Every church leader I’ve ever encountered puts an enormous amount of thought and consideration into who they hire. You don’t just want someone who aligns with your beliefs; you need to know they can lead volunteers. They also need to work closely with other staff members, accept direction and correction, and fit with your staff culture.

Your church has another staff member that should receive the same consideration… your website. I’ve always said that a business’ website should be its most valuable employee. It’s the only part of the organization that never sleeps, takes a vacation, or calls in sick. Visitors see your church website before they ever darken your door, and members use it to stay up to date on activities and announcements. You probably do periodic employee reviews, right? Performing a regular church website evaluation is the best way to make sure your site earns its place on your staff.

What to Include in Your Church Website Evaluation

1. Your Website’s First Impression

Since over 80% of visitors check out your church’s website before they even decide to enter the property, your first task is to look at your site through a visitor’s eyes. What information does it have that a visitor would need in order to feel comfortable at your church?

Can a potential visitor easily find your service times high on your homepage? Once they’ve found the basic information, they should see a button like “I’m New” or “Plan A Visit” that leads to your visitor page.

Want a checklist to help you see your site from a visitor’s perspective? Download my free Visitor Engagement Guide for step-by-step help with the entire visitor journey—from preparing your website, to creating a welcoming environment, to following up in a way that shows you care.

2. Evaluate Your Church Website’s Organization

We’ve all experienced websites that have no logical organization or flow. Information is difficult to find, and the navigation has so many choices you don’t know where to start.

Of course, your site needs to be user-friendly for potential visitors. But if it’s done well, it should also become a central hub for your entire church community.

Think of it this way: would your office staff rather field 87 calls asking about the time and location for an event, or should your website answer that question for them? A well-organized site quickly becomes the default information source for everyone in your organization. In fact, 65% of church members visit their church’s website at least once a month.

When you evaluate your church website’s organization, keep these essentials in mind:

• A clear, simple navigation menu with just a few top-level choices
• Minimal drop-downs—no one should need to play “menu maze”
• An up-to-date calendar with event names, times, and locations
• A search bar so visitors and members can quickly find what they need

3. Design and Branding

If your website is like a staff member, you want it to represent your church well.

Think of this part like making sure it shows up to church dressed appropriately. If your teaching pastor came to preach wearing gym clothes, you’d definitely have questions… or at least wonder what kind of sermon you were about to hear.

In the same way, your website’s design should match your church’s personality. From colors and fonts to images and layout, it should feel like you, not like a template or a leftover from five years ago.

Use Your Brand Guide

Does your church have a brand guide? If not, it’s time to create one. A brand guide helps ensure consistency across all visual materials, both digital and print. It doesn’t have to be long or complicated. At a minimum, it should include:

• Logo usage – guidelines for when and how to use each version
• Fonts – approved typefaces for headlines, subheadings, and body text
• Color scheme – exact hex codes for primary and accent colors

Need inspiration?

Whether your style is classic, modern, or playful, make sure fonts, colors, and layouts stay consistent from page to page. A visitor shouldn’t feel like they’ve stumbled into a different church when they click to your events or children’s ministry page.

And while we’re on the subject of fonts: go easy on the script fonts. Beautiful typography means nothing if people can’t read it.

Photography

Stock images are okay in moderation, but your site should prominently feature your own people and spaces. Show the real building, inside and out, and include images of your congregation (with permission, of course).

Hiring a professional photographer is ideal, but if budget is tight, you may have a church member who’s a professional or hobbyist. Use that gift!

Mobile Friendliness

Yes, it’s 2025… and yes, there are still too many church websites that don’t work well on mobile.

Regularly test your website on various devices—phones, tablets, and different browsers—to make sure everything looks right and functions smoothly. You don’t want service times or forms to appear broken or cut off. That would be… wonky. (Which is, of course, a technical term.)

Complete A Church Website Evaluation

You don’t have to be a tech expert to improve your church website. Sometimes, just stepping back and looking at it with fresh eyes can make all the difference. When you evaluate your site’s first impression, organization, and design, you’ll start to see where it’s serving your mission—and where it might be holding people back.

You could try to remember everything you just read and perform you own church website evaluation, but you don’t have to. We have an fun quiz you can take in under 2 minutes that will do it for you! Just find it below, and keep swimming along!