Your church website content needs to be compelling for your members as well as potential visitors. Making it engaging, informative and welcoming is crucial for connecting with your community.
To simplify the content process, here’s a practical formula to develop impactful church website content:
Simple Thread + Engaging Content + Strategic Organization = Church Website Content
Thread: Your church’s foundational focus and identity, encapsulated in a concise tagline. It’s what your congregation loves about your church and what your community needs. It’s your church brand. This brand promise accompanies your logo and is woven throughout your website.
Content: Like adding diverse ingredients to a tasty recipe, engaging content needs various elements like informative text, captivating visuals, interactive features and multimedia resources.
Organization: Strategically organizing your website content ensures easy navigation and access to needed information. Concentrate on user experience and maximizing their engagement.
5 steps toward a compelling website
Here are 5 simple steps to implementing this compelling website content formula:
1. Know your audience. Understanding your target audience (who you’re reaching and who lives nearby: defined stereotypically) is foundational to crafting compelling website content. When writing a persona description, consider demographics, interests and needs of your congregation and your reach area. Then tailor your content to resonate with their preferences and address their questions and concerns.
2. Clarify your message. A clear and concise message is essential for communicating your church’s identity, mission and vision. Develop a simple and compelling thread that encapsulates the heart of your ministry. This allows people to quickly understand what makes you different from other churches near you.
3. Organize content strategically. Structure your website content in a user-friendly manner to facilitate easy navigation and access to information. Consider these key pages as you structure your main menu:
Home: Create an overview of your church’s identity, upcoming events and recent sermons. Don’t make it too complex. Use high-quality images to show your desired persona and worship experience. Edit all text so it’s concise. Have a professional logo, controlled style and, near the top, a location for your campus.
About: Share your church’s overall information: core beliefs, what to expect if someone were to watch online or come to visit in person, then show pictures and contact information for your leadership.
Ministries: Listed demographically, highlight ministries and outreach (e.g. kids, students, adults). Then show mission and service opportunities. Encourage individuals to get involved by providing next steps of who they need to contact to get started. Remember, be a solution for what they need to make a difference.
Events: Maintain an up-to-date calendar of events that they would want. Filterability (where someone sees only events for their demographic) will calm and simplify this page. Encourage online registration.
Sermons/Resources: Archive past sermons and study materials for online access. Also offer downloadable resources, such as sermon notes, discussion guides (for small group and individual study) and a link to watch streaming services too.
Contact: Make it easy to connect with someone in your church by providing a form or, at least, clear contact information, including physical address, phone number, email and social media links. Make the physical address clickable to get directions to your location.
4. Optimize for engagement. Encourage interaction by using contact forms, prayer request forms and online giving options. Also, seek stories, contributions and feedback on appropriate ministry pages. Regularly update content to keep visitors coming back for fresh ministry insights and event updates.
5. Embrace multimedia content. Incorporate short videos and interesting photography since most are looking for stories, information and event highlights in this manner. Invest in a professional to capture and edit this content as needed. It’s perfect content for your social media too.
Getting your church website content right can be time consuming. If you need more help, reach out to professionals like Hosted Church or get a website assessment at a church communication company like Be Known for Something.
EDITOR’S NOTE — Mark MacDonald is a communication pastor, speaker, consultant, bestselling author and church branding strategist for BeKnownforSomething.com empowering thousands of pastors and churches to become known for something relevant (a communication thread) throughout their ministries, on their church websites and social media. His church branding book, “Be Known for Something,” is available at BeKnownBook.com.
