Live sermons, online prayer groups, and interactive resources available through a Church website can help develop a sense of spirituality for members online.
With so many platforms and design options available, creating a church website that truly reflects your church's unique spirit can feel overwhelming. A church website builder should offer the tools to design and publish a church website easily.
It should be able to build and manage a church website with no coding experience, receive donations, and integrate it with social media channels to help church members connect.
In this blog, we will equip you with the essential components and considerations for designing a church website. We will also look at how Pixpa helps build a perfect church website that has a unique and fresh design yet maintains traditional church values.
Do Church Websites Really Matter?
Nowadays, it is vital to build relationships both online and offline. We could even say that to develop a real connection, digital modes such as social media show more promising signs.
If an individual shows interest, they are more likely to research and find relevant information about it online. The same can be said for churches, which is why creating a church website is important.
Church websites are a great medium for communicating with fellow church members and extending the church's outreach to the masses.
You've really got to think about how people find churches.
It mainly involves research. People search for church websites online by quickly entering a query on Google or social media channels. This saves a lot of time and effort for people who would otherwise have to physically visit churches.
In today's digital world, creating a good first impression matters a lot, and it can be achieved online through a professionally designed church website. A church web design must feature a clear and concise message, should be simple to navigate, and, most importantly, must be mobile-friendly.
Looking to build a church website? Solution - Church website builders!
Pixpa is one of the best website builders for designing great church websites. Choose from our range of 150+ highly customizable templates and create a fully functional website within minutes.
What Are the Benefits of Church Websites?
Building a church website can benefit your congregation in multiple ways:
- You can keep your congregation members informed with updates, events, and uplifting content like sermons, podcasts, and virtual tours.
- You can foster a sense of belonging with online groups, forums, and prayer groups. Your church website can be a space for sharing, encouragement, and spiritual growth for your church community.
- You can effectively use church websites to list volunteering opportunities and allow fellow members to join without hassle.
- You can upload recordings of past sermons on your church website, making it easy for members to catch up or revisit teachings.
- You can display your church's mission statement, share service times and locations, and answer their questions.
- You can empower your community to actively participate in the church's mission.
- You can allow members to give tithes or offerings by creating an online donation page through your church website.
Considerations Before Building a Church Website
Here's a rundown on some of the essential factors you should take into consideration while planning on creating a successful church website:
1. Getting the right message across to the right people
Broadly, church websites cater to two groups, each with its own requirements.
The first one is the one which is made up of regular attendees and members of the church. More often than not, they use the website to look for future events and various church ministries.
The second is the people who dig up to gain information about the church. This group is considering going to the church and wants to know the location (directions, a proper address, or both). They also would like to know the church's service periods, teachings, and practices.
The church website you are building should meet these requirements. Your audience should be able to find the information they are looking for easily.
2. Accurate representation of the church
Different churches have their practices, beliefs, and cultures, and people want to know what to expect if they go to a service center at the church.
They would like to know beforehand if the church is conventional and formal, or modern and informal.
Church websites should also be able to communicate the right message to people who have never been to the church before. It should be able to communicate the traditions and culture well.
3. Information about church services and contact details
About church’s services
Everything about the church's services, like the timings, date, and address, should be available on the website. Website visitors should be able to easily navigate around the church website and figure out how, when, and where to visit the church.
In case there are multiple services in the church, details about the same must be available on the website for people who have never been to any service. The navigation should be simple for locating this information, involving only a few clicks from the site's homepage.
About church’s ministries
Moreover, website visitors would also be interested in knowing about the church's ministries. Such information could be helpful for the attendees and members of the church who are searching for ways to get included. It could also be helpful for the newly joined members who want to learn more about what the church offers or if they are looking to join a church ministry.
Basic information about different ministries and the contact information of those in charge should be available.
Contact information
A church website should have a contact number, email address, and contact forms. Furnishing details like pastors' and staff members' contact information can also be helpful.
A beautifully designed website
Last but not least, the visual appeal of the church website is equally important. A responsive format that works on all devices is essential.
What to Include on Your Church Website
Now that you know what makes a good church website, let's dive into the essential components of a church website, why you need them, and how to include them.
- Church’s mission and vision
- Church’s history
- Church calendar
- Donation page
- Volunteer page
- Church services page
- Beautiful design
- Search engine optimization
- Sign up buttons
- Social media integration
Church’s mission and vision
It's important to showcase and be transparent about your church's beliefs. To do that, adding a mission and vision statement to your church website is of paramount significance.
It can help build trust with church members and the community.
You can furnish details like why the church was formed in the mission statement. And you can explain where you see yourself going in the vision statement.
Church’s history
People would love to know your church's history. Adding a dedicated page for describing the history of your church is recommended. It can talk in detail about the year of establishment, the early years, the church building, worship, membership, community involvement, the role of women in ministry, youth, music, men's fellowship, etc.
The church's history can be a part of your About Us page. Or, you can create a separate page if you wish.
Creating a good history page is always a good idea as people are emotionally and spiritually connected to a church, which can boost your online presence.
Church calendar
If the date and timings are correctly listed on your website, your members may not attend services. Your leadership often assumes that everyone would probably know when services start, but many community members do not drive by your church due to a lack of information.
In addition, other events and programs for your church should also be shared on your website. You can have a calendar embedded on their website. You can also provide links to each program with detailed information and their classes, service days, and times so your members know the church schedule.
Donation page
The traditional method of gathering tithes and offerings is passing around the offering plate. But, it has become an arduous process to collect guns with far fewer people carrying cash these days, with digital payments taking center stage.
A church website can allow tithes and offerings online.
Pull breaks from spending your precious time asking for money during your service; instead, your church website can always do that work. For instance, you can use PayPal to collect online donations.
Volunteer page
Churches often rely on volunteers for various purposes, such as office work, Sunday school teaching, music, and cleaning.
More often than not, potential volunteers hear about these opportunities by word of mouth.
Church websites should have a dedicated webpage defining each volunteer role and detailing how people volunteer with your church. Your church members and the public would thank you for how simple and easy it is to find what they need.
Church services page
A virtual church is essential today when people are looking for streaming services due to busy schedules and the fact that they cannot pay a visit.
Church authorities should look for uploading sermon recordings on the website. You can add a link to your YouTube Channel, or share Vimeo, or even include a Spotify Podcast channel where you live stream the church's services or upload your virtual church services.
Beautiful design
A good church website must be visually appealing. Choose a template that suits the look and feel of a church website.
Images are the central element of a nonprofit website. A church website is no different. Therefore, the homepage's hero image must be carefully pondered over. It makes a great first impression. Viewers check the homepage and then decide their next course of action.
Images of your church, prayer meeting, etc., make it an immersive experience for the viewers. They spend more time on it, and user engagement improves.
Search engine optimization
Optimize your website for search engines so potential visitors can easily find you online. SEO may be a low priority, but adding keywords and internal and external website links will help rank your website higher on Google and search engines. This ranking makes it easy for new attendees to find your church.
Sign up buttons
Your church may have many online and offline events lined up in the coming months. How do you ensure that participation is on the higher side?
Your website event signup buttons can be good for a call to action on your homepage or Events page, resulting in many signups on your website. For instance, you can add MailChimp for signup forms.
Social media can be very influential in marketing church activities and raising money. With a good following on social media, churches can create groups for members to connect.
Adding social media links on your church website makes it easier for parishioners to look for your church's Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts.
Social media integration
Social media can be very influential in marketing church activities and raising money. With a good following on social media, churches can create groups for members to connect.
Adding social media links on your church website makes it easier for parishioners to look for your church’s Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts.
How to Choose the Right Church Website Builder (And Why Pixpa Fits the Bill)
When opting for the best church website builder, look at the following considerations:
#1. Affordability
The affordability and budget constraints should be the top focus. Look for a website builder that provides you with free versions or a free trial.
Remember that most free versions don't give you essential functions like accepting donations or branding your website. Then, find out the price to upgrade to the premium plan and ensure it is affordable.
#2. User-friendliness
Then, look at the design and management tools provided by the website builder and gauge whether it is user-friendly for your staff. The level of knowledge and experience of your staff members and volunteers is a crucial thing to consider.
A drag-and-drop builder is suitable for churches since the availability of staff members and volunteers with coding experience becomes tricky. Regularly maintaining a website with a no-code DIY website builder makes it easy.
#3. Quintessential features
Lastly, look at the added features of the church website builder you opt for. Cross-channel marketing tools would be needed to keep parishioners informed throughout the week or attract new members. Ensure your website builder has good marketing tools, SEO tools, app integrations, etc.
What Are the Features That Qualify Pixpa as the Best Church Website Builder?
Pixpa is an all-in-one, no-code website builder that can work wonders for creating a perfect Church website without any coding experience. It is a user-friendly and versatile website-building platform with many features and templates suitable for a church website.
Pixpa is loaded with features like a drag-and-drop interface, beautiful templates, a built-in store, a blog, ecommerce galleries, client galleries, a mobile gallery app, marketing and SEO tools, app integrations, and much more. A perfect church website builder, right?
Let's take a brief look at all the features Pixpa offers:
1. Drag-and-drop interface
Pixpa offers you a drag-and-drop interface, making it easy for users with varying levels of technical expertise to launch and customize their church website design easily.
2. Templates
Pixpa gives you over 150+ gorgeous templates to choose from. You get templates designed for various categories, including religious organizations like churches.
Take a look at these church website templates:
Unity
Unity has a nice and easy look on the eyes with simple menu options. It also has essential components for a church, so you don't have to start from scratch, such as an online donation page, events list, spiritual blogs, gallery of images, sign-up form, and more.
Chapel
Chapel is suitable for churches with a rich and long-standing history. The template allows you to share information about the church's history, ministries, and upcoming events without adding sections on the homepage from scratch.
Rosary
Rosary is suitable for churches that conduct regular live streamings and are actively raising money online. Along with the hero image, it gives you a donation sign-up button as CTA and live streaming links. It also makes adding details about church services in preset columns easy.
Mercury
Mercury has a modern look and feel and is excellent for churches looking to add all the essential components on a single page. Visitors get everything at one go before exploring menu links and diving deeper.
You can add details about the church's mission and vision statement, ministries, upcoming events, donations, sign-up buttons, contact buttons, and more on a single page.
Advent
Advent gives you a dynamic page layout. It offers a slideshow of church-related images in the hero section. It attracts a new-age group of people with its minimalistic design. It allows you to add all the necessary information, such as the church's history, events, blogs, donations, newsletters, and more.
Browse Community and non profit templates from Pixpa here
3. DIY page builder
Pixpa offers a dynamic page builder that allows users to create and manage pages easily with drag-and-drop tools. For instance, it helps create event pages for promoting church events, workshops, and activities.
4. Blog
Pixpa's out-of-the-box blog helps you share devotionals, news, or updates.
5. Gallery
You can choose from over 20+ layouts to add a gallery of images, videos, and text slides related to the church.
6. Marketing and SEO tools
Pixpa offers built-in marketing tools like marketing popups, announcement bars, mobile action bars, WhatsApp widgets, etc., to guide attendees about important church-related happenings.
It also offers built-in SEO tools to help you optimize your website for search engines and make it easier for people to find your church online.
7. Integrations
Pixpa offers 100+ app integrations to extend your church website's possibilities. You can add a donation button, events calendar, live streaming link, sermon playlist, newsletter sign-up form, social links, and more.
8. Support
Pixpa offers 24/7 live customer support and a knowledge base to assist you round-the-clock and help you navigate any challenges you might encounter while managing your church website.
To access the complete set of Pixpa's features, check out our features list here.
In Search of the Best Website Designs? Explore Our Curated Examples!
How to Build a Church Website With Pixpa
Simply follow the steps below:
- Get started by signing up for a 15-day free trial with Pixpa.
- Choose a template for your church website from over 150+ templates
- Add pages for About Us, History, Events, Gallery, Ministries, Blog, etc., and start adding your content.
- Integrate apps for adding donation buttons, social media links, sermons, events, church membership signup buttons, etc.
- Leverage built-in marketing tools and SEO tools for letting your church be found online easily and better visibility of your church activities.
- Post the free trial, start your subscription by choosing from all-inclusive, affordable plans, and go live.
Explore Our Essential How-To Guides Right Here!
Ready to Build a Great Church Website?
Creating a church website is a rewarding journey. With some planning, creativity, and dedication, you can create a digital space that reflects your church’s spirit and welcomes all who seek faith and connection.
As mentioned above, a great starting point will be to choose the right church website builder that offers great features at the best rates. Make sure to include the necessary components and follow the steps, and you will be good to go.
Ready to start building your church website with Pixpa? Let Pixpa empower you to design a church website that truly reflects the heart of your church and welcomes all who seek faith and connection.
FAQ
How much does it cost to build a church website?
It will cost you anywhere between $1,000 - $10,000 dollars if you're approaching a website developer to create a website. However, website builders prove to be a more affordable way to build church websites.
For instance, Pixpa's pricing plan starts from $3.60 a month, proving to be a much cheaper option when compared to hiring a website developer.
How to build a church website for free?
There are website builders out there that offer free plans, but you are restricted to features such as unwanted ads, poor bandwidth, security concerns, and much more.
We would recommend going for a website builder as it is more of a budget-friendly option and, as well, provides all the necessary features required to design a great church website.
What should be on a church website?
Make sure to include the following when designing your church website:
- Church's mission and vision
- Church's history
- Church calendar
- Donation page
- Volunteer page
- Church services page
- Contact information
About Us page
How to make a website for a church?
Build a fully functional church website by following these steps:
- Pick and register your domain name.
- Choose the best church website builder to start building your church website. Sign up for Pixpa and get a 15-day free trial.
- Choose a template and start customizing it according to your preference.
- Start adding pages such as About Us, History, Events, Gallery, Ministries, Blog, etc., and begin including keyword optimized content.
- Add donation buttons, social media links, sermons, events, church membership signup buttons, etc by way of app integration.
- Utilize built-in marketing and SEO tools for visibility in the search engine result pages.
- Test your church website and ask for constant feedback.