Church Web Design Fails

Church websites are the digital front door for visitors. Research done by Monk Development found that 27% of new attendees found the church online and that 61% of that group indicated that the church website added to their decision to visit that church.

Research by Grey Matter Research has shown that people look for the following information when they visit a church website: 43% look for service times, 28% look for a map or directions, 22% check your beliefs, 15% check what denomination you belong to, 12% look for a way to send a message to the pastor.

Most surprising is that 22% of all American adults have visited the website of a church in the past 6 months. Research by church planting director of Evangelical Covenant Church found that only 17.7% of Americans attend church regularly.

Would a possible guest to your church be able to find the information that they need on your website? Yesterday I visited over 150 church websites and found it very difficult to get basic information about most churches.

When I searched these websites I was looking to find the following information:

• Address of church
• Phone number of church
• Lead Pastor's name (and email address if available)
• Church email address

I discovered that it was much easier to find the physical address for most churches using Google rather than searching through countless menus and submenus. People should be able to locate your address within the first 6 seconds, which is the average length of time that people will spend on any website.

Many people will simply use a GPS device on their smartphones to find an address, but since research shows that 28% are looking for an address on your website you must make it easy for people to find it. A map would also be useful. Make sure people can find the map in one click. Place it on a page titled Directions. I would also include it on the About or Contact page.

A phone number is also very important. Many people will not reach out to a church until they are in a crisis. When they suddenly get bad news they want to know how to reach a pastor. Texting, email, and social media may be the popular way to communicate with your family and friends, but in an emergency people want to talk to someone on the phone.

Listing your pastor's name and the title pastor is also important. I have forgotten the name of a church, but remembered the pastor I met. A google search for "John Doe Pastor Minneapolis" will often provide the church website if the church took the time to list their pastor's name and title.

I found it very difficult to determine who was the actual lead/senior pastor on many websites. There is a trend to use any term other than pastor for the paid staff. I am unsure why this is, but some of the more trendy churches listed their ministers as Lead Teacher, Executive Elder, Multisite Manager, and other confusing titles. I am certain that most non-churched people would not understand these terms. If you must be trendy you still need to keep the title pastor on your website somewhere so people will know who is the lead person.

I think that some churches want to hide their pastor's identity to prevent him from getting unnecessary contacts from community people wanting help. If the pastor does not want to give out his contact information, make sure the general church info is available online.

People do not like filling out contact forms on a website, especially the captcha ones that require you to "prove" you are human. I don't have any statistics for this, but I am betting that your church will miss out on some visitors because they cannot email the church to ask a simple question before they visit. If your church gets too much junk email, change your online contact address often and only let church attendees know the actual office email address.

I am not an expert at website design, but I have researched what people want from a website. Your church website can look as professional as Apple, but if you don't include the basics you are wasting your online potential.