Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Well, as we start a new year, it's probably a good time to take a look at your church's website. Each new year is a good time to make some of those changes and take a look at some of those things maybe you have been avoiding for a whole year. So in this episode, we're going to break down eight things that you can do to make sure your church website is ready for the new year. Let's do this.
You're listening to the reach, right? Podcast. The show dedicated, helping your church reach more people and grow.
Well, as we start a new year, it's probably a good time to take a look at your church's website. Each new year is a good time to make some of those changes and take a look at some of those things maybe you have been avoiding for a whole year. So in this episode, we're going to break down eight things that you can do to make sure your church website is ready for the new year. Let's do this.
Hey, guys, I'm Thomas.
[00:00:52] Speaker B: And I'm Ian.
[00:00:53] Speaker A: And today we're talking about church website changes that you need to make as we go into the new year here. That should be a good conversation.
Ian, you work with our clients here at Reachwrite and you look at dozens of church websites every single day.
And your team churn out our church website strategy reviews. And so you're neck deep in this all the time. And so I thought it'd just be a good one for us to talk about. I want to ask you a few questions about what you're seeing out there and things that you think churches need to change. I think it should be a good conversation. Agreed? Yeah.
[00:01:28] Speaker B: Excited about it. Church websites still absolutely vital in the age of apps and social media. Church database software. The fact of the matter is, a first time visitor, someone new, will end up at your website 85% of the time before they physically come. So there's a lot of different marketing avenues. But one thing still remains is everyone will naturally funnel to the website. So we always kind of look at it as the foundation and to make sure kind of what you look first things first approach is what we would.
[00:01:58] Speaker A: Say with the rise of social media, it isn't necessarily always the first impression that people have, but I think even with social media, it is going to be the best place for you to showcase what your organization is all about. I think the reason for that is that you don't really control what social media is. You don't control that platform, so you can't really curate an experience for someone and help them walk through it. So really dialing in your website, I mean, it's as important, if not more important than it has ever been before. And I don't see any sign of that changing. Contrary to we've had people tell us, I'm sure you've heard this, right. I know I did back when I used to be in the weeds with people, with websites. But we're just going to focus on Facebook page instead of social media or instead of our website, or we're going to do Instagram instead of social media instead of our website. Again, that's bad thinking. And you need to have a good church website. And so let's talk about some of those things that need to change.
[00:02:56] Speaker B: Quick thing I'll add before jumping into it. What everyone's doing these days is they are googling churches near me or a certain kind of church. There are churches in XYZ City and one thing you'll notice is that Google looks to send the traffic to your website first and foremost. So that's another reason why it's important Facebook page. But let's dig right in. Thomas. Absolutely.
[00:03:18] Speaker A: Cool. All right, so the first change you need to look at we talked about was mobile optimization. And this one kind of surprised me because it's like, here we are, we're going into 2024. Obviously, most traffic that is happening on your church website is on a mobile device. Now, it's more likely to be on a mobile device than a dinosaur, like an actual computer, like we use all the time here in our office. But yeah, I don't know. Is this still something that people have not gotten wind of here? Are they still not optimized for mobile?
[00:03:49] Speaker B: I think most people have gotten wind of it. Like, I will rarely come across a pastor, ministry leader that doesn't know they need to look good with their website on mobile devices. But I will say, and more these days compared to, like, I'd say five years ago, I would come across a lot of websites that are still not. The term is mobile responsive that they're going to respond to any mobile device being pulled up from now, these days, I will say that most are mobile responsive now, that doesn't mean they're going to give a good mobile experience. And we'll dig into that here in just a few. But there are still several that I come across that were designed for desktops. They're not mobile responsive at all. And I will just tell you that you are really missing out on a lot of visitors and people taking that next step. If you don't make sure that your website is optimized for mobile.
[00:04:40] Speaker A: Yeah, I think the last number I saw was 63% of traffic is on a mobile device or a tablet. And so you're just saying 63% of people, we don't really need you to come to our church. So that's basically what you're doing if you're not. And I think you're right. Like anything that was designed, hopefully any website developer in the last few years has made a mobile responsive website for you. But if you have a website that's probably three, four years old, chances are you may not have a responsive website. So definitely something you want to look at. And if it's not time to do something about that, you're giving away visitors and that's no good.
Next one we talked about, I guess an enhanced user experience.
I think the key is like designing a website that is made to engage. It's not just informational, it's not just telling people about what time your services are and what ministries you offer, but to actually foster engagement. Are you seeing that as something that people need to do or how do you see churches doing that now?
[00:05:40] Speaker B: Ian, that's still a big issue with church websites that I come across, is that they may have a mobile responsive website and they may have certain elements that they need to have or content that they need to have, but they're not presenting it in a way for the user, which when we talk about a user on your website, you need to be focused on someone who is checking you out for the very first time. They should be priority number one. That doesn't mean we leave our members in the dust with the website, and that's another subject. You definitely want it to be a tool, but the whole strategy needs to be converting someone into a first time visitor or having them take some sort of a next step. And that means getting to what you talked to. Thomas and we covered it a little bit with mobile. It's one thing if you just have a mobile responsive site, but is the navigation what they're clicking through, is that designed to give them a good experience? Is it putting content that they're interested in front face rather than give you one example? I see a lot of church websites. First thing you come is a big slider with all the events. That assumes that someone who's new and looking for church is already interested in your events. No. So you got to think through these things. It definitely takes a little bit of work and expertise. That's why we love helping churches with it. For sure. But yeah, you want a good user experience, and that doesn't mean just user friendly. That means putting things in front of people that they're looking for and that they're going to do something with.
[00:07:01] Speaker A: And I think the thing to remember with this is that when we talk about user experience, your primary user is people that are not yet a part of your church. Yeah, I mean, church members like, as much as we think they get on our website all the time and check us out, they just don't do that really. I mean, they do that in a pinch to find out what time was that event happening. That's really about the extent of it at this day and age. So you really want to make sure that for someone that's not yet a part of your church that doesn't know who you are, that's the user that you really want to make sure they have a great experience. And case in point, events as a big slider, as a big no no, that was so eight years ago. Probably doing those kinds of things. All right, next up is it's probably time to consider a content refresh. This is something that I think you need to probably visit on your site and the things that you're saying about your church every once in a while. Content is king, as we say in the industry. So what are we thinking here, Ian?
[00:07:57] Speaker B: Yeah, lots of stuff. Content is, of course, a big, broad topic that we don't have time to dig into all of those ins and outs on this podcast. But like you said, evaluate your content, I think is the first step. First of all, make sure is it still up to date? Is it relevant? Meaning, do you have old ministries that are not ministries anymore on your website? But then I think it's thinking of maybe some new creative things. Like maybe it is getting testimonials and stories from people who've been impacted at your church. Maybe it is considering a blog and that will take some work as we've talked a lot about.
But definitely making sure events are definitely up to date, sermons are up to date. This is all content. And then it's text, it's video.
Definitely video. I would say if you don't have much video on your website, and again, this is easy to pull off, even for a small church that doesn't have a big media team. There are things like welcome videos you can do easily. There's a lot of things that are very low cost effective. So again, video is one of the many things, but those are just a few ideas that we can rattle off at least quickly for now, yeah.
[00:09:09] Speaker A: I like the testimonies idea. I think that that's something that is, if I'm going to look at one trend that I see happening for all websites out there, focusing on testimonies, text, video, testimonies, everything, just having that. And I think churches are a great place to have testimonials on the site. It helps people kind of build up courage to visit for the first time when they see people that look like them having a great experience at your church. So good stuff. That's it. All right. Revisit your online giving. That's the next one here. I think it's time every year. You should probably take a look at this. What is that online giving experience like? Is it intuitive? Is it not too in your face, but at the same time not too hidden? Lots of questions around that. What advice would you have for people, Ian?
[00:09:51] Speaker B: Oh, man. It comes to mind. I always chuckle when I think of this. A long time ago, when you and I were helping churches with websites years and years back, one strategy I saw was a pastor on the home page with a very nice suit leaning against a golden pillar and underneath his feet. And the pillar is where you select the amount to give. We don't recommend that strategy, but we're talking about more than that. But you're right. Revisit it. Look at how it's being presented. One of the things we don't like is, I will say most churches. Let me take a step back. Most churches have online giving now on their websites. I still run into a few that are resistant. It's another subject. But what I see the most is how the online giving is being presented. And yes, you want that functional and secure. Make sure you're using a good giving provider. But at the same time, when someone clicks to give, does it just go straight to giving? Or are you talking about what giving means to your church and what it means to the giver?
Do you have content that is showing that your church is not just all about receiving the money, but how are you giving back to the community you're serving? What does it mean spiritually? So a lot of the storytelling behind the giving is a key thing, but definitely you want to make sure it's up to date, it's functional, and that your giving platform you're using is going to meet the needs of the people wanting to give.
[00:11:16] Speaker A: Good stuff. Yeah. All right. I think most churches are doing some kind of multimedia, obviously live streaming. A lot of them are doing that. We've said before on episodes and other videos that we're not huge fans of live streaming for most churches, but it is something that a lot of churches do take a foy into. And at a minimum, you're putting your, almost every church is putting videos of their sermons online at this point. So what should we be doing a checkup on there? When it comes to multimedia, I'm glad.
[00:11:46] Speaker B: You said how we often recommend that most churches don't do it. And I think there's a lot to be said for this. But to keep it simple for our podcast today is just that we have seen since the pandemic, live streaming grow into something more positive, meaning churches up their game with it. They had to rely upon it during the pandemic. And a lot of churches through that, they put a lot into their production, and they got it dialed in, where when I say dialed in, it looks good. The quality is good with live streaming, but I think that's a big thing, is they could hurt you more than help you if the quality of the live streaming and how it's being conveyed from the website is not good. And that's why we say, and multimedia, it could be that you do a good job of recording audio messages and keeping those up to date on website that still has value. Now, if you can do video great, and it maybe doesn't have to be live, it could be on demand video sermons, it could be those things. But again, I think that you got to kind of see what you can pull off in house at a church to know what's best for you there.
[00:12:53] Speaker A: Yeah, good stuff. All right, next one. And this is kind of my area that I kind of dabble into more, a little bit. But SEO optimization, that's something that I think that churches need to get pretty serious about that. It's no secret that for my church that I was pastoring most recently, that was some of our secret sauce. Whether through using the $10,000 a month Google grant or really hitting local search engine optimization really hard. We were a small church that went from 30 to about 150 and became the most visible online church in our entire community by really not even working too hard, but just following some of these SEO best practices. Here's the trick, is that most churches don't pay a lot of attention to SEO. So that makes ranking for things actually much easier than you would expect, as opposed to in harder industries. So if you tried to rank in the life insurance industry, it's next to impossible. And people pay upwards of $250 a click to Google for people just to click onto your website for those kinds of keywords around life insurance and those things for churches, it's a totally different ballgame. And that's actually a good news, is that it's not as hard as it is in other industries. So get serious about this. There's a few things that you can do. We ran this experiment just the other day with one of our clients where they were having a hard time ranking in local searches and on Google Ads. And so what we did is we actually took one of their landing pages, their new here page, and we used their city name, so they were in Pittsburgh. And so we did churches in the Pittsburgh area. Churches in Pittsburgh, Pa. Pittsburgh churches. We used those terms a bit. We didn't stuff it in there, but we used those terms on their churches for you page, or they're looking for a church near you page. And we saw an immediate increase in the number of people that were visiting the page. And people were filling out a form saying they want to come and visit. It was really cool to see that kind of stuff. So little changes like that for churches can go a long way. So start talking and thinking about some of that. If you're looking for some help, we have a bunch of services we offer here at reachwright. We'd be happy to help you with some of that. If you want to dig in deeper or just looking for some input, they should feel free to give us a ring, right?
[00:15:10] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:15:12] Speaker A: Next one is cybersecurity. A little bit of a strange one, but I think it's good to have an annual checkup on this area because cybersecurity doesn't really matter in your day to day until it does, right, until you have that issue. And over the years, we have seen horror stories about churches that didn't take their cybersecurity seriously. We've seen church websites replaced with pornography sites. We've seen just all kinds of church websites go down. We've seen people lose their domain and someone else snatch it up, and they basically lose all of their online presence because of it. But yeah. Would you agree? And we got to get any advice on what we should do cybersecurity wise on an annual basis.
[00:15:57] Speaker B: Just make sure your plugins, your software is up to date, make sure you got good secure hosting, making sure you're using the right passwords. Yeah, those are some of the main things.
[00:16:08] Speaker A: Passwords are one that we see a lot of churches, I got to be honest, because sometimes people will just throw us their password. We don't ever ask for passwords, but with our clients, sometimes they'll just send us a password to get in there. And I can't tell you how many their times are just all lowercase Jesus or something like that. That it's just stuff that's so easily hacked and it's just by God's grace that they're not yet. So take a second, get into all your website and everything and make sure that you have strong passwords. Do an annual checkup on that. I think you'll sleep a lot easier if you do some of that. I'll sleep easier at least. Yeah. Anyway, last one up is we have social media integration. This is something that is pretty important. So any thoughts on that?
[00:16:56] Speaker B: Make sure that you just link people out to your social media channels. And that's really the main thing. It used to be we pulled in a lot of social media, but mainly just making sure they're visible most of the time in the footer sufficient. And then, yeah, you want to make.
[00:17:09] Speaker A: Sure that they're integrated and you want to make sure that they have the same brand on your social media platforms and on your website. I think putting those two together, I think it really goes a long way. So, yeah, that's just some ideas. Anything to say as we wrap up, Ian?
[00:17:22] Speaker B: No, we hope this stuff was helpful.
[00:17:25] Speaker A: Yeah, that's it. Well, good. Thanks, guys, for being a part of the family. If this has been helpful to you, hit that subscribe button and thanks. We'll see you next time. See ya.
