.
Talk it through first
A short call costs nothing and usually clarifies whether this is the right next step for your organisation.
Get in touch