We’ve all been frustrated while navigating a church website. Maybe you’re just looking for the service times or some basic information. Maybe you’re looking for resources or the statement of faith. Before long, it doesn’t even matter. The reality is if you can’t find what you’re looking for in under a minute, you’re not going to keep looking.
Many of us are familiar with the other side of the story. You want your church’s website to be attractive and helpful; you want it to serve as a hub for ministry in your area. So you settle on an edgy design and start filling it with content; yet even after creating the most helpful site since Wikipedia, you find that nobody is using the resources. And it’s not for lack of effort. They managed to navigate through the artistically blurred pictures of nondescript people doing churchy things. They scrolled past all the PDFs of last summer’s bulletins. They weren’t even fazed by the Verse of the Day, the pastor’s blog, or the mission trip slideshow. Really, there’s no telling where they got lost or sidetracked (they probably couldn’t even tell you), but the problem is they didn’t find what they needed.
On the upside, you’re not alone. As technology becomes increasingly pervasive, the frustration spreads on both sides of the coin. Let us assure you, there are plenty of overweight and dysfunctional websites out there, and most of these sites have the same problems. After many painful hours of observation, we’ve identified a few main principles. Here are our top five ways to build a bad church website:
Number 1: Forget your church
The one-size-fits-all approach is a joke. There is no such thing as a perfect website, only a website perfect for a given church. With that in mind, we’ve seen too many church websites that don’t fit their church … at all. It’s understandable. Church leaders attend the latest conference and hear about the value of web-based ministry tools, but then they go overboard. Online social networking can be helpful. Cutting edge design catches the eye. Blogs are being used to inform and inspire thought. But these things are only helpful if they meet a real need in your church community.
Let’s put this into perspective. If you have an older congregation, how many of them do you think will enjoy the concept of online social networking? How attractive is a super-edgy design if the target audience is soccer moms? Most people check their email a lot more often than they do anything else online. Just because you could use Twitter or a blog to publish updates doesn't mean you should.
In theory (and we hope this is true), your website was created to serve your church. Think about the people at your church. Your site should appeal to them. You’re not designing resources for hypothetical people; you’re trying to facilitate ministry for your church. Forcing an older congregation to use social networking is dumb. Technology should be used to fill a need not be forced on people. In the real world, rolling out a web tool that people don’t actually use is worse than not having one at all.
Number 2: Spew out every piece of info possible
There’s a lot going on at your church. We understand that, but not everything belongs on your home page. The concept of having different “pages” within your site was created for a reason. Your home page is not for content: It exists to point people in the right direction. If your site is intuitive enough, they’ll find where they need to go. You want your people to know what’s going on but shoving the information down their throats just doesn’t work. Just because Google makes a calendar that you can embed in your site doesn’t mean you have to use it—especially on your homepage.
Your people are busy. Give them information but just enough. Here’s a general principle: It should never take more than 10 seconds to digest the content of a page. If it takes longer than that to figure out what a page is about, most people will just give up. Make the information available, but allow them to access what they need when they need it.
Number 3: Never ask the question, “What’s the purpose of our website?”
Don’t miss this one. This point is probably going to be the easiest to gloss over, but the hardest to apply. We have a habit in the church of doing things without ever asking the question “Why?” If you don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish, how will you know if you succeed?
One of the major problems here is that multiple staff members often have a role in the development and maintenance of a site. Different people have different expectations and experiences. An unclear vision always leads to an unclear message. For example, your worship pastor might be on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and every other social network out there. But your executive pastor might think that the more people are pushed into “virtual relationships,” the less genuine and real the relationships are. Who do you listen to?
Your purpose should dictate your design. The format, layout, navigation, and overall design of your site should fit what you’re trying to accomplish. If it doesn’t, you’ll be creating a lot of frustration for your congregation, your pastoral staff, and for yourself.
Number 4: Don’t think about the user
Although this should be obvious, we’re always amazed at how many sites seem to disregard the user. It doesn’t matter what you’ve posted if your people can’t get to it. No user’s experience should involve trying to figure out how to navigate your site. Make your site as intuitive as possible. Sure, words like “life, love, learn, and leap” are cool, but they make a poor navigational system. People shouldn’t have to figure out that “life” means student ministry or that “learn” leads to your sermon archive.
An intuitive navigation system means that people should be able to find what they’re looking for with ease. If you need to explain how you arrived at a certain page, your site is probably not as intuitive as you think. Maybe you’re thinking, “Our navigation system is complex because we have a lot going on at our church.” Let’s face it: Your church’s website probably doesn’t need 100 pages, and nobody wants to follow a lengthy breadcrumb trail (Home >> About Us >> Sundays >> Service Times). Keep your pages simple and your content logically organized for quick and easy access.
Number 5: Don’t plan for change
Most of us have had a first-day-of-work experience where we entered with little training and had to reverse engineer someone else’s mess. Too many people have run into this situation because their church web designer didn’t plan for change. Of course it’s cost effective to rely on a member of your congregation for design and updates. But what happens when your designer takes off? We know, we know, your website guy would never leave your church. But hey, it happens more often than we’d like to admit. And when a programmer leaves, typically either their code leaves with them, or it ends up looking like a bomb went off in Dreamweaver.
Change shouldn’t take anyone by surprise. You can minimize the impact of losing a programmer by planning for change, and this shouldn’t have to mean keeping another seasoned programmer on deck. The age of needing a programmer on staff at your church is quickly coming to an end. With the right content management system (CMS), it’s possible to maintain the same degree of functionality without hiring a full-time employee. For most churches, a user-friendly CMS is not a luxury: it’s a necessity.
At the end of the day, there are times and places and audiences where new technology can be the best thing. Our intent is not to discourage technological advances. We simply want to encourage you to think through your specific situation. Don’t copy what others have done. Find the systems that will best suit your purpose, then implement those and leave the rest. If your people have difficulty navigating your site, they won’t navigate your site. If the purpose of your site isn’t clearly defined, it will either end up overweight, anorexic, or confused. Make life easier for yourself and your church. Start with a simple design, focus on the systems and resources that your church will actually benefit from, organize your content logically, and take advantage of a user-friendly CMS. Trust us, you won’t regret it.
Jim Elliston and Ben Rugg are the creators of Clover, a web design firm based in Simi Valley, CA.