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How Do You Ensure Your Church Website is as Welcoming as Your Church?

30 June 2017 09:24

There is no doubt that your church would like to be a place that welcomes people in. No matter where you are based, or the motley group that you may be, the great commission is still the same and we all strive to 'go and make disciples'. 

It can be natural to think of a warm welcome as being a cup of tea on a Sunday, and a friendly smile. Or perhaps even striking up a conversation, or talking to your neighbours about your church. Although we may think that this is someone's 'first impression' of church, it is important to remember how connected the world is that we live in.

More likely, a first impression of your church will be made remotely - and this could well be online. It could be a visit to your website, a comment by one of your congregation on social media, or a post on Instagram by your youth. This is where people are gathering information - consciously or not! 

This places an increased importance on your website being welcoming. But what does this mean? How do you ensure you're welcoming online? 

Before looking at what it means to be welcoming online, you may be wondering what Church Pages could know about being welcoming given we are a web-based company. Well Church Pages is an arm of the work of Khooseller and day in, day out, we help businesses be found online, through designing and supporting their 'window to the world'. Paul instructs us to be 'letters to the world' about Christ, so the Church Pages vision is to use our expertise to help the church be the best 'letters' we can be.

What does it mean to have a welcoming online presence? 

1. Be accessible

Just as you'd make every effort to ensure your church building is accessible, it's important to make sure you're accessible online. This means making sure your website can be found when searched for, linking your website to your social media accounts and ensuring your site works on all devices. 

2. Be relevant 

When going to speak to someone new, you'd make sure your opening lines were relevant and open - the same is true online. Does your website give a good opening line? Would someone new know what your church is about? Would they be able to find relevant information about you? Does your site answer their first questions?

3. Be genuine 

Younger people particularly are searching for genuine community and are acutely tuned to know whether people are being genuine or not. When describing your church online, it's vital that you are genuine and speaking from your heart. Treat the words on your website as if you were talking to a friend you want to invite to church, or describing your community to someone visiting you.  

How can you practically ensure that your website is welcoming? 

There are many simple actions you can take to ensure your website is welcoming, and these can also be a way to get people outside of the church to engage with your website:

1. Search for your church on Google on your phone, and then ask a friend to do the same

Sounds basic but it's important you know what people are seeing when looking for your church. Do you appear and what is your mobile website like? Can you find out about your church from a mobile device? (Remember over 50% of searches are made from mobile devices)

2. Check your website is mobile friendly 

Further to the first tip, not only is it important that you can use your site on a mobile, it's vital that is passes Google's mobile friendly test. You can take the test by clicking here

3. Ask a friend who's never been to church to read your website, and ask them what they think

You could think of this like a customer test group – businesses will frequently ask groups of their target customer what they think of their products. Why does the Church not do the same? If after all, we want to welcome in outsiders, it is useful to know what they think. 

4. Ask your children what they think of your website? How does it make them feel?  

If taking your website to outsiders is too much, use your family (or family within the church) as your test group - in particular, ask children and youth in your church what they think of your website? Generation Z (as they are being called) have grown up with technology all around them, so they are over qualified to judge the usability of your site. 

5. Consider being on social media 

If you're not already, could you look at being present on Facebook or other social media channels? These all help provide other means to welcome more people into your community.

6. Look at your website images, would they make you feel welcome? 

It's surprising to note the difference that images make to a site. If you'd like to read more about images, you can see a blog from our Creative Director here

7. Can you find out about your upcoming events on your website? 

This sounds basic but it's worth checking as a number of sites (churches or otherwise) can easily forget to ensure the website is updated with upcoming events. For more about adding calendars to your website, here is a recent blog on adding Calendar's

8. Can you find out about your outreach events?

Beyond adding upcoming events, are you talking about your church outreach events online? If a new people arrived at your church and wanted to explore faith or find out about your upcoming Alpha or Christianity Explored course, you'd happily share details of how/where they could do this. Online viewers could well be searching for faith too, and it would be a shame for them to miss out if the information is not available. 

'Faith expressed as love'

At the end of the day, website or no website, being welcoming does come down to love. As Paul wrote to the Galatians, 'The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.' (Galatians 5:6) Ensuring your church website is accessible, relevant and genuine is just one way of expressing love to the community around you. It is our hope that we are able to simply equip you with the tools to help you express that your faith in a culturally relevant means. 

If you'd like more information about how we can help your church produce an accessible and welcome website, we'd love you to get in touch by clicking here.

It would be great to get your comments and hear your thoughts on how to help your church be welcoming online.  


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