Home | About Us | Communications | Church Websites

COMMUNICATIONS

What You Need to Know About Church Websites

Before someone visits a church, they search for that church’s website on the internet. If the church has an informative, appealing website, the person may visit the church. If the church does not have a website, the person will most often not visit.

That is why it is important that your church has a visually inviting, up-to-date, informative website that prominently displays photos of church members ministering to others instead of pictures of the building and listings of dates in the church’s history. Your church should communicate important information about service times and ministry opportunities in clear and concise ways – and that information should be consistent across all formats: website, phone message, social media posts, etc.

Take a few minutes right now to make sure that your church website and phone message are each communicating accurate information about worship time(s) and small group opportunities for this week.

Be sure your church website and phone message also contain:

• The time of each worship service this week.
• A note about whether those attending will be wearing formal or casual attire.
• A note for parents about childcare options.
• The address of the church.
• A note about the location of the parking lot in relation to the main entrance of the building.

Church Websites Should be Designed for Non-Members

Because the focus of a church website should be attracting visitors to the church, the following content should be prominently featured on the homepage of the site:

• worship service time(s) for this week.
• address and phone number of the church.
• photos of church ministries.

Post Non-posed, Real-life Images of Church Ministries

An effective church website uses pictures more than words to show visitors to the site about the life of the church. Images should feature members of the church in non-posed photos in worship, during times of fellowship, engaged in mission, in small-group studies, and more.

People visiting the church website will make their decision on whether to visit the church based on the ministries they see represented. Posting a picture of the church building is far less important than posting photos of members engaged in ministry.

Church Website Resources

United Methodist Communications offers these resources to help your congregation connect with people beyond the walls of the building:

• Start a New Church Website.
• This self-paced, online training course offers UMC-branded WordPress templates you can use to create a professional, modern website for your church.
• Design Your Website to Reach Your Audience.
• Grow Your Church Online.
• Build a Social Media Ministry.
• Stop Using Clipart.

Post Non-posed, Real-life Images of Church Ministries

Be sure to follow Safe Sanctuary practices and U.S. Copyright laws when posting images to the church website and/or social media channels.

• Get written permission to use photos of individuals.
• Do not post the name(s) of those in the photo(s).
• Do not post photos from an online search because you do not have written copyright permission to use the photo.
• These websites offer free, or low cost, downloadable images.

If you have a question for the Communications office about your East Ohio Conference church website, please e-mail it to us.