Designing a top-notch church website isn’t just about throwing some cool graphics or some flash-based template onto the web. There’s a lot more involved in creating a good design. In this article, we’ll show you seven website design best practices. Each of Sharefaith’s church website maintains these website best practices. It’s easy to see why Sharefaith church websites are a top choice for churches wanting top-rated websites.
Seven Church Website Design Best Practices
With our team of genius web developers, rockstar graphic designers, and award-winning programmers, we’ve picked up a thing or two. We’ve reaped some of the best information available. We’ve brainstormed, tested, desgigned, and developed. In the end, we’ve created a collection of church websites that feature the best in design and functionality. Here are the best practices that we have implemented in our church websites.
- Put the church name and logo at the top left. Website readers look at a website from top to bottom and from left to right—kind of like they’re reading a book. The most important information on the church website is the church name and logo itself. Put it in the prime location: the top right corner.
- Navigation bar must be located near the top. Although some websites prefer a vertical navigation down the left side, the best form of navigation is the horizontal bar. When a visitor lands on your website, they will immediately look for navigation. Place it prominently at the top so they can’t miss it. Obviously, you’re going to have subpages, too. These can be featured in drop-down menus. It’s an awesome way to give visitors a bird’s eye view of the website, and quickly help them go exactly where they need to go.
- Have eye candy. Don’t scoff at it. Visual appeal is a huge part of a website. In all honesty, if I encounter a shoddy-looking website, I’m just going to click out of it. I don’t have time for it. There’s got to be some “wow” appeal going on with your website. This will draw visitors in, engage their interest, and help them understand that you’re serious about what you’re doing. The best form of “eye candy” are the large sliding banners featured on Sharefaith church websites. We’ve predesigned hundreds of these web banners, meaning that you have instant graphic design power to launch a jaw-dropping church website. Keep the eye candy going with sidebar banners on subpages. And, yeah, we have matching sidebars for that, too. Here’s a youth-themed website with some great eye candy.
- Social media links. Social media is an integral part of a church’s reach. If your church website does not have an active social media link, then your church website is missing an extremely important activity/community feel. Get it up there.
- Navigation: Take 2. When a church website visitor gets done reading all the copy on a website, they will probably be at the bottom of the web page. Rather than force them to scroll all the way to the top again to find the next page that they want to visit, just place the navigation bar at the bottom. Your goal is to help visitors find where they need to go. Place the menu bar at the bottom again, and retain the order and content of the pages/links. See how this website has the same navigation bar at the top and the bottom.
- Search bar. A website should be searchable. A visitor may not want to take a lot of time to search for “church constitution.” You can make your website searchable with a easy-to-find search bar at the top of the website.
- Keep the same navigation and look going throughout the whole website. Nothing is more annoying on a church website than clicking to a subpage and feeling the jolt of a different design or navigation. If your pages have a different navigation bar on subsequent pages, you are going to annoy visitors, lose visitors, and create disjunctive church website experience. Not good. In addition, you should keep the overall graphical look of the church website uniform. Matching sidebars/banners, same color schemes, consistent navigation bar, etc., are all important components for a uniform church website look.
Obviously, this is just scratching the surface of a great website design. There are many other factors involved in developing good church website design. Sharefaith church websites are designed with each of these seven best practices in mind. Every single one of our website templates feature the best in church website design.
For the best in church website design today, get started with a Sharefaith church website. The cost of a website is absolutely nothing for Sharefaith members. Hosting fees are extremely competitive.