How to design a church plan your visit page that reaches new people
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Imagine for a minute you just moved to a new town and you’re looking for a new church for your family. You have some specific things you're looking for in your faith community, but really you're just hoping to find a church home that feels like, well, home.
You visit a few church websites, check out their beliefs, scroll through their staff pages, but pretty soon you start to feel overwhelmed. You see a TON of information, but none of it helps you decide where to visit this Sunday.
Churches are notorious for putting WAY too much information on their website without giving people a clear idea of what Sunday morning is like.
What do people wear? How long does the service last? What do kids do during the service? This is all basic information churches often neglect on their website. This is why your church NEEDS a quality Plan Your Visit page.
If you don’t know what this is, a Plan Your Visit page is a clearly marked landing page where you give people a clear and compelling understanding of what Sunday morning is like and what people can expect when they visit.
So if your church doesn’t have a Plan Your Visit page, you need to get that done, like yesterday.
In this article I’ll be walking you through the basic steps needed to build a great Plan Your Visit page on your website.
Step 1: Gather and create content for your plan your visit page
Before you do anything, you’ll need to gather high-quality content for the page. Content can mean a lot of things, but in this case I’m talking about clear and concise copywriting, high quality photography, and possibly some helpful video content. To learn more about what kind of content is most helpful on a church website, tap/click here to download the Ultimate Church Content Checklist.
When you decide what information you want to share on your page, you need a heading, short paragraph and a photo to help illustrate it.
One very helpful sort of video you can make on a budget is a video montage to be placed in the top header of your page. You can create a high energy and helpful video with just your smartphone by using a handheld smartphone stabilizer. This will help you create smooth video as you walk around your worship space and capture your Sunday morning experience through the eyes of a visitor.
Step 2: Build a scrolling page that promotes Sunday morning sequentially
Now that you have your content, you can start building your Plan Your Visit page. If you haven’t chosen a website platform yet, I recommend Squarespace.
On your new page, you’re going to want to build at least 4-5 separate sections on one long scrolling page. The goal is to present each part of Sunday morning in chronological order. For instance, you don’t want to start with what the sermons are like; instead, you’ll want to talk about where visitors can park, how to check kids into Children’s Ministry, etc. I recommend having sections dedicated to the following:
Location/directions
Parking and where to go
Children’s Ministry check-in
Worship style and song information
Sermon content and length
Expectations during offering, communication, etc
What happens after the service
Step 3: Add copy, photo, and video content
Once you have your sections designed and labeled, now it’s time to add your content. As you add your content, you’ll probably notice it’s difficult to limit yourself on quantity. Please resist the temptation to say everything. You want to give people helpful, basic information. Your photos should be of people who wouldn’t mind being on the website (written permission is best) and brings positive energy.
Step 4: Add a FAQ section to help people get to the point
At the bottom, you can add a Frequently Asked Questions section that provides helpful answers to more random questions. These are questions that doesn't fit within your sequential sections.
One of the best ways to display FAQs is to use an accordion block. This allows you to write the question in a heading, but hide the answer in a dropdown. This makes your page interactive (which is good) and condenses the information so you don’t overwhelm people.
Step 5: Provide a clear call to action
You're not done yet. Now that you’ve created a quality Plan Your Visit page, don’t miss the opportunity to give people one or more calls to action. This can be anything, but it should be something meaningful that either helps people take their first step to visit a worship service or submits their information so you can connect with them.
Here’s a few ideas to get you started:
Pre-register for Children’s Ministry Form
Ask a question form
Receive prayer form
Join us for meeting
Receive a free give
The bottom line here is you want to give people something specific to do with the information you’re providing. Be bold with your invitation. Don’t make apologies for wanting people to be a part of your church. Let them know you want them there and that you can’t wait to see them!
Need some help creating a Plan Your Visit page?
Feeling a little overwhelmed with the idea of creating a Plan Your Visit page? That’s totally understandable! I’ve built a short 4-step course that will help you create the content you need and build out a Plan Your Visit page from scratch on Squarespace.
