Church Website Design Tips and Tools

Your website is the front door to your church.

We say that because most people will visit a church’s website before they visit the church for a worship service.

Not only will potential visitors view your website, but they will also get their first impression of your church from the website and decide whether or not they will visit in person.

It’s impossible to overestimate the importance of your church website to your church outreach!

If one of your goals this year is to redesign your church website or make some improvements to the design of your church website, we’re here to help you do that.  Here’s how…

7 Church Website Design Tips and Tools

1) Church Website Design Services

If you are interested in having Christian web developers with lots of experience build a new website for your church. Check out our church web design services and request a free, no obligation phone consultation. This is a great solution for pastors and church communications folks who want a great church website but don’t have the time or experience to do it well.

2) Church Website Builder

If you want a new church website and have the time to do it yourself, our WP-EZ Church Website Builder is easy to use, affordable and designed specifically for churches.  No need to install WordPress, buy a theme, or install dozens of plugins. WP-EZ does all of that for you.

3) Update Your Church Website Theme

If your website looks dated or you just want to change things up, one way to do that is to switch to a new website theme.  If you built your website within the last 4 years or have already migrated to WP-EZ 2.0, switching themes takes just a few clicks.  If you built your website more than 4 years ago with our original WP-EZ Website Builder (or 8+ years ago with our NE1 Website Builder), we strongly encourage you to switch themes and migrate to WP-EZ 2.0.  Your new website will look and function sooooo much better!

4) Training Center & Video Tutorials

Have you already built your website with our WP-EZ Website Builder and want to make it even better?  We created 10 training courses on the most important website design topics in our WP-EZ Training Center, and we have an extensive library of additional web builder video tutorials

5) Free Website Reviews

Even the most experienced web developers can benefit from a fresh set of eyes and some honest feedback.  We’ll review your website once a year at no cost.  So, if you haven’t gotten your free review this calendar year, request a free website review now.

6) Ultimate Guide to Church Website Design

If you want to build a new website or improve your website in your own, get our insider tips on the church website design process we use in our free Ultimate Guide to Church Website Design.

7) Website Design FAQS: Frequently Asked Questions

We are answering 12 of the most common Church Website Design questions in a new video blog series.

1. Do we need a new website? How to tell.
2. Why do I need a web team? How do I build one?
3. 5 Things You Need to Know Before Hiring a Web Developer
4. How to Determine Your New Website Requirements
5. How Much Does a Church Website Cost to Build?
6. How long does it take to design a website?
7. What Is Best Platform for my Website?
8. Will I be able to update my website myself?
9. 9 Questions to Ask a Church Website Developer Before Hiring
10. What is responsive website design?
11. What is good website design?
12. Should Christian organizations hire Christian web developers

Don’t forget…

Your website is the front door to your church. –Paul Steinbrueck

Website Design FAQS: Frequently Asked Questions

1. Do we need a new website? How to tell.

A website is a crucial tool for any organization, whether its a church, school, ministry, or business. Therefore, the decision whether or not to build a new website is a big one!

Ultimately, it comes down to whether your current website is helping you to accomplish your mission. And whether investing in a new website will significantly improve your ability to accomplish your mission.

In this video and article, we provide 6 assessment questions to help you determine whether building a new website is worth the investment.

2. Why do I need a web team? How do I build one?

Are you running the website for your church, school, ministry or business all by yourself?

If so, it’s not the ideal situation for you or your organization.

For you, it can lead to burnout. For your organization, if you become unavailable due to illness or vacation, what happens to the website? What if the website goes down or there is important information to communicate while you’re unavailable?

In this video and article, we tell you how to create a web team and roles you should have on that team.

3. 5 Things You Need to Know Before Hiring a Web Developer

You may think the first step in the process of getting a new website for your organization is to start contacting website developers, but that would be premature.

For a website developer to be able to provide you with a proposal and a price, you have to be able to tell them what you want as well as the time and budget constraints you’d like them to work within.

Plus there are some internal organizational decisions that need to be made so you can keep the project on track and avoid major pitfalls.

In this video and article, we guide you with 5 Things You Need to Know Before Hiring a Web Developer.

4. How to Determine Your New Website Requirements

Before you build a new website, you need to determine its requirements – what the website is going to look like and do.

This is especially true when you hire a website design company to build your new website. You need to figure out what you want in your website so you can tell the developer and get all the requirements into your contract.

As you talk to people within your organization about the website, you’re going to get a lot of different ideas and a lot of requests. Deciding which ones actually make it into the website and which ones don’t (or get delayed) can be quite a challenge, so…

Here are 3 tips on How to Determine Your New Website Requirements

5. How Much Does a Church Website Cost to Build?

This is far and away the #1, most common question we’re asked about website design. It’s a complicated question because the cost of a website depends on many things.

The only way to really know how much a custom-designed website will cost is to consult with a developer and have them give you a fixed-priced proposal (which we would be happy to do).

Apart from that, however, we think it’s important to understand the things that impact the cost of a website, so in this Web Design FAQ video/article we share with you 10 factors that impact how much website design costs.

See: How much does website design cost?

6. How long does it take to design a website?

Would it surprise you if the answer to this question is, “It depends?” 🙂

Just as there are number of factors that impact the cost of a website, there are also a number of factors that impact how long it takes to develop a new website.

In this video and article we look at 5 things that impact how long it takes to build a website. Some of these factors are determined by the website developer, some others are determined by you, the client, and some depend on the scale of website. To learn out each impacts the website development schedule…

See How long does it take to design a website?

7. What Is Best Platform for my Website?

Another big decision that needs to be made before building a new website is which platform to use.

There are lot of different options.  Some involve purchasing and installing software the developer installs on their desktop computer. Others involved installing Content Management System software in a web hosting account. Still others utilize an online website builder.

In this video and article we explain the pros and cons of each type of website platform, and then point out a few other factors to take into consideration when choosing the platform for your website.

See What Is Best Platform for my Website?

8. Will I be able to update my website myself?

Often organizations don’t think ahead of time about how they are going to maintain and update their website after it launches. This can lead to a lot of problems.

There’s nothing worse than a website that has a bunch of outdated information on it.

No actually, there is something worse… a website that gets hacked because it hasn’t received security updates

Therefore, it’s important to talk about updates and maintenance with any developer you’re considering hiring to build your website. To help you better understand the issues and questions to ask…

Check out Church Website Maintenance: DIY or Developer?

9. 9 Questions to Ask a Church Website Developer Before Hiring

Hiring the wrong website developer would be a huge mistake!

You can avoid that mistake by properly vetting the web developers you’re considering.

Chances are you already have 5 or 6 good questions in mind, but you don’t want to leave anything out or leave anything to chance, so check out these 9 Questions to Ask a Church Website Developer Before Hiring

10. What is responsive website design?

“Responsive” website design is one of those buzzwords that website developers use, assuming that everyone understands what it means.

If you’re not quite sure you know what responsive website design is, why it matters, and maybe you’ve been hesitant to ask, this FAQ video and article are for you.

See What is responsive website design?

11. What is good website design?

Sometimes it seems like whether a website is “good” is just a matter of subjective opinion. One person might point to one website and say, “I really like this!” Then someone else says, “Ugh, I don’t like that at all. This one looks way better to me!”

While there are some aspects of website design that are a matter of personal opinion, there are also some objective qualities to consider that distinguish good website design from poor website design.

We answer the question, What is good website design? by discussing 5 essential elements of good website design.

12. Should Christian organizations hire Christian web developers?

As you consider which web design agency to hire, you’ll probably look at their experience, the portfolio of sites they’ve built, online reviews, and the price provided in the proposal. But what about their faith?

We’re not here to tell you what you should do, but there are some real tangible benefits to working with another Christian organization.

We share 4 benefits of hiring a Christian website developer as we address the question, should Christian organizations hire Christian web developers?

That wraps up this series of Website Design FAQs.

Work with Our Team of Experienced Pros

Yeah, you can build your own website, but will it be as effective as a website built by our team that’s been building websites for 25 years? Don’t you have enough on your plate as it is? Work with our team and you can have a better, more effective website, in less time. Fill out the form below (mobile) or to the right (desktop) to schedule a discover call today!

Share your perspective on church website design in this month’s Listening Post survey.

Post a comment and discuss… 

• What “next step” are you going to take to improve your church website design?
• What questions do you have about website design?