Church Website Trends We're LOVING!

We design (and redesign) websites for parishes across the country and, through this work, we get to see every type of church website design, layout, and content that you can think of. Here are some favorite trends we’ve come across that make parish websites more inviting, effective, and beautiful.

1.     Homepage Video:

Video of a church’s parish community front and center, pre-scroll, on the parish’s homepage is a powerful way to connect with visitors to your page. This video can be part of the homepage’s headline, incorporate a tagline or mission statement, or stand alone. Opening a website with a beautiful video of the community to welcome the visitor creates a “wow” experience and sets a strong first impression, showing visitors to your site that you care about being tech-savvy and value giving your website’s visitors an engaging, welcoming experience.

Some examples of parish sites that do this well are:

• St. Augustine 
  Their website shows multiple clips of their community engaging in Mass, sacraments, and community events as well as video of their campus. They feature different age groups as well so that visitors to their website get a great picture of who they are as a community.
• Christ the King
  Christ the King has a unique video worth sharing. It shows what it is like to walk into the front doors of their sanctuary and then shows a wide view of the sanctuary from above using a drone. Very cool!

2.     Font Hierarchy:

One trend that helps websites immediately look more professionally made is the use of font hierarchy, also known as typographic hierarchy. This technique uses different fonts, sizes, and typographical emphasis (like bold and italics) to highlight the most important information first, then second, then third, and so on. Churches with the most successful designs incorporate their parish branding’s font hierarchy and colors right into their website.

Examples of parish websites that do this beautifully:

• Saint Michael the Archangel
  Here’s an example of a parish beautifully using their brand colors alongside good font hierarchy throughout their website. Visitors to this site will be more likely to remember this parish than parishes with sites who don’t present one unified message with their branding like this.
• Church of the Redeemer
  This parish also does an incredible job of incorporating their brand into their website. You can see their brand logo at the top right corner of their website and they continue the same colors, fonts, and clean, modern, design throughout the rest of their website.  
  
  Is your parish in need of a defined brand and font hierarchy? Have a brand but it’s old and doesn’t include special colors and fonts? Reach out to us! Our design team loves helping parishes create the perfect brand for them! See some examples here.

3.     Simple Animations:

Animating certain features of your website brings a polished look to the finished site. They can also help direct attention to items you want to show, influencing visitors’ engagement with your content. This adds to the overall user experience people have when visiting your site.

Some sites that do this well are:

• St. Mark the Evangelist
  Immediately upon opening up St. Mark’s homepage, three circular icons toward the bottom float up, directing the visitor’s eyes to their most important homepage callouts: Bulletins, Online Giving, and Registration. Their hero image also features a welcome message that zooms into place, immediately highlighting that they are a welcoming community!
• Saint Michael the Archangel
  This parish features a simple but smart and creative animation on their homepage that contributes well to their user experience. Upon opening their homepage, as soon as a visitor starts scrolling, their logo at the top shrinks down to make room for the content on the page. Brilliant!

4.     Special Welcome Pages:

Lastly, we wanted to highlight some content that we found inspiring. St. Mark the Evangelist has an incredible page that is linked on their homepage under their “Our Parish” heading in their menu called “I’m New Here.” This page is dedicated to answering basic questions a visitor might have when visiting the parish, a “FAQ” type of page. It covers questions like:

• What should I wear?
• Where should I park?
• Where do my children go?
• What times are Masses?
• Am I expected to donate money?

… and more. The page also includes a link to their easy-to-fill-out online registration form.

Pages with content like this one act to create an incredibly inviting environment for visitors and those discerning the faith. Great work, St. Mark!

We hope that these website trends help guide you toward the best website possible for your unique and vibrant church community! For help designing a website or a brand that best represents your parish, don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We love assisting Catholic communities tell their story through beautiful and intentional design! Find our parish website service here and our branding services here.

Happy designing!