10 Best Practices for Church Websites

Why Your Parish Website Matters

Your church’s website is often the first impression someone will have of your parish. As one of your most important ministry tools, your website should reflect your mission, extend hospitality to visitors, and serve as an easy-to-navigate bridge between your parish and the people you are called to reach.

Your parish website:

• Is the digital front door of your parish. Most people will visit your website before ever stepping into your church. It sets the tone for your community’s hospitality.

• Serves your existing parishioners. A well-maintained site keeps your community informed, connected, and engaged with parish life.

• Is a home for seekers and the curious. Many people exploring their faith or returning to the Church begin their journey online. Your thoughtful website will help guide them to your community and into a deeper relationship with God.

• Simplifies communication and supports your mission. From promoting sacramental prep to sharing Mass times, sign-ups, and ministry information that invite deeper discipleship, your website should reflect and amplify your mission. This makes it easy for website visitors to find the valuable resources they are looking for.

• Enables stewardship. Tools for online giving make it easy for parishioners to support the parish.

• Builds ongoing trust. Your clearly branded, functional, well-designed, and regularly updated website reflects a parish that’s vibrant, active, and committed to its members.

In this guide of best practices for parish websites, we’ll walk through the essential strategies that help parishes create and maintain a website that truly serves not only today’s needs, but grows with your parish into the future.

1. Know Your Audience Before You Design Your Website

Before you choose colors, fonts, or layouts, take time to consider who your website is really designed for. A successful parish website doesn’t serve a general, public-type of audience — it serves your people. This includes longtime parishioners, visiting families, parents of Catholic school students, young adults searching for answers, and those returning to the Church after time away. Each group will bring unique needs and expectations to your digital front door.

To build a website that genuinely serves your community’s needs, it’s essential to first identify your key user groups. Are most visitors looking for Mass times? Do families need quick access to calendars and bulletins? Are you making newcomers feel welcomed and informed? Start by exploring how to identify your parish’s unique web audience and then build your site content strategy around giving them what they want. Understanding your primary audience(s) should shape everything — from your homepage layout to your navigation menu.

Equally important is knowing what people are searching for that leads them to land on your website. Research has shown that visitors are known to quickly scan a website for a few key info items upon visiting it for the first time: Mass times, parish location, and staff contact information, to name a few. If these search items aren’t clearly visible and easy to access on your website, you may miss a chance for connection. For a deeper dive into this type of user behavior, check out The First Things Visitors Look for on Catholic Church Websites.

2. Your Logo and Branding Matter for Your Website

Before visitors read a word of content or click a single link on your site, they’re forming an impression just by simply looking at your homepage. It’s in your best interest to fully control and shape that initial impression, and the best way to do that is for your parish brand to be the unifying aspect of your website design. Remember, a strong visual brand identity isn’t just about logos and colors.

A strong brand communicates:

• who you are
• what you value
• and whether or not someone can trust you

Good branding helps your website feel familiar to your community. Having a professional parish brand also goes a long way toward helping people TRUST your parish. Above and beyond your website, your parish brand also brings cohesion to your homepage, bulletin, signage, stationery, social media, church swag like t-shirts and hats, and more!

Even the most beautiful website can feel disjointed or forgettable without a clear, cohesive brand. That’s why branding should always come before (or at least alongside) the actual web design portion of your website process. Why? Because your brand should influence everything about your website design — from your font choices and color palette to the tone of your images and the design of your call-to-action buttons.

If you’re starting from scratch with your logo and branding, or need a brand refresh, LPi offers professional branding services for Catholic parishes, including custom logo design and complete identity packages that pair perfectly with your church’s website. LPi will equip you with a custom logo, a brand book to reference all of your font and color choices, and the option to continue with our web design team to help you seamlessly integrate your parish brand into your website with our easy-to-use website builder, WeConnect.

3. Homepage Strategy: Make it Welcoming, Make it Clear

Okay, let’s get into the meat of it and talk about the first page you will likely need to design: your homepage. This page is your most important because it’s the one that visitors will judge upon first coming to your parish’s online home. In just a few seconds, visitors will decide whether to stay and explore — or leave. What they see (or don’t see) on your homepage shapes that decision.

A strong homepage blends beauty with clarity. It should be visually inviting, easy to navigate, and clearly reflect the identity of your parish community. It serves as your central hub. It’s the one place where every type of visitor (from longtime parishioners to first-time seekers) will find their next step.

In 4 Tips to Make Your Church’s Homepage More Inviting, we walk through several key design strategies in depth:

• Use a clear call to action. What’s the one thing you want a visitor to do next? Learn about your parish? Find Mass times? Donate? Make it obvious and easy for them.

• Feature real photos of your community. Stock images can feel inauthentic. When visitors see your members and your sanctuary, they get a sense of belonging. Even cell phone photos can work to convey the warmth and authenticity of your community across.

• Avoid overwhelming your page. Keep it simple. Too many banners, pop-ups, or competing messages will confuse rather than inform your visitors.

• Make site/menu navigation intuitive. If someone must search too hard to find your bulletin or your staff contact page, they’ll likely give up. Use clear labels and a logical menu structure.

Most importantly, let your homepage reflect the personality of your parish. If your church is known for joyful worship, family ministry, or social outreach, these things should be apparent just by glancing at your homepage. An intentionally designed homepage sets the tone for the entire site and helps each visitor feel at home right away.

4. Keep It Updated: Timely Updates, Seasonal Readiness, Landing Pages

A great parish website is a living resource that should reflect the rhythms of the liturgical year and the life of your parish. Keeping your content up to date not only builds trust with your community, but also shows that your parish is active and responsive.

Consider creating a simple content calendar to guide website updates throughout the year. Include updates around feast days and the liturgical seasons, parish events, and faith formation/sacramental prep.

Updates like:

• Timely homepage banners for Advent, Lent, Easter, or special Masses that make your site feel vibrant and relevant while also sharing important information.

• Landing pages for parish retreats, festivals, or registration drives. Landing pages allow you to create a space with all the relevant information in one place and link to it from your homepage. This makes it easy for visitors to engage without having to dig through menus or endlessly scroll.

• Your current bulletin should always be available for download in a digital format on your website. Scroll down to best practice #7 for more information on how to use a self-updating web integration to always keep your bulletin current!

As shared in our checklist to get your church website ready for Easter visitors, the time is always right to prepare seasonal messaging, publish your Mass schedule clearly, and even include helpful notes for first-time guests about attending special events.

5. Simplify Signups and Stewardship with Downloadable Content and Digital Giving

It may seem surprising, but after working with hundreds of parishes across the country to create custom Catholic websites, we know it to be true: Many parishes still don’t offer online sign-up options for programs like faith formation, sacramental prep, family parish registration, or even retreats! Many churches also don’t offer any form of online giving option for parishioners. This is a missed opportunity not just from a convenience standpoint — it’s a missed opportunity from a ministry one.

Today’s parishioners expect easy, digital access to whatever they need. Our society already has access to resources like this in almost every other part of our lives. Schools, government resources, healthcare, housing utilities, you get the idea — all have access to fill out forms and make payments online, including directly from our cellphones.

Your website should make it easy for people to connect — not frustrating. One of the best things to make participating in the life of the parish easy is to include digital options for registration, payments, and giving, right on your website.

Downloadable forms like PDF registrations or event flyers are a good starting point. Better still, though, is offering digital submissions directly on your site. A contact form for baptismal inquiries, an embedded faith formation registration, or a quick signup for ministry volunteers can make a world of difference for staff and parishioners alike.

The same is true for online giving. Whether through your diocesan platform or a third-party provider, a secure, easy-to-use giving option helps support stewardship and parish sustainability. Especially during times when people may not be able to attend Mass in person — for example, due to illness or travel — digital giving options keep parishioners connected and contributing.

6. Have a Catholic School Connected? You Need a Site That Serves Both

If your parish has a Catholic school, your website should clearly reflect that connection. Too often, we see connected parishes and schools operating as two digital silos. They have separate menus, conflicting design styles, or even entirely different website designs that leave visitors confused.

Whether your parish and school share one homepage or operate from two distinct (but visually aligned) subsites, the key is clear navigation and consistent branding throughout. A well-integrated site (or sites) strengthens the identity of both communities. Site continuity between the parish’s and school’s online identities provides clarity for parents, staff, and parishioners while streamlining communication across ministries.

In The Ultimate Website Checklist for Parishes with Schools, we walk through smart integration strategies, such as:

• Unified branding that makes it clear the school is part of your parish mission.

• Dedicated space on the site for school-specific content: admissions, calendars, staff lists, etc.

• Shared event promotion for major fundraisers, holy days, and family activities.

• Intuitive navigation. Visitors should be able to easily navigate between parish and school content with minimal clicks. Even if this means switching from a parish website to a different school website.

LPi regularly partners with parishes that operate schools, and our website design team knows how to build digital experiences that honor both identities, all while creating a sense of unity. Whether it’s a single site with two audiences, or two sites with a common brand, we’ll help you build something that works for the whole community!

7. Useful Web Integrations: Features That Keep Your Website Fresh with Less Work

A web integration, sometimes called a widget, is a simple way to connect your website to tools or services you already use. Instead of updating the same information in multiple places, an integration allows you to enter it once (such as sharing a photo to Instagram), and the content will automatically appear on your website. This means fewer manual updates for your webmaster, fewer mistakes, and a website that stays current without extra effort!

We love a good web integration because it makes your site more functional and helps it stay fresh, relevant, and welcoming with minimal maintenance from your team.

For Catholic parish websites, some of the most useful integrations include:

• Bulletin widgets for easy, direct access to your most recent bulletin.

• Event calendars that sync with parish planning tools.

• Fillable forms for sign-ups, prayer requests, or inquiries.

• Online giving platforms that allow secure, recurring donations.

• Social media widgets to easily direct people who want to connect with your parish through social platforms.

LPi’s WeConnect platform offers streamlined integration with tools parishes already use without needing outside developers or plugins. Our goal is to make your website more effective with less effort, ensuring you’re supporting your community without overwhelming them with unnecessary tech.

8. More Website Time-Saving Tools

Keeping a parish website current and engaging doesn’t have to fall solely on one person or require hours of weekly upkeep and graphic design. With the right content creation tools in place, you can save time and reduce stress.

One of the biggest time-savers? A reliable content library. Having access to ready-made, mission-aligned art, web banners, and graphics that you can download and use as your own on your parish site means you’re not scrambling for images or wondering about copyright law. Seasonal imagery for Lent, Advent, holy days, and graphics for parish events can be easily found and queued up in advance so your homepage always looks professional.

WeCreate is one example of an extensive Catholic content library built specifically for parishes. It includes thousands of graphics, photos, web banners, templates, and more — all custom-designed and curated with Catholicism and the life of a parish top of mind. New liturgical content is uploaded every single month!

If you’re looking for a simple place to start, WeCreate offers this free collection of Catholic art as a great resource to explore if you don’t have a subscription to the full library just yet.

9. Think Like a Designer — Even if You Aren’t One 

You don’t need to be a professional designer to build a great parish website, but you do need to think like one. That means prioritizing clarity, consistency, and user experience from the very beginning. Whether you're refreshing an existing site or starting from scratch, it’s worth understanding what separates a functional church website from a truly effective one.

• Start with the Right Questions
  Great design begins with intention. While creating your perfect design, it’s helpful to explore the kinds of questions that professional designers use to guide the process — like those in this behind-the-scenes look at what web designers ask parish staff. Questions about mission, audience, priorities, and staff capacity all shape what your final website will look like and what it accomplishes.

• Optimize for Mobile
  Some studies suggest that as many as 60% of visitors to your website are accessing it using mobile devices. For this reason, all your pages, most especially your homepage, must be optimized to look good on cell phones and other mobile devices!

• Prioritize Purpose Over Trends
  Not every design trend serves your parish’s mission. Explore six parish website trends our team considers worthwhile, like simplified navigation and authentic imagery, and see which ones to skip. A beautiful site means nothing if the design confuses visitors or obscures essential information such as Mass times or contact forms.

• Make a Mood Board Together
  One way to ensure visual consistency, especially if you have more than one staff member regularly working to update your website, is through a mood board. A website mood board is a curated collection of colors, images, fonts, and design ideas that inform how you want your website to look, feel, and work. It should incorporate your brand and other ideas you have for your online identity. If you’ve never built one before, this step-by-step mood board guide is a great place to start.
  
  
• Get Inspired by What Works (and What Doesn’t)
  Sometimes the best way to move forward is to see how others have done it well. Our design team rounded up some of their favorite church websites with examples that balance beauty with function, and reflect the unique character of each parish. Whether you’re aiming for traditional, family-friendly, modern, or minimalist designs, there’s something to learn from every example.

• Also key: knowing what not to do. Avoid image pitfalls with our visual “this, not that” breakdown for parish websites, which highlights common mistakes such as blurry uploads, awkward cropping, or inconsistent tones.

10. Sponsored Websites and How to Get One for Free

Designing a website that properly reflects and works for your parish is a big task, but remember: You don’t have to do it alone! LPi’s WeConnect platform is supported by real designers, friendly customer service, and a team that understands the needs of Catholic parishes.

The best part, though? Catholic parishes that use WeConnect are paired with a sponsor who supports their mission — covering the full cost of the website and making it completely free for the parish.

Learn how to get started with a sponsored Catholic WeConnect website today.

Congratulations on your parish website endeavors! Use this guide to start conversations with your team, assess where you are in your web design process, prioritize what matters most, or update what you’ve already got. When you're ready, LPi is here to further assist you.

Still craving more ideas and inspiration? Browse the web and social media section of our blog for practical tips, creative insights, and real parish examples that can help you take your next step toward website mastery!