What is the Most Important Thing to Pay Attention to on Your Website?

“What is the most important thing to pay attention to on my website?” I am often asked this question, but in my opinion, it is not quite the right question to ask. The most important thing when thinking about your website isn’t “on” your website. It’s not any website content, SEO, navigation, or great pictures (although these are all important).

The most important thing to pay attention to is your audience - their wants, needs, and narratives are most important for successfully designing your website. Who are they? What are they looking for? How well do they already know your organization? How might they have heard about you?

Basic information you take for granted, but your audience may not know, needs to be explicitly included. For example, church websites sometimes don’t note where the church is located. Do you realize how many St. Paul’s churches there are?

What has brought recent visitors to your site and your organization? Whatever that is, make sure it’s prominent on the front page. Don’t make users search for it and click around! While you want to minimize redundant content - certain basic information (like a worship schedule) needs to be listed in multiple places on your site, such as in the header, on the worship page, and in your calendar. Make sure, however, that if you adjust the time of your worship, you change every instance on your site. There is nothing worse than inconsistent or wrong information on a site.

A final caveat is that just because something can go on a website doesn’t mean it should! Internal organizational communication is best shared via targeted email, group text, or another communication platform. If it’s not information that would be useful to the vast majority of potential website visitors, don’t include it on your site.

Using your target audience as the litmus for what’s important on your website will ensure that your website is engaging and relevant - and that’s worth paying attention to!

written by Lisa Brown
April 2024