

The State of Church Websites: Insights from a Comprehensive Audit of 2,725 Churches
The State of Church Websites: Insights from a Comprehensive Audit of 2,725 Churches
Table of Contents
Introduction
When I started One Eighty Digital over 7 years ago, I started with a desire to ease the burden of churches by helping them with their digital presence through effective church websites. I saw how pastors were overburdened by trying to be “become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.” (1 Cor. 9:22) and balance the growing digital needs of a functioning non-profit. This was a stress I felt while I was in ministry full time and I knew pastors needed to focus on shepherding their congregations and not upkeeping websites, even as the world was growing to be more digital dependent. I wanted to be a digital solution to real problems for both churches big and small. So I named our company One Eighty Digital for this reason, A 180 is an “about face”, it means to turn and head in the opposite direction than you were going. I knew when I started One Eighty that things were not going well digitally in the church and things needed help turning around. I knew that the ongoing analog to digital ministry transition was going to be difficult for most churches and they would need help using emerging online tools to reach people with the Gospel through their church websites. Learn more about One Eighty.
With the rise of “digital natives”, those who were born after the wide-spread adoption of the internet in the mid 1990’s, the needs for a church to have effective church websites and a digital outreach strategy has grown more and more relevant. Research has shown that only 21% of churches think they have an effective digital strategy. So, if churches were going to reach the next generation and continue to survive and thrive they must have a quality online presence as most people today start with an online search when looking for a church, according to Pew Research. Marketing experts have repeatedly shown that a good website is at the heart of every effective digital marketing strategy. So we knew that in order for churches to be effective online, it would start with their church websites. Building an effective website requires branding, messaging, design, and strategy. All things that churches often struggle with. This also tells us that a church’s website acts as a small window inside the overall health of a church and its ability to move into the coming digital future.
Initially we scoured the internet looking for stats around this data to help us get an idea of how things were going. Unable to find the reliable information we were looking for, in January of 2024 our agency decided to take on a monumental project. The heart of the project was to take a “digital pulse” on church websites across a large segment of rural, urban, and suburban churches. We decided to do a website audit on every church, from a single denomination, across an entire state. We knew this data would give us a large enough sample size to draw some accurate conclusions about the overall digital church related to that denomination. So armed with a comprehensive list of churches, we felt we had the tools, resources, and experience to accomplish this task and put some hard numbers to what we were already seeing in the field. This data would give us a clear picture of each church we audited, but even more, the data would also give us insights into cities, counties, regions, and even the state as a whole. So we put our hands to the plow to audit 2725 church websites. It took a 5 person team 3 months and over 100 hours to accomplish. And the numbers that began to emerge were truly shocking.
The 10 Criteria We Evaluated
Below we’ve listed our 10 audit criteria with brief explanations for each
1. Presence of a Website
We started with the most basic question, did the churches actually have a website? Did they have an online presence that could be found by search engines. Armed with the church’s name and address, we searched using those criteria to find the answer. In our audit, we did not count a facebook page as a publicly accessible web presence as it requires a facebook account to access and is not able to be fully controlled by the church. As most church visits begin with a search, it is fundamental for a church to have a public digital web presence to even show up on the search engines results page. If they don’t show up on a search results page, they are missing out on potential visitors and the potential growth of their church is greatly stunted.
Learn More: 10 reasons why a facebook pages make terrible websites
2. Quality Design
The second thing we looked at was the quality of the design. For us this meant did the site design show intentionality. This included coordinating colors, layouts, backgrounds, and sections. Why is this important? Simply put, good design builds trust. If a site isn’t designed well, it subconsciously communicates to the viewer that people don’t care about their website. This translates into their ability to trust the organization to do what the visitor was looking to do. For churches it is a reflection of what the visitor might experience if they were to visit the church on a Sunday. Moreover the visitor’s first impression is of vital importance as it shapes how they see everything that follows. Good first impressions lead to good first visits. This carries over to a church’s website as well.
3. Mobile Friendliness
The next criteria that is related to how the website displayed on a mobile device. With the majority of website traffic coming from mobile devices, Google has changed to a mobile first approach to indexing websites. And it actively down ranks websites that do not perform well on mobile devices. For us, we were looking for if the site layout adapted to the size of a mobile device in a way where all the information was displayed correctly and fully navigable. This is called “responsive design” and includes the use of a mobile friendly navigation menu.
Learn More: Google will stop indexing non-responsive websites in 2024
4. Modern Branding/Logo
Similar to Quality Design, a logo or branding communicates to the visitor that the organization and their website is professional, trustworthy, and intentional. Logos begin to shape the perception that a person has about an organization. Branding also plays into the first impression metric we talked about above. So we looked at whether the church had an intentional “brand” displayed on their website. Some churches choose to simply go with their name, and while this is a valid choice, it doesn’t help them in the eyes of a potential visitor who is used to seeing other churches and organizations with professional logos. This leads to a lack of trust.
5. Social Media Links
While websites act as a public front door, social media shows more of the day to day life of a church. It also opens the potential for connections to visitors through networking. Churches should have a links to their social media profiles so that willing website visitors can connect in a less formal way and see more of the daily church life. Social media profiles often push traffic to a church’s website, so we looked for simple social media links on all the websites.
Learn More: 11 Easy Wins On Social Media for Churches
6. Online Giving Options
Studies have shown that offering online giving can increase a church’s overall giving by 30% or more. Online giving has a host of benefits and is the expectation for many church attendees. We know there are a lot of choices in the online giving space, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. So we did not favor any provider but were simply looking to see if the church’s website supported or linked to any online giving service provider.
7. Service Times and Locations
One of the most prominent pieces of information a church can provide is service times and location. Not only is this important for potential visitors but also search engines pull this information from websites to display them on maps and business profiles. It is also important that people don’t have to scroll to far to get the information that they are looking for. Churches need to make it easy for visitors to plan a visit by having these details in an easily accessible location. So we looked for these details in a place that
8. Relevant Contact Information
General estimates are that 20-30% of website traffic is just looking for contact information. Church’s need to have it in one of two places, either on a contact page or in the footer of their website. This contact information should include phone, email, and mailing address. Many churches go a step further and opt to include staff contact information as well. Churches play a vital role in their communities and part of reaching that community requires being able to be contacted when they have a need. Search engines also need this information to display search results pages and maps. So we looked for an email, phone, or mailing address in the website’s footer or on a contact page.
Learn More: Top 10 Most Asked Questions by Churches About Online Marketing
9. Call to Action Buttons
We live in a distracted world where things have to be obvious for people to act. A call to action button communicates the desired action that the website owner thinks you should take. Most often for churches these are buttons that read “Plan Your Visit”, “Get Involved”, “Give”, or “Take Your Next Step”. No matter what it is, it stands out to potential visitors as the most likely action they should take. They play an important role in getting people the information that they are looking for. These buttons should either be placed at the top right of the navigation bar or in the center hero area so as to not make people scroll too much to reach them.
10. Livestream Availability
Finally as a “while you’re in there” point of assessment, we were interested to see how many churches had links to a livestream on their website. While there is still debate about if churches should livestream services and what impact that has to in person attendance, there is no denying that the demand is there. The shift toward online video content has changed many industries. So whether that was streaming to Facebook, Youtube, or another platform, we simply looked for links and language that pointed to where someone could view service online if they so desired. Livestreaming acts as an accessible way for members to join from afar or potential visitors to get a service preview.
Learn More: Livestreaming for Churches
The Big Takeaways
Our data-driven insights from the audit
As we began doing the audits the trends that began to appear that surprised us. We had originally estimated that the percentage of churches without a web presence would be in the range of 20-30% based on our experience. But that percentage grew and grew beyond our initial estimates. Here are the high level insights from our audit.
- 46.3% of the churches have NO website at all
- 68% of churches we audited either had no website at all or a one that is hurting their congregation
- 59% of the churches do not offer any online giving
Of the churches that did have a website…
- 41% had a poorly designed website, 58% had a well designed website
- 14% had a non-responsive website, 85% had a mobile friendly website
- 14% had no logo/branding, 73% had a logo/branding
- 24% had no social media links, 75% had social media links
- 26% had no online giving option, 73% had online giving
- 16% had no times or location posted, 83% had times and location posted
- 12% had no contact information, 87% had contact information
- 51% had no call-to-action button, 48% had a call-to-action
- 60% had no livestreaming option, 39% had livestreaming
The Digital Health Score
Statistics are good, but we knew we needed another way of gauging the overall digital health of these churches. Each of the audit points were not of equal importance. So we decided to weigh each of the audit points and give each church a church health score. This score would be translated into one of three categories, “Digitally Invisible”, “Digitally Deficient”, or “Digital Healthy”. The digitally invisible churches would be those who had no website or digital presence, digitally deficient would be those that had a website but it was hurting and not helping their congregation, and finally digitally healthy would be for the churches that had a website that was helping their congregation grow.
Here is the breakdown in this way.
- 46% of churches are “Digitally Invisible”, meaning they had no website at all.
- 17% of churches are “Digitally Deficient”, meaning they have an outdated website that is hurting not helping their church.
- 35% of churches are “Digitally Healthy”, meaning a website that makes a good first impression and meets web best practices.
Summary: This means that a little over ⅓ or 35% of churches had an online presence that was helping their church grow. Leaving almost ⅔ or 63% with either no website at all or a website that is hurting not helping their congregation
What Do These Findings Mean?
These findings help us identify a key issue facing many churches in revitalization…Online Presence. The online presence of a church is a key factor in them receiving any potential new visitors. The information that we gathered shows that there is much room for improvement. We would never expect a church plant to succeed without a quality online presence and we can’t expect an existing church to thrive without one either. This information shows that churches still struggle to adapt to the digital changes happening in our society. Despite all the resources available to help, many churches still lack the confidence to create and keep up with a quality digital presence. We’ve heard from many church leaders who’ve told us that they don’t feel knowledgeable in this area or they are skeptical about technology. This apprehension leads them to miss out on new vital opportunities for ministry and evangelism, further leading their church into a spiral of plateauing or declining attendance.
As a pastor myself, this data leads me to ask 3 questions…
- How much healthier could church congregations be if they had a quality website?
- How many more people could be reached with the Gospel if more churches had a good online presence that was making a good first impression?
- How much more kingdom ministry could happen with the increased funds that come from offering online giving?
How Can We Change This? / Our New Initiative
Asking this question has motivated us. And at One Eighty Digital, we’re not waiting around for others to try to tackle this problem. As a church-focused digital agency, we have the tools, man-power, and experience to meet this need. On our team, we have over 80 years of combined experience helping churches with their digital needs. We’ve developed both the tools and process to make it easy for churches to have a website that helps their church thrive. So we are committing to help 1000 digitally invisible and deficient churches create or improve their online presence by the year 2030. We’re doing this by offering deeply discounted projects to these churches. We’re calling this initiative, Every Church Online (website coming soon). And we’ve launched a new website to share this goal with the world.
We Need Your Help
With this initiative we’ll do the heavy lifting of contacting the churches and building their websites, we’re asking others to help cover the development costs of working with these churches. Would you consider making a pledge to help churches with their online presence? There is no upfront financial commitment. When we find a church, we’ll reach out to you and share their information and talk about sponsorship. If you’re still interested, we’ll contact the church to start working with them. It’s that simple.
In Conclusion
Working together with this type of kingdom partnership will allow us to impact churches for decades to come. Taking part in the impact that each church can have and seeing churches go from surviving to thriving by reaching new potential visitors online. Together we can help churches answer the digital problem and get them on the path to revitalize their churches. No doubt that impacting 1000 churches in 5 years is an audacious goal, but it’s one that we think we can reach with your help. While we wish the outlook was different, we know that we can do a small part to turn the tide and make a difference for the sake of the Gospel.