Church Website Series: The Central Hub Strategy

This post is part of a series that I’m simply titling the “Church Website Series”. Not very clever, I know.

My plan for this series is to share what I’ve learned specifically about making church websites using Squarespace and the various features and quirks that come with the platform.

View other posts in this series.

I’ve been making church websites since 2010, exclusively on Squarespace. I’m a big fan of Squarespace, as I’m sure you can see. And I’ve learned a lot about using the features of Squarespace, as well as working around the quirks, particularly when it comes to creating functional and beautiful websites for churches.

The Central Hub Strategy

Before I get too far into this post, I need to disclose that this is not my own original idea. I took inspiration from Brady Shearer at Pro Church Tools/Nucleus, who fleshed out the idea he also got from other church website designers.

What I share here is from my experience taking this idea and adapting it for my church, as well as several other churches I’ve designed websites for.

who is your audience?

I’d like to ask you the question, Who is your audience? Who is your website for?

As I alluded to in an earlier blog post about Church Homepage Design, I believe that the bulk of your entire church website—say, 75% of it—should have the intended audience of someone who knows nothing about your church, and is trying to find out who you are, where you are located, and what you’re about.

However, for those that go to your church already, whether for the first time or for the millionth time, the remaining 25% or so of your church website should be for them. This is what I call the Central Hub.

What is The Central Hub?

The Central Hub is a single page on your church website that either provides or links to anything someone who already attends your church needs.

Think of it as a church bulletin, BUT WITH SUPER-POWERS!

The problem with almost all church bulletins

So, if your church is like many that I have attended, at some point in your service, someone usually stands up front during the service and does the announcements. Some keep it short and sweet, while others go into more detail. Some pre-record a video, and others simply say “see your bulletin for all the announcements”.

But the problem with church bulletins is that they are very limited.

What if you didn’t get one when you walked in? What if you didn’t make it to church that day? What if you attend online?

In those cases, you’re just out of luck.

Further, how to you get someone to actually take a step? What instructions do you give those people? Here’s a few examples of what is often given as a Next Step:

• See Pastor Daniel for questions.

• Sign-up for the potluck on the sign-up sheet in the foyer.

• Call the church office for details.

What if Pastor Daniel is already speaking to someone else? What if they can’t find the sign-up sheet? What if they lose the church phone number? What if they weren’t at church and missed these instructions all together?

Sure, these are a lot of what-ifs, but, honestly, in most cases, one of these what-ifs, or a million others like it, prevent people from taking next steps.

The Advantages of the Central Hub

Similar to your church bulletin, this page has a list of announcements and/or upcoming events, among other things (see below).

But the Central Hub, being a page on your church website, is always accessible, no matter when or where you are.

People can access the Central Hub on their phones while listening to the announcements in the service. They can access it from home, anytime. They can access it if they are out of town, or on the other side of the world!

Plus, as mentioned earlier, it has super-powers when compared to a printed bulletin.

Most website builders, including our preferred platform of Squarespace, has a form builder. So adding the sign-up or contact form inline with the announcement, or a link to the desired resource, or a video showing the visiting singer’s most recent show, takes everything to the next level. It reduces the friction preventing people from taking whatever the Next Step is.

There’s one last big advantage that comes from a specific strategy that you’ll find near the bottom of this article, so keep reading.

What goes on the Central Hub?

First of all, I believe this page should be fairly lightweight. That doesn’t mean it needs to be all text, but at the same time, it should load quickly.

There’s no perfect formula, but again, keep the layout simple.

You’ll want to make sure you have any obvious links your regular church members will be looking for on a regular basis. These links will include things like: prayer requests, baptism sign-ups, giving link, etc. Make them easy to see.

Next, list all your upcoming events. This is the specific part of the Central Hub that we mentioned earlier that is like your traditional paper bulletin, but with super-powers. And there’s a great way to do this using Squarespace, with a combination of the built-in Events page and a Summary block.

And if you’re using things such as form blocks so people can immediately and easily sign-up for events and submit prayer requests; embedded videos to showcase stories and promos; linking to resources such as downloadable assets; and other modern web interface elements, you can create a valuable destination for getting involved, growing in faith, and staying informed.

In short, that’s about all you need on your Central Hub. It’s simple, clean, and helps those that go to your church find what they need quickly.

Bonus elements on the Central Hub

If all you have on your Central Hub, you’ve provided plenty of ways for people to take their next steps as part of your church family.

However, there are a few more things you can add if you have the time and energy to stay on top of it and keep it up to date.

• Sermon notes: if your Pastor provides his notes or some kind of insight to his message each week, you can provide notes, or other downloadable resources on your Central Hub.

• Giving: I know I already mentioned that above, but if you can fully embed a giving form into your Central Hub to make it that much easier for people to give, it’s a win.

• Campus Maps

But be careful not to add too much here. I myself have a habit of letting our church’s Central Hub get a little too busy, and I find myself having to pare things down a few times a year. Too much info and too many options actually has the opposite effect of reducing the amount of next steps people make.

Remember that everything on your church website should fall into 1 of 3 categories: Inspiration, Information, and Invitation. And each of those should balance out the other.

One more thing for a Big Advantage

One last piece of strategy that will help this be successful.

If the Central Hub is part of your regular website, but not your homepage (and it shouldn’t be), then telling people to go to your Central Hub would be more difficult. For instance, my church’s Central Hub page (called the Next Steps Portal) is located at www.oxfordag.org/nextsteps. But that’s a mouthful.

Now you could make a completely new website that’s dedicated to your Central Hub Strategy. But a completely new website could be costly—especially for such a small amount of content, comparitively.

Instead, our church purchased a brand new domain (website address). But instead of sending it to a brand new website, we simply forwarded it to the page on our website. In our case, we bought oag.church, and forward it to oxfordag.org/nextsteps.

Who’s Your Intended Audience?

Back to our original question: “Who is our intended audience?”

For all of our EXTERNAL promotions, marketing, etc. to people who DO NOT already attend our church, our main website and most of the content there is for them.

But for all of our INTERNAL promotions, communications, etc to people who ALREADY attend our church, we send them to the Central Hub using the secondary domain address.

Did that make sense?

I hope so. Leave a comment if you have questions. I explained it all as best I can.

—Daniel