It’s hard to talk about “best practices” in web design because the internet and the ways we use it are continuously evolving. However, some key promising practices to keep in mind as you create or update your church website are below.
Make your site more personal & welcoming with photos and videos.
Photos of buildings are helpful (especially in your goal of being hospitable to guests and seekers!), but ideally the majority (if not all) of your photos should include real people in them from your parish!
Posed photos, active and candid shots from church events, photos of worship services - all of these can show the culture and vibe of your church.
If your church streams its services, make sure that you embed the most recent worship service in an easy-to-find place on your website. In our post-pandemic world, people who are church-curious value the ability to try out a church before they walk in the door so that they know if they’d be comfortable in that space. Don’t miss out on welcoming new people because you didn’t make videos of your church easily accessible!
It is important to keep signed photo releases on file for anyone featured in photos on your website, especially minors. Read about photo release forms in this article from the Episcopal Church Foundation which includes this sample release form.
Think mobile first.
Nearly 62% of human web traffic is mobile web traffic and 92.3% of internet users use a mobile device to access the internet at some time. [source] Therefore, it is no longer enough to make sure that your website is designed to be mobile-friendly. Your design and user experience must be designed in a mobile-first manner.
Less is best.
You should never have to click more than twice (ideally once!) to find any information on your website.
Limit the number of pages on your website to fewer than 10. Your sitemap should be easy to draw on the back of a napkin, otherwise you’ve got too much content for a church website. And you should only have two “generations” of pages - parents and children. Fewer pages on your site means less to maintain and less content to become outdated clutter in your online space.
If you have a blog, the blog itself counts as a page and the posts are, well, posts! A blog is not a necessity and should only be part of your website if it’s something your parish can update on a regular and predictable schedule (at least twice a month).
Beyond being a promising practice, having a lean website is eco-friendly, too. All of the 0s and 1s of code for every piece of content on the internet has to be stored on a server somewhere. Even if it’s “in the cloud” it’s really in a server on a server farm. The more data there is, the more servers. The more servers, the more energy has to be used to cool the servers and the more cables and other structures need to be produced. (Curious? Read more here.)
Keep it simple, saints!
More important than fancy templates and animations and cutting-edge design is a simple, easy to navigate website with clear, current information.
Develop a maintenance schedule for your church website. What will you do each week? Each month? Each liturgical season? Who is responsible for what?
Part of keeping it simple is having redundancies so that you’re prepared for unexpected absences or changes in leadership. At all times, your parish should have at least two people who know how to access and maintain the site. Additionally, the website access instructions and passwords should be stored in a safe place (physical or virtual) where all staff and vestry members (and communication volunteers, if applicable) can access it.