Creating A Collaborative YES: How To Get Approval For A Church Website Overhaul

What do you do when you need to convince other leaders that, yes, it’s time for a church website overhaul?

For many church leaders, that means getting others to agree and see what you see. Without buy-in, nothing changes. 

If this has you stuck, here’s how we’ve helped church leaders get that collaborative YES on a website overhaul.

And that starts with focusing the conversation on these three goals. 

3 Goals To Guide Your Conversation 

It’s not enough to say, “Our website needs to be redone” when talking with those making budgetary or broader leadership decisions.

You need to guide the conversation so that, as a group, you:

1. Eye your website from the same high-level perspective.
2. Examine the website through the lens of your church’s goals & mission.
3. Evaluate how close it comes to meeting the needs of those your church seeks to serve.

With this, you’ll position the conversation around how well the website does the job of connecting the church with members and guests in the wider community. Other

Get Everyone On The Same Page

With the goals in mind, you can now guide other leaders to examine and evaluate your website thoughtfully – and ultimately see what you see. 

To get you jumpstarted, we’ve listed below three areas to focus on to guide the process. As you evaluate these areas, check out the questions provided below to facilitate discussion with leadership or an exploratory committee. Depending on your church, adapt as needed. 

1. Mobile Optimized

50% of traffic comes from mobile devices on most church websites. That’s a lot of traffic coming in on smaller screens!

It’s not enough to have a “responsive” or “mobile-friendly” site – your site needs to align with current mobile behaviors and expectations.

• Does the site load on mobile in less than 3 seconds?
• Does the menu work fully expanded or otherwise visible on mobile?
• Can you easily navigate your website menu on your smartphone?

2. Use Images To Show, Rather Than Tell

An image can communicate in as little as 13 milliseconds. That’s much more efficient than paragraphs of text descriptions.

Not only should your website have images, but it also needs to have the right images.

• Does your site show images of people from your church taken in the past 12 months?
• Do the images show the culture of the church? Missions, ministries, worship, etc.
• What story do the photos tell a potential guest about what to expect?

3. Guest-Focused Content

For the average church, 9 out of 10 visitors are new to your website.

If your messaging and content are focused on the 1 in 10, you risk losing that 9 in 10.

• Are the service times and locations repeated on the website and easy to find? Ex: header of the home page, in the footer, at the top and bottom of the guest page. 
• Can a guest easily find answers to common questions about dress, culture, children’s and youth/student ministry, etc.?
• Do the pictures and videos on the site match with the words?
• Does a guest know what you want them to do? As in – does your website clearly invite them to come to church, bible study, an event, etc.?

Pro Tip: Answer The Questions For Your Leaders

Presenting to leadership? Take a proactive stance and create a slide deck where you answer the questions. 

They will likely still have questions and discussion, but this will show your expertise on the subject and ease the decision-making process. 

Next Step In Your Church Website Overhaul

Overhauling your church’s website is quite the project and one that takes time, collaboration, and agreement across multiple areas. You’ll need to balance your church’s mission, the goals of staff and team members, and the needs of guests and members. 

Getting the green light is the first step. The next is deciding what you need in a new website and how to build it.  

If you’d like someone to talk to as you navigate taking those steps forward, I’d love for you to click here to schedule 30 minutes to talk with our team.