7 Easy and Actionable Steps to Build Your Church Website

Building or updating a website can be a daunting task 😬 but Phos Site is here to help! The goal of this article is to provide you with 7 actionable steps to build a church website. This should turn an overwhelming task into a manageable plan.

Step 1: Goals

The first thing you should do is determine why you want to build a website. Are you aiming to attract more people to your church? Are you wanting your website to assist your current congregation? Are you wanting to reach people across the US and beyond? Knowing your why helps significantly determine the website’s content and layout.

If your aim is to attract new people, you’ll want to focus on letting people know the essentials about your church. You’ll need sections about your beliefs, the pastors and other staff, upcoming events, and small groups. You’ll want to give newcomers a call to action to join your church.

If your aim is assisting your congregation, then you should find out what would help them the best. Do you need volunteer sign-ups, event sign-ups, a staff/member directory, small group info, etc? Do you want online giving?

If your aim is to reach people across the US and beyond, what need are you looking to fulfill? Do you want a sermon directory, Bible study resources, small group guides, etc? Are you looking to provide free resources or sell products?

Most churches will want a combination of these goals. A focused set of goals will help create a clear and consise website. You might even determine that a website isn’t the best option. For example, some churches decided to build a phone app designed to help their current congregation.

Step 2: Cost Planning

There can be a lot of costs associated with building a website, including the initial cost and the maintenance costs. This section will discuss an overview of costs that’ll need to be considered. We might give price ranges for a starting point but we recommend finding the actual cost for your unique situation based on your goals.

Initial Cost

Here is a list of the initial costs to build your website.

  • Domain – the web address that people type in the search bar to go to your website.
    • $10-$15 for .com domains
  • Website Design – The design of the website itself. This can be done in-house to freelancers online to professional companies. The cost will vary significantly depending on how you build your website and if/who you hire.
    • $0-$5,000+
  • Photography – Taking and gathering photos specifically for your website. Again, this ranges depending on who/if you hire someone. You could probably even hire a teenager in your congregation who is on yearbook at school or does photography as a hobby.
    • $0-$1,000+
  • Logo Design – If your church doesn’t have a logo, this might be a good time to design one. Similar to website design, you could do this in-house, via freelancer, or a company.
    • $0-$500
  • Website Hosting – This will be the initial payment for the website hosting, this is usually a recurring cost but you should budget this for the initial setup.
    • $100-$500 (assuming you pay for a full year).

Most churches will do as much in-house as possible and should initially budget $500. These churches should expect $12 domain, $360 for web hosting ($30 per month paid annually), and potentially $50-$100 hiring a teenage photographer.

Ongoing Costs

Your main ongoing costs can be broken down into 4 categories.

  • Domain: $12 annually.
  • Webhosting: $5-$50 monthly depending on your provider.
  • Updating: Someone will need to update the site for upcoming events, new photos, etc.
  • Training: Eventually your website maintainer will leave, plan on a training cost for this.
  • Security: Staying up-to-date with the latest security updates.

If you want a more in-depth look at counting the costs, check out this blog post.

Now that you’ve looked into pricing, you’ll be able to determine what your church can and can’t afford. You should consider your goals and budget and determine the scope of your website. The next 3 steps can be done simultaneously.

Step 3: Gathering Information

This is the step where you’ll get all the information you need and then write it up. The goal with this step is to set up documents where you can just copy and paste the information into your website. This allows you to focus solely on design later. Additionally, having time between writing the information and uploading it increases your ability to edit your information.

The information you’ll need to gather will depend on the goals of the website. Here are some things to gather and write down.

  • Doctrine: What does your church believe and why do you believe it? This doesn’t have to cover every topic but should give the most important beliefs your church has.
  • Meeting times / Address(es) : When do you meet? Where do you meet? Contact Information.
  • Staff Biography: Who is everyone on staff? Write up 1-2 paragraphs of each staff member’s information.
  • About: A very brief overview of your church describing who y’all are and why someone should come to your church. This should be one of the first things someone going to your website will see.
  • History: What is the history of your church? Gather a couple of the biggest changes/milestones in your church history.
  • Small groups: What are the available small groups, youth ministry, child care options, etc?
  • Upcoming events: What are some of the upcoming events? Depending on your timeline, this might be the last thing you should add to the website. Don’t waste your time adding events that’ll be done by the time the website is released.

While this isn’t a comprehensive list, this should be a good starting point. Most churches will want this information to be easily accessible to newcomers and current members alike. However, don’t feel like you have to have everything on your website, choose what meets your specific needs and goals.

Additionally, it is recommended to prioritize the information. Start with the essential information for your goals and then add the lower priority. You should be able to continuously update your website as needed.

Step 4: Photography

Your church website needs authentic photos that describe your church and your values. What people see will be as big of an influence, if not more, as the text on your website. Additionally, if your church website is for first time visitors, you’ll want to accurately depict what a church service looks like. Is it formal or informal? Will this be a safe place for kids? Does your community seem authentic? What ministries/charities does your church support?

Here is a list of ideas for photos.

  • The Building (preferably with people)
  • The congregation, both action shots and/or a large group photo
  • Pastoral photos (headshots, action shots, family photos, etc)
  • Baptisms
  • Worship
  • Charity

High quality, authentic photos say a lot about your church. You’ll want to make sure your photos have good resolution, are clear (not blurry), and fill up the given space (little whitespace around them).

If you want to learn more about photography for church websites, check out this article by ourchurch.com here.

Step 5: Determining a Tool

Choosing how you build your website will help determine the content and cost. Here is an overview of the types of tools that exists that’ll aid in building a website.

From Scratch

Building a website from scratch means writing the html code yourself, allowing you to build the website exactly as you want. This can be the cheapest monetary cost but the highest in time it takes to build. Additionally, this relies on having someone in your congregation willing to maintain it long term. This will be difficult to maintain long-term and isn’t recommended for most churches.

You can hire a designer for these websites but that can quickly become expensive, both initially and long term.

Drag-n-Drop Builder

Drag-n-Drop builders are online tools that let practically anyone custom design a website by letting users drag blocks on a screen to build the website. This option strikes a good balance between creative freedom and features without the cost of a from-scratch website. There are many options for these websites out there, both secular and church-specific. Many of these builders contain a starting template designed for churches.

Form-Based Builder

This builder is the most user-friendly of the options. Users simply upload photos, fill out a questionnaire with information about their church, and select some design elements. Then the tool will automatically build a website based on their information. This simplicity allows any volunteer who can use a computer to update their website. Additionally, this is usually the cheapest option. However, the tradeoff is the lack of creative design; your website will be restricted on its looks based on what the tool allows.

If you want to learn more about the various tools available, check out this blog post.

Step 6: Build the Website

This is the step to build the website itself. While this step will differ wildly depending on your website builder of choice, here are some bullet points to keep in mind while building.

  • Determine the core features required for launch. Companies such as Google can sometimes take days, weeks, or even months for you website to be on their radar. You want your core website up as soon as possible.
  • Too many cooks in the kitchen destroy the pot, and too many designers make an ugly website. A small team leads to a cohesive website. Lets not split a church over the design of a website when you could split over the color of the carpet. 🙄
  • Test your website on mobile and on multiple web browsers. If you can, you should also look at the website on a mobile device and use it. If not, most web browsers have “developer tools” that can show what your website looks like on mobile. Test how easy it is to navigate and use.
  • SEO. SEO. SEO. You want to make sure search engines such as Google can understand your website and rank you in the search results. You want people who search “churches in Townsville, USA” to see your church in the search results. Here is an article by Google explaining how to get started.
    • *SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.
  • Set a deadline for yourself and be accountable to it. Having a clear deadline will help launch the site. This will also aid in fighting scope-creep, there will always be one more thing you can improve or tweak. Your website doesn’t need to be perfect to launch and a deadline will help you say “okay, good enough”.

Step 7: Launch and Looking Beyond the Launch

After lots of blood, sweat, and tears, it is finally time to launch your website! 🎉 How you launch your website will be dependent on your tool but each tool should have clear guides for launch.

After celebrating, make a plan to add the non-core features and keep the website up-to-date. Your church will change and grow over time and your website should reflect this. Here are some things that’ll probably need updating.

  • Events – Do have upcoming events; don’t advertise old events (clearly mark them as past or remove).
  • Staff – Leadership changes, pastor completed his masters, etc.
  • Church photos – Having recent photos allows first-time visitors to recognize people from the website making them feel more comfortable.
  • Small groups / Sunday School Classes – These Bible study groups will change in leadership, meeting times/places, etc. First time visitors and current congregation will use your website to discover what is available.
  • Major “church life” events – Churches will have major moments in their history. If you add/remove a service, get a new building, etc your website should reflect this.

Delegation

Building a website is a major task but can easily be broken down into smaller tasks. Gathering information and taking photos can be delegated. You don’t have to write every word nor take every photo. Once you figure out what information you need, ask someone to write that section. For example, the pastor (or his wife) could write a small bio for the staff section. Photography is a common hobby, find and ask that person to take photos.

Pro tip: Don’t forget about your teenagers! There is a high possibility that your church has a teenager who is in yearbook, journalism, or just a hobbyist and has a camera. This is a great opportunity to get them involved in a way they enjoy. If they do a good job, make sure to reward them for it. There is a lot that goes into photos: taking the photos, choosing the best ones, and then editing them. We want to raise a generation of Christian entrepreneurs, and teach them the long hours and the rewards.

Phos Site Pitch

Here is our shameless plug 😎. Phos Site is a church website builder designed to be as affordable and easy to use as possible. We do this through our revolutionary form-based website builder. To build a website, you upload the information and photos and our tool will automatically build you a website. You don’t need any coding experience, just the ability to type! You can try our website builder for free by going to www.builder.phossite.com, we only charge when you are ready to pay for the website. If you want to read more, go to this link.