Why this matters
After this walkthrough you will be able to rebuild your church homepage from words your church already uses, move the three things a first-time guest needs to the top, cut what pushes them down, and do the whole edit by hand in about 30 minutes. No new copy to write and no redesign required.
What blocks most churches is not design talent. It is that the homepage grew one announcement at a time, so the service time a guest came for now sits under a login portal and a photo of a building that is not yours. The fix is reordering, not rebuilding.
At a glance
- You can do this edit by hand in about 30 minutes, no redesign and no new copy.
- The three answers a guest needs, where, when, and what to expect, earn the top of the page.
- Everything aimed at members, not guests, moves lower or gets cut.
- In our 2026 State of Small Church Websites study, 83.9% of small church websites make service times findable, so the content usually exists, it just needs to move up.
What you need before you start
- Your church bulletin from a recent Sunday.
- Your welcome card or guest card, if you have one.
- The first thing you say from the stage on a Sunday morning, written down.
- Access to edit your homepage, or whoever holds the login sitting next to you.
- A phone, to check the result the way a guest will see it.
The step-by-step
Step 1: Gather the words you already use
Open your bulletin, your welcome card, and the first thing you say from the stage on a Sunday. Copy those sentences into one document. You are not writing anything new yet, you are collecting the plain language your church already speaks to guests. If the page editor shows a "permission required" message, you need edit access first, so grab the volunteer who holds the login.
Step 2: Answer the three questions a guest has
A first-time guest wants to know where you meet, when you meet, and what happens when they walk in. Write one plain sentence for each, pulled from the words you just gathered. If you cannot answer one of the three from your own materials, that gap is the first thing to fix, because a guest will hit the same wall.
Step 3: Move those three answers to the top
Put service times, address, and a short what-to-expect line above the fold, the part of the page that shows before anyone scrolls. These three answers earn the top because they are exactly what a guest came to find. You should end up with a top of the page a stranger could read in ten seconds and know whether to come Sunday.
Step 4: Cut everything that is not for a guest
Login portals, giving drives aimed at members, committee notes, and stock photos of a building that is not yours all push the three answers down. Move them lower or remove them. Say a family pulls in at 10:20 on a Sunday and checks the site from the car; a shorter homepage helps them decide before service starts. If removing something feels risky, move it to a second page rather than deleting it.
Step 5: Add one clear next action
Pick the single thing you want a guest to do next: plan a visit, see service times, or watch a service. Make it one button with plain words. Two competing buttons make a guest choose, and a guest who has to choose often leaves. If you already have four buttons at the top, that is the sign you have too many, keep one.
Step 6: Read it on your phone
Open the draft on your phone, the way most guests will. Check that the three answers show without scrolling, the button is easy to tap, and the page loads before you lose patience. Fix anything that fails that test. If the page is slow or the text is tiny on your phone, hold the edit and get the layout working first; a cleaner homepage on a broken layout only highlights the problem.
Quick audit checklist
- Service times show above the fold on a phone.
- Your address or meeting location is visible without scrolling.
- One short what-to-expect line is near the top.
- There is exactly one clear next action, not three.
- Nothing aimed only at members sits above the three guest answers.
- The homepage copy matches the words you say on Sunday.
- The page loads and the button is easy to tap on a phone.
Frequently asked questions
Do we need to hire someone to redesign the whole site?
No. Most of the gain on a church homepage comes from reordering and cutting what is already there, not a full rebuild. A volunteer can move the three answers a guest needs to the top and trim the rest in about 30 minutes. A redesign is worth it later, but it is not the first step.
What should go at the very top of a church homepage?
Where you meet, when you meet, and one short line about what happens when a guest walks in. In our 2026 State of Small Church Websites study, 83.9% of small church websites make service times findable, which is a good baseline, but findable is not the same as being the first thing a guest sees.
Should we invent new, polished marketing copy?
No. The best homepage words are the ones your church already says. Pull from your bulletin, your welcome card, and the first thing you say from the stage on Sunday. Guests trust plain language that matches the room they will walk into more than they trust polished phrases.
Where this connects in our work
- See a sample homepage mock-up for how the three guest answers get moved to the top from a church's own words.
- Our 2026 State of Small Church Websites study for where the 83.9% service-times figure comes from and how small church websites compare.
- Get a homepage review for a plain look at what a first-time guest sees before they decide to come.
Next step
If you want to see your own homepage rebuilt from your own words before you touch it yourself, we can show you a mock-up first.