The Most Important Page On Your Church Website: The Home Page, Part 1

I’ve been reading Jakob Nielsen’s Prioritizing Web Usability (an expensive book - around $30 — but absolutely worth it!) as supplemental reading for the Building Rockin’ Church Websites series … and it’s helped me rethink church Web site home pages.

So this post will probably need to be about 2 or 3 posts on just the subject of home pages. But for the time being, let’s talk about the most important page on your church Web site — the index page, the home page.

Home pages are the most valuable real estate on the Web!

Just like your church’s foyer and your home’s living room, your site’s home page is a critical component for your church’s Web presence. It can either be inviting or intimidating.

Here are some ideas and suggestions for making your home page “comfortable” for your site’s guests:

Determine your priorities – For instance, do you want guests and others to subscribe to your weekly email newsletter, or get connected with a small group/Sunday school class? If so, make sure those elements are prominent.
Keep it simple – Avoid the tendency to make your site’s home page look like a garbled blob of text that is randomly thrown together.
Design for function and purpose with your target audiences in mind.
Don’t use fancy “bells and whistles” – Avoid the temptation of placing flashy, hard-to-maintain graphics and other “gizmos” on your site … often they will just get in the way of your mission and ability to make changes when needed.
Put everything they need or want right at their fingertips – Will your congregation be looking for the weekly fellowship meal menu? Put that where it’s easy to find. Or will your guests want to know about your childcare for services?
Use photos of people and families – Either take candid photos of several church families, or purchase stock photography; photos give your site a personal feel.
Include an attractive photo of your church building — “Attractive” being the key here. If it looks like the David Koresh Compound, then try taking another one.
ALWAYS include first-time guest information – See target audiences and goals
Give something away FREE – I recently did a series about great guest booklets [start here 1, 2, 3, 4], something I did while at Midwestern with good success.

Again, there’s more to talk about concerning home pages. Stay tuned.

See the rest of the Building Rockin’ Church Websites series here.

November 20, 2006 · Filed Under Rockin' Web Sites, Web Site Design

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Comments

2 Responses to “The Most Important Page On Your Church Website: The Home Page, Part 1”

Tom on November 20th, 2006 11:47 am

On stock photography, I’m in my late 20’s and am very cynical about presentation, etc. (So those are my presuppositions that shape how I think.) If I see stock photography on a church website, I run the other way. I’d rather see a poorly designed site using frames and a flash intro than see happy, shiny models on the home page of a church website.

When I see models, I immediately revert to high school mode and think “this must be a church for only cool, beautiful people.”
Cory Miller on November 20th, 2006 12:01 pm

Tom, understand your perspective (I just left my late 20s) … but I’ve served on two church staffs and this has been a recurring and hard issue to deal with. On my church site now, it’s a stock photo. There are problems inherent with using a “real” family … but I tried to choose one who looked “normal.”

It’s a question we all struggle with …