Welcome to a new section of the course! In the last several lessons, we built your website one page at a time: the home page, About page, Visitor's Page, Ministries page, Contact page, and blog. Now we're going to step back and look at the website as a whole.
And we're going to start with a question that shapes every word, photo, and page on your site: Who is your website talking to?
It sounds simple, but it's one of the most overlooked questions in church websites. Many churches build their site without ever really answering it. The result is a website that tries to speak to everyone at once, and ends up connecting with almost no one. In this lesson, we'll talk about how to know your community, define your audience, and connect both to what your church is actually trying to accomplish.
Why Writing to Everyone Reaches No One
Ask most churches who their website is for, and you'll hear something like, "Everyone! We want everyone to feel welcome." That's a beautiful heart, and it's exactly right for your church's doors. But it's a tricky goal for your website's words.
Here's why. Think about how you talk to different people in your life. You'd describe your church differently to a 25-year-old coworker who's never been to church, a retired neighbor who grew up Methodist, and a young mom at the playground looking for a kids' program. Each of them cares about different things, uses different words, and has different questions.
When a website tries to speak to all of them at once, the language becomes vague and generic. Phrases like "We're a church for everyone" and "Something for all ages" end up describing every church in town, and they don't make any one person feel, "This is for me."
The good news is that focusing on a specific audience doesn't mean turning anyone away. Everyone is still welcome. It simply means your words, photos, and pages are written with real people in mind. And when you write clearly to someone, others usually feel welcome too, because clear and warm writing connects with almost everyone.
Three Things to Know
To figure out who your website is talking to, you need to understand three things, and how they fit together.
Your community: the people who actually live, work, and go to school around your church.
Your audience: the specific people your church most wants to reach and serve right now.
Your goals: what your church is trying to accomplish in this season.
The sweet spot is where all three overlap. If you know your community but have no clear goals, your website will describe your town without inviting anyone anywhere. If you have goals but don't know your community, you may write beautifully to people who don't live near you. When all three line up, your website speaks clearly to real people about something that matters.
Get to Know Your Community
Many churches have a picture of their community in their heads that's ten or twenty years out of date. Neighborhoods change. Young families move into older areas, new apartments go up, factories close, schools grow or shrink, and new languages are spoken at the grocery store. Before you decide who your website is talking to, it helps to see your community as it is today.
Here are some simple ways to learn about the people around you:
Look up the numbers. The U.S. Census Bureau's free QuickFacts tool shows basic information about your town or county, like age, household types, income, and languages spoken at home. Many denominations also offer community reports for their churches, so ask your regional office.
Drive and walk your neighborhood. Notice who you see. Are there playgrounds full of kids, apartment complexes, retirement communities, college students, new housing developments? Look at the businesses, too.
Talk to local leaders. School principals, police officers, librarians, business owners, and social workers know their community's needs better than almost anyone. Ask them what they see.
Listen to your newest attenders. Recent visitors and new members can tell you who's moving into the area and what brought them to your church.
Notice who's missing. Compare the people in your pews to the people in your community. Are there groups who live nearby but rarely show up at church? That gap can be an important clue.
You don't need a formal research project. An hour or two of looking, driving, and listening will tell you a lot.
Define Your Audience
Once you know your community, the next step is to decide who your website will speak to most directly. This is your audience. Most church websites have a few audiences, but it helps to choose one main one.
For most churches, the main audience of the website is the newcomer: someone from your community who doesn't attend your church yet. Members already know your service times and where to park. Newcomers don't, and they're the ones deciding whether to walk through your doors. That's why so many of the lessons in this course have focused on first-time guests.
But "newcomer" is still broad. The next step is to get more specific, based on your community and your goals. A helpful way to do this is to create a simple persona: a short, made-up description of one real-feeling person you're writing to.
Here's an example:
Meet Sarah. Sarah is 34, married, with two kids ages 3 and 6. She moved to town last year for her husband's job and doesn't know many people yet. She grew up going to church but hasn't been in years. She's busy, a little lonely, and wants her kids to grow up with good values. She'll look at your website on her phone, probably at night after the kids are in bed. She wants to know: Is this church friendly? Will my kids be safe and happy? Will I fit in?
Once you have Sarah in mind, writing gets easier. You know what she cares about, what words she uses, and what questions she has. Every page you build can be checked with one simple question: Would this help Sarah?
Your church might choose a different persona entirely. Maybe it's Mike, a 68-year-old widower looking for community. Maybe it's Daniela, a college student far from home. Maybe it's the Nguyen family, recently arrived and looking for a church that welcomes immigrants. The point isn't to pick the "right" person. It's to pick a real one, based on who lives around you and who you feel called to reach.
You can create two or three personas if your church has a few clear groups it wants to reach. Just try not to create ten, or you'll be back to writing for everyone.
Connect Your Audience to What You're Trying to Accomplish
Knowing your audience is only useful if it's tied to a purpose. That's where your church's goals come in. What is your church trying to accomplish in this season? Your website should be one of the tools that helps you get there.
Start by talking with your pastor and leaders. Ask: Over the next year or two, what are we most hoping to see happen? Then think about how the website can help. Here are a few examples:
Notice how each goal changes what goes on the website, which pages get the most attention, and even what photos you choose. A website built around a clear goal and a clear audience works like a well-aimed invitation instead of a general announcement.
And remember, goals change. Revisit this every year or so as your church and community grow.
Let It Shape Your Whole Website
Once you know who you're talking to and why, it touches every part of your site. Here's how to put it into practice.
Words. Write the way your audience talks. If you're reaching young parents, short, warm, practical sentences work well. If you're reaching people who've never been to church, avoid church jargon entirely (remember Lesson 11). Read your pages out loud and ask, "Would Sarah understand this? Would it make her feel welcome?"
Photos. People look for themselves in pictures. If your goal is reaching young families, make sure your photos include young families, alongside the full range of people in your church (as we discussed in Lesson 8). Use real photos that reflect your actual community.
Pages and priorities. Your audience decides what goes first. A church focused on families might put kids' ministry right on the home page. A church focused on community service might feature its food pantry or outreach events.
Accessibility and language. If your community includes many older adults, choose larger, easy-to-read text and high-contrast colors. If many neighbors speak another language at home, consider translating your most important pages, like the home page, Visitor's Page, and service times.
Tone. Your audience shapes how formal or casual your website feels. A traditional congregation reaching longtime residents might use a warm, respectful tone. A church reaching college students might be more relaxed and conversational. Neither is wrong, as long as it fits the people you're trying to reach and is honest about who you are.
The test. Before you publish any page, picture your persona reading it on their phone. Ask three questions: Will they understand it? Will they see themselves in it? Will they know what to do next? If the answer is yes to all three, you're ready.
Your Five Action Steps for This Lesson
Look up your community. Use the Census Bureau's QuickFacts tool for your town or county and write down three things that surprised you, such as age, household types, or languages spoken.
Drive, walk, and listen. Spend an hour driving or walking within a few miles of your church, and talk with at least one local leader, like a principal, librarian, or business owner, about the needs they see.
Name your goals. Meet with your pastor and leaders and agree on one to three things your church most hopes to accomplish in the next year or two.
Write one or two personas. Based on your community and goals, describe one or two specific people your website is talking to: their age, situation, questions, and what they care about.
Run the persona test on your home page. Read your home page as your persona would, on a phone, and list three changes that would make it clearer or more welcoming to them.
