I look at a lot of church web sites…as in, a lot.
Just so you know, I’m not a web site creator; nor am I trying to sell you anything.
I’m a church consultant. I study churches and do anything and everything I can to help evangelical, Bible-believing, disciple-making congregations thrive, for God’s glory.
In the process of helping churches thrive, I see hundreds of church websites and I hear from many people about what they see on websites.
As you might imagine, I have lots of opinions on the subject and I think I can use them to give average churches some help with their websites.
As you know, those information-disseminating tools have pretty much gone by the wayside. Church signs still matter and I still like church brochures, though I’m aging myself just to admit that.
What matters most in “church marketing” today is the character of the lives of our attendees and the simple, sincere invitations which they give to people whom they actually know.
In 2026, a powerful tool to put in the hands of your winsome, gracious, Christ-like church members and attendees is a good website. A good site can really help your church while a bad site is worse than no site at all
So in no particular order, here are 24 thoughts on making your church website almost as attractive as your godly, gracious, compassionate people.
(1) Get a skillful website creator. Unless you’re an “artsy,” visually-oriented pastor, don’t do this yourself. I can spot the sites that are done by pastors (sorry guys). They have too much information, too many words, small print, individual links to dozens of sermons, etc.
You don’t have to spend a fortune to get a capable website creator and a sharp finished product. You may have the right person in your church, though, for obvious reasons, don’t ask for a volunteer from the pulpit; this is something you have to get right, so forget about church politics and pleasing Aunt Ethel, who volunteers for everything.
The right person will have an eye for color and simplicity. Again, you might have this person in your church already. If you don’t, I wouldn’t suggest that you go looking on the web for a creator; simply “ask around.” Look at the sites of your friend’s churches, look at the sites of the churches in your area and ask your church’s leaders to tell you about the great sites they’ve seen.
Every time you find a good one, talk to the folks at the church and find out who did it and how much they charged etc. More than likely, you can find a great site creator for a reasonable price, without taking a big risk with an unknown commodity.
(2) Get a number of people involved in the process. Yes, you could appoint a committee, and that might work for you, or you might end up with a very “committee-ish” product. Rather, get one good person (as above) working on the site but make sure he or she gets lots of input from all sorts of people: people of different ages, people from the same group your church is targeting, people who are good writers and spellers, etc.
And don’t forget to get some input from one or more persons who have nothing to do with your church. They will notice things that none of your own people will see.
(3) Don’t give up control over the final product. However gifted your church person heading up the project may be and however skillful your hands-on website creator might be (if they’re not the same person), the solo or senior pastor needs to get the final word.
(4) Get your Sunday morning worship service time on the first page. Many folks turning to your site just want to know when “the service” (or services) begin.
(5) Make sure you include good, simple directions to your building as well as a good map (if at all possible). Good directions are directions that the “direction impaired” persons among us can readily understand. Try this out on some outsiders so you don’t use insider or “native-only” language, like “turn right at the old creamery” which hasn’t actually been a creamery for 30 years.
(6.) Use lots of attractive color and think about the color palette. “Lots of color” doesn’t mean garish colors (which a surprising number of churches use). Everybody loves color so make your site something enjoyable to look at.
(7.) Use lots of good pictures and please don’t use fuzzy, poorly executed pictures. Don’t use pictures of pastors or other staff members looking like they’re having a bad day. Make sure your leaders are smiling and looking like they actually like people. ALSO: Be thoughtful about using pictures which are a match for the demographic you are trying to reach. I’m not going to tell you that your senior pastor should be in a three-piece suit or a t-shirt with a backwards baseball cap…but make your photos match your mission field.
Lots of pictures of people enjoying other people, having fun, worshipping God, etc. are all wonderful, as long as they are real and actually representative of your church.
Do not, I repeat, do not use stock photos that are not actual photographs of people in your church. Worst case scenario? A small town, aging, white congregation that had a picture on their web site – supposedly representing their actually non-existent women’s ministry – featuring two beautiful young African American women in what looked like a classy office in a high rise building in a city. It was a nice picture, but it couldn’t possibly be less representative of the church…and I’m not making this up.
(8.) Create the web site for the demographic which you are most interested in targeting. I certainly don’t want to pick on old people, especially since I’ve become one myself. But if you’re a congregation of senior saints which is trying to reach younger people – a very common scenario today – don’t give us pictures on your web site of buildings full of 80-something worshippers.
Your site tells me who you are trying to reach. Some sites tell me that the church is trying to reach lost people – which, I think, is what we’re supposed to be doing. Other sites tell me that the congregation is trying to reach people of their own denomination or even a very small subgroup within their denomination. If this isn’t what your church is all about, then don’t create a website that makes it look like this is what your church is all about.
(9.) Pictures of your actual church (a church is a group of PEOPLE) are much more important and inviting than pictures of the buildings that the people meet in. Churches are not buildings; never have been; never will be.
The exception to that would be the congregation which is trying to attract a demographic which is going to be more interested in your building than in your actual church. If you have a spectacular or unusual, “landmark” building, this just might work, though the concept leaves me with concerns about the expectations of the people you are trying to attract as well as the motivations of the church leaders who have chosen this approach.
By all means don’t feature pictures of your church building if it is unattractive, unimpressive, run-down or not built yet!
(10.) Launch your website when it’s done, not half-done. A half-cooked website leaves people wondering if you’re really up and running or just working on a future church launch.
(11.) Make sure everything on your site works. You would not believe how many clicks I execute which lead nowhere! A few examples: a row of buttons at the top of the page that all lead to the same page, email addresses for staff members that are not actually email addresses, lists of staff members or volunteer ministry leaders who haven’t been with the church for years, and my favorite pet peeve, in this regard…see #12, below…
(12.) The easier you make it for people to get ahold of a real person at your church, the better. Phone numbers are good. Email addresses are good. Email addresses for the pastor or pastors of the church are wonderful. All of the above must be responded to in a timely manner or they will only hurt your web-based outreach effort.
The only thing worse than an untended phone or email address is the untended fill-in-the-blanks contact form. In my experience, whether it’s a church, a parachurch ministry or a for-profit business, about half of my contact form connection attempts are never responded to…as in never. If you must use a contact form, make sure that someone is “minding the store” zealously.
Here’s an idea I learned from a friend. Their church wanted to have a phone number which was tended consistently and they didn’t want their pastor forever tethered to a church phone. Solution? Their church phone is a cell phone; whoever is “on call” carries the phone. If you have the phone, you’re on call. If you don’t, you’re not.
(13.) Be honest about your denominational affiliation, without overloading people with theological details. It’s trendy today to not advertise one’s denominational affiliation. I get that. We don’t want to scare people away.
However, many of our website visitors do want to know where we’re coming from theologically. A “denominational affiliation” doesn’t always equate to a denominational membership. All churches have a denominational “flavor,” a “tribal” membership. Somewhere on your site, tell people where you land theologically. You don’t have to splash it onto your home page or advertise it with your church name, but tell us where you’re coming from and please don’t pretend to be more “generic” than you actually are.
The other extreme is to go into great detail on your church’s doctrine, as if you’re trying to convert your web-browsing viewers – not only to faith in Christ – but to every jot and tittle of your theology. You’re probably not going to succeed in doing that with a website anyway.
(14.) Telling us about your pastors or other leaders is great, but watch your writing! There’s no excuse for bad writing and bad spelling in ordination papers or on web sites. If you’re not good at these details, I’m pretty sure somebody in your church is good at them and would be happy to show you your mistakes.
And while your website guests want to hear about your pastor or pastors as people, they don’t usually want to see them depicted as superstars, celebrities, geniuses or as married to jet-settingly beautiful or immodestly dressed wives.
(15.) Don’t use churchy language or your favorite Latin phrases. Normal people don’t know a consistory from a sacristy and nobody likes being made to feel stupid. This is one more reason why you need to have an outsider, preferably an unchurched outsider, taking a look at your site.
(16.) Short video clips are better than full-length sermons. Don’t include video clips if you can’t do them well, but if you can, they’re wonderful. Not every pastor is going to look and sound great on these, but most of us can at least come across as sincere and warm for one minute. Many, even casual, viewers will take a look at a one or two minute video. Besides being a great way to invite folks to your church, short videos are an opportunity to share the gospel message in a winsome way.
(17.) Don’t include videos of your entire services unless you have the technology to produce these exceptionally well. First off, your website guests don’t want to hear your announcements. Secondly, even a worship team which sounds good at your church on Sunday morning is highly likely to sound bad on your website. Sorry, but this is reality. Just watch a few samples of church worship music on websites and you’ll see what I mean.
(18.) Don’t promise more than you can deliver. If your church is small and your building is unimpressive, highlight the things your church actually does well. If your people are great at being warm and welcoming, if they function like a loving church family, tell the world about it through your website because you have something really special going on.
On the other hand, if you can’t say anything good about your church on the website…you probably need revitalization or an old-fashioned revival rather than a new website.
(19.) Resist the temptation to use pop-ups. Somebody must think that pop-ups are cool or there wouldn’t be so many of them. Personally, I think they’re irritating. Do you enjoy having things pop-up on sites you’re viewing, obscuring (usually) the material you actually want to see or read?
(20.) Keep your site up to date. Make sure that someone knowledgeable takes a look at it regularly.
(21.) If you can only do a Facebook page at this time, make sure it has your basic, essential information on it: phone number, email, worship service time, etc.
(22.) If you feel that you must put your church activities calendar on your site, make sure that it is always up to date and don’t put it on your home page. Unchurched people are not impressed with church “busyness” and they’re even less impressed by advertising for events which happened two years ago. Again: I’m not making this up.
(23.) Putting a “how to donate” button on your site plays into the hands of those who think the church is all about money. Teach your members how to do direct giving, but don’t solicit funds from the people you are trying to reach.
(24.) Working on your website might be a good time to get people thinking about your church’s name.
Oh dear! I’ve just opened a can of worms, haven’t I?
The problem is that you can’t view hundreds of websites without thinking about church names.
Here’s my ultra-simple advice: choose a church name that is appropriate for the demographic group which you’re trying to reach. If you’re trying to reach people of a certain denominational persuasion, a denominational name is appropriate. If you’re trying to reach people who are not of that denominational persuasion already, or will actually be put off by that denominational brand name, it might be time to re-think the appropriateness of your current name.
