6 quick tests to improve your church website

Got loads to do? Know your church website could really do with some attention? 

Here’s six quick ways to identify how you can instantly improve your church or benefice website in 2026 – without spending lots of money or rebuilding anything, or running a big user testing project. 

Having a church or benefice website that works well for your audience is often not about a beautiful new design or major update. It’s about a website where all the links work, the information is up to date and easy to understand, and presented within a simple and accessible design. Testing annually, using our tests below, is a great way to make sure you are doing that. 

You’ll find something relevant in this list whether you use AChurchNearYou.com as your main website or have a separate site as your main website. (You can also explore these tests alongside some visual examples in this webinar recording segment) 

1. The task test

What is the most important thing you want people to do on your website right now?

This could be:

• Find the service times for this Sunday
• Give online
• Sign up to your newsletter

Whatever it is, ask someone who has nothing to do with the running of the website to try doing that task on the website while you watch. You’ll be amazed at what you learn! 

You can say something like “Show me how you would find where and when our services are this Sunday”.

They should use whatever device they normally use when they’re going online.

Ask them to verbalise what they’re thinking as they make decisions about what to open and click. But try not to interrupt, guide or help them, or explain anything. 

Where you see them struggling is where you can fix something. For example, maybe they didn’t understand the menu headings – do you need work on making the language clearer or reorganising where pages sit?

Maybe they looked on the homepage first but couldn’t find anything – whatever it is, think about how you can action it. Probably best to test similarly with a few different people before making any significant changes. But even 3-5 people is usually enough to start to spot trends. 

2. The switch test

Do you always view and edit your church or benefice website on your work laptop, always using the same browser? 

Whatever you normally use, today try viewing on something different. Switch browser, or switch device. You may find things display differently, or don’t work as well on mobile as they did on desktop. You can often instantly find things to improve this way. 

3. The click test

Make it your challenge to try and click on every single link on your website. You will find at least one link that is broken, and doesn’t go anywhere – page not found. Probably another link that doesn’t go where you expected. And another link that goes to a page that is no longer up to date. 

Then you can fix that link – remove it or link it to something more up to date. Easy!  

4. The search test

When did you last google the name of your church or benefice? Or search for ‘churches in [name of area]’. Try it today and see what comes up (see an example of a results page below). Then you’ll be able to check the intro/summary text in your search entry, Google Business Profile, AChurchNearYou entry and any social media entries are all aligned and up to date, with correct links showing. 

5. The newbie test

Find a friend or family member who hasn’t been to your church – preferably someone who hasn’t ever been to church much. 

Ask them to look at the homepage and especially the event/service listings and ask them if they understand what everything is. 

You could say something like, “Does this text make sense to you?”

Two to watch out for: 

• We often call our toddler groups special names that we know and love, like ‘Caterpillars’ or ‘Teddy Bears’ – but if you haven’t put in the summary blurb about the event to explain that this is actually a toddler group, people won’t recognise it is for them if they haven’t been before. This is an easy text change to implement if it is missing. 
• People new to church may not know what some ‘churchy’ terms mean – this doesn’t mean you can’t use them but it’s good to explain them. As Winifred Evans writes: “Jargon and out-of-date websites unite to confound the uninitiated…For a generation used to finding information online, clear and accurate websites or social media make church significantly more accessible.” Read more in this Church Times article. 

6. The accessibility test

You can have substantial, up to date information on your website – but that’s no good if only some people can read it. 

There are lots of aspects to website accessibility, but a good way to start is to check:

• Is there good contrast between background colour and text colour throughout? If you’re not sure, ask someone who can’t see as well as you can. Off-white is a good choice for backgrounds. 
• Have you added alt text to all of your images? Alt text is a text description of important visual elements in an image, in case it doesn’t load or someone with visual impairment is using a screen reader.
• If important information is written on a graphic, have you also written that (as caption or alt text) for someone who finds that hard to see or cannot read it? Clear, on-page text is more accessible than text locked up in a beautiful graphic or PDF, or written over a photo.

 - Rachel Roberts, Senior Digital Communications Manager