11: Improve Your Church Website Design, Content, Search Engine Optimization and Online Visibility
Even though we have focused on setting up our external Local Business Directories and Social Media Channels first, we have strategically directed all of that traffic back to our main website HUB.
Your website DOES need to be at the center of your online visibility efforts. We have just chosen to focus on the others at the beginning to make sure they are put in place.
The reason for this is that most churches neglect these strategies like their Church Google Business, Maps and Local Business Directories, and never put them in place. Plus, it takes some time for those methods to give you results so we wanted to get them going right from the start.
Now we want to focus on some simple steps to make our Website more findable through improving your Church Website Design, Content, SEO and making your church website more useable once people find it.
Most of what we will talk about is how to make your site MORE USABLE. We will offer some ideas to make it MORE FINDABLE specifically in the Tips for Church Website SEO Section, but really that is what all of the other previous steps are for – online findability and visibility. The external steps are designed to lead people back to your USEABLE website Hub.
It can be extremely technical to figure out how to make your website more findable online. So mostly, we want to focus on making our HUB more user-friendly when they arrive. But there are some simple things you can do to make your site more findable through church website SEO too that we will look at.
What if your Church needs a NEW Website?
Before you begin making changes to your existing Website that could improve it, you want to ask if you are satisfied with your current website.
Creating a new website is a huge task and you do not want to start without knowing you will have the time to finish creating it. So before you decide to develop a new site make sure you have the financial, volunteer and staff resources as well as time availability to complete it.
However, a new site can be a tool to create excitement in your church, improve internal communication and make your church more inviting to potential NEW Visitors when they do find your site.
There are many options for developing your new website. First, we will look at a do it yourself option. Then we will look at a couple of paid options that will either make it easier for you to do yourself, or are completely handled by a company like Finding Your Church.
Remember, no matter which option you choose YOUR CHURCH will still have work involved in coming up with the content for the website. You will want to assign a Staff Member or Volunteer to be responsible for working with the company to get them the information they need to create your new Church Website.
WordPress Church Websites – Do It Yourself Solution
One of the most well known and flexible website development options is WordPress. This is very popular both for those who develop websites professionally and for those who want to do it themselves.
You do NOT want to use a free WordPress.com or Blogger.com type website to create your Church Website. They are extremely limiting for a lot of reasons including design and function limitations.
A very functional option, however, is using the free WordPress software available at www.WordPress.org to create your church website with WordPress Website Hosting like Bluehost. [my partner link]
Bluehost Website Hosting offers you a free website domain name for the first year so if this is a new site the domain name would be free, or you could get an additional free domain name for the first year if you were planning on creating sermon series, holiday specific or ministry-specific website in the future.
After you setup website hosting for your church you will need to know how to setup your WordPress website. Bluehost offers a simple ONE CLICK installation of WordPress that will get you started very quickly.
Plus, they have excellent 24 Hour CHAT SUPPORT that can help you through a lot of situations that you will run into including setting up your Church Email Addresses. I will not use a website host that does not have 24 Hour Chat Support. This is a basic requirement and a HUGE help if you ever run into problems.
They will NOT help you create your WordPress website, but they WILL help you if you run into problems using their one click install option. Although, I have asked their chat support WordPress related questions and they have answered them for me. After WordPress is installed, you will be working on installing and setting up your WordPress design and adding content.
You will want to take some time and learn how to use the WordPress software. Below is a link to quality FREE WordPress Video Tutorials. These will help you learn how to create Pages, Posts, Menus and work with the content of your website.
I have also created a step by step guide that shows you how to use WordPress and setup your site for your church. You can access that using the link below or at the top and bottom of this page.
I have also included the link to the WordPress Theme Design that we recommend and use on the FindingYourChurch.com website. This is extremely flexible and can most likely handle anything your church needs as far as setting up your church website design and search engine optimization.
Hosting LINK: WordPress Website Hosting with Bluehost
Tutorials LINK: WPBeginner Free WordPress Video Tutorials
Theme Design LINK: Jupiter WordPress Theme Design
What if you do not want to create your own Church Website?
In many situations, it will NOT be a good idea to attempt to create your website for your church on our own.
You may have Staff or Volunteers who are very technical, but do not have the eye to organize the information and graphics on the page so that it is easy to interact with. Or, you may have a designer who can create amazing graphics, but struggles with the technical aspects of creating a WordPress website.
You may just not want to have to learn something complicated and new.
If that is the case, check out the link below to learn about a couple of paid options with companies that will create your Church Website for you.
Ideas for Developing Your Front Page & Internal Page Website Content
The FRONT Page can be the most challenging to figure out. What should you put there?
By far typically the most challenging page to create on a church website is the Front Page or Home Page.
The front page may not make the most difference for your church website online visibility because all of your interior pages can be found in online search too. But, it makes ALL the difference for how your church is perceived when someone finds it.
There are many suggestions that we could make, but really only YOUR TEAM can decide what is most important for a new potential Church Visitor and your existing Church Attenders to see when someone lands on your website.
It is a challenging process to cut down the front page content. Not only are there a lot of options, but many times Church Staff and Ministry Volunteers feel that THEIR Ministry is the MOST IMPORTANT thing that should be there. Of course usually, that is not the case.
But that brings up another step in the process that should really come BEFORE deciding on the Front Page.
Before deciding on Front Page content write out ALL of the content that you want to have on your Website.
Every Church is different.
Yes, there are certain things like a Podcast and Event Calendars that will probably be a part of most church online strategies.
But there are many other specific Ministries, Projects and Programs that are important to your church that will not be a focus for another.
So before you randomly choose what will be on the Front Page, I would suggest writing out the overview of EVERYTHING you need to include for the ENTIRE site. After that step is complete, then you can choose the Front Page content from the entire content of the site.
Even if you already have a website, this would be a good process for you to go through. You may find you are missing some things on your site. You may find you have a bloated site with too much information with some things that need to be removed.
Once you have written out everything you want to include on your site, your Front Page will be a lot easier to figure out.
To help you think through this process, click the link below or right click and save the Church Website Development Questions Worksheet. This is what we have given to those looking to create a website, and it helps you create all of your content FIRST before beginning on your website changes.
>> Church Website Development Questions Worksheet
Here is ONE WAY to choose your Front Page Content
Many Churches create their Front Page based on what a potential NEW Visitor would need to find. This could also help your church website SEO or search engine optimization because what new potential visitors are wanting to find is also probably what they are searching for when trying to find you.
The thought is that current church attenders are going to be more motivated and willing to dig into the site to find the information they need. They may still put their upcoming events or something like that for current attenders on the front page, but otherwise it is for the new visitor.
Recently, while helping my own church develop a new site, we settled on a different strategy.
Our goal was to make it as EASY as possible for our current attenders to find the main sections of the site that we push on Sundays in Services.
Our choices included Upcoming Events, Event Sign Up & Registration, Classes & Groups, Ministries, Current Sermon Series, Podcast and Online Giving.
We also created a hard to miss section and button toward the top for those who are NEW so they can find Service Times, Location, Kids & Youth, Beliefs and What To Expect when they visit. Having this clear section allows the potential new visitor to access that information easily without having to put ALL of that information on the Front Page.
We wanted to create the site so that current attenders AND new visitors could find the most used sections from the Front Page with ONE CLICK whether they were on their mobile device in a weekend Service or at home on their desktop.
You can organize everything else inside your interior pages accessible by the navigation menu.
A great way to do this without getting cluttered is a One Page Scrolling Style site that still allows for you to create interior pages.
Some ONE PAGE templates at least with WordPress do not allow for those extra pages, which would mean that EVERYTHING on your site is on your Front Page ONLY. That may work for some churches, but not usually for most. Most churches will not be able to cut their information down enough to fit only on a one page design.
The JUPITER WordPress Theme Design that I mentioned above in the Do It Yourself WordPress Section does exactly that. We are using that theme design on this site and it works well for churches too.
Many church resource companies recommend the DIVI WordPress Theme to use for Churches found at Elegant Themes. This is not my preference, but many churches seem happy with it and it does have drag and drop website builder process that is similar to Jupiter.
The way you figure out what goes on your Front Page with the approach we took at our church is to write out EVERYTHING you want to include in your site, then pull out the areas you mention in your Services. Then, create a clear “NEW HERE?” Section toward the top of the Front Page that leads to a page with all of your new visitor information.
That is it. Then put everything else into the Navigation menu by categories.
Look at MegaChurch Websites for Ideas
While it is true that your Church is unique and will have unique Front Page needs, it can be helpful to look at other church websites for ideas and direction.
Whether you agree or disagree with the idea of MegaChurches, they have done a lot of research and work on the Front Pages of their websites. They are experts when it comes to taking a massive amount of complex information and making it simple to present and easy to understand.
You will probably not copy any of these sites exactly, and most likely you will only have time to look at a few. But, this list of links to MegaChurch websites should jump-start your creativity and help you simplify what your home page displays. If they can simplify with all that they have going on, you can simplify yours too.
Your challenge will be to filter the ideas for your size of church and your situation. But, sometimes it can help to see something already working and in place to give you ideas for your Church Website.
Check out the graphic link below to go to our Tips for Church Website SEO / Search Engine Optimization Section.
LINK: Over 1500 MegaChurch Website Links