Answering Visitor Questions (on Your Website) Before They’re Asked

by Reba Collins and William Cowles

Last week, William revealed the “Top 20 Questions Church Searchers Ask When Looking for a Church,” but we really didn’t offer any suggestions for how to answer those questions, particularly before visitors have to ask.

It really was not an oversight, on our part, but an intentional decision to be more helpful on the “how-to” issues.

So, for the next several weeks, we’ll offer easy-to-implement tips on how to leverage your best communication tools for meeting your visitors’ information needs before, during, and after a visit.

The first point of contact to consider is your Point A on a visitor’s search journey – your church’s Website. Church searchers start their elimination/selection process with a scan of your church’s Website.

The two most important pages on your site are the HOMEPAGE and the VISITOR’S PAGE. Here’s how these can work better for you:

HOMEPAGE

Engage visitor interest and reduce personal stress factors with simple introductions. Tell visitors about your tribe in tweet-sized bites. Let them know who you are as a group; who you’re looking for to join you; and what you’re being called to accomplish together. Talk more about where you’re going than where you’ve been. That’s it.

VISITOR PAGE

Easily and efficiently answer basic hospitality questions. Every Website needs a “New Here” button front and center as the FIRST option for a searcher to click. One-stop shop it with:

• Directions to your church linked to a mapping program.
• Worship choices with brief descriptions of what a visitor can expect to experience.
• FAQs for what to wear, where to park, how to get information and anything else that will help visitors know the flow of your worshiping community.
• Kiddo infolinked to Children’s and/or Youth ministry pages.
• Photos of YOUR people in mission and ministry. Do not ever post stock photos of actors and models!

Introduce yourselves on the Homepage and answer the basic hospitality questions on your Visitors Page, and you’ve taken a great first step toward encouraging a visit.

Good Websites also project a church’s personality and purpose and give visitors a peek behind the curtain on what’s important to this church, but that’s for another blog or two.    

There are six more key communication tools every church has at their disposal. Each of them reflects a component of your church’s culture and personality. Each of them is an important early contact point for a church searcher, and should be used intentionally and consistently to head off unanswered questions.

Next week, we’ll tackle another tool with tips on how to use it. Hope you have a blessed week full of new faces.

The folks at Church Marketing Sucks offer a few additional tips on how to make your Website tool more visitor friendly. Click their link to get one of their best blogs on this subject: