What does it mean for a church website to be “mobile-friendly”? Does your church website fit that description?
Defining “mobile-friendly”
A “mobile-friendly” website is a website which maintains quality of design and performance when viewed on a mobile device (smartphone or tablet). If a website can be viewed on a mobile device and not lose its attraction or functionality, it’s considered mobile-friendly.
Why it’s important
It’s incredibly important for church websites to be mobile-friendly. Our current culture is becoming more and more mobile and people are placing a much higher priority on mobile convenience.
According to recent research, mobile internet user penetration has reached 64.3% worldwide. This simply means that well over half of the world’s population uses mobile devices to access the web.
Furthermore, almost half of all internet activity is done on mobile devices. It’s practically guaranteed that someone will view your church website from a mobile device. Is your website ready?
First impressions are very important when it comes to websites. Statistics have shown that it takes less than one second for web visitors to make snap judgements about the websites they visit and whether it will be worthwhile to stay and read more. A church website that isn’t mobile-friendly will fail to impress visitors and they will likely navigate away to another website.
Churches that take initiative and make their website attractive and functional for mobile visitors have a distinct advantage over churches that neglect to do this. Five More Talents helped Grace OPC of Elburn to redesign their church website and make it mobile-friendly. The redesign project also addressed other improvements and upgrades but the mobile functionality was a big step forward for Grace OPC.
How can I upgrade?
So, how do you make your church website mobile-friendly? The good news is that if you’re a Five More Talents customer, there’s a good chance you don’t have to worry about this! Your website is probably already mobile-friendly! There are a few older websites that Five More Talents hosts that still haven’t gotten upgraded. We will be happy to work with you to get this done!
If you are not a Five More Talents customer, here are some ideas to get started on making your church website mobile-friendly.
Ultimately a responsive interface goes a long way. It’s also helpful to think about your design plans with mobile users in mind. How tightly should you pack in your text? What size should your images be? How big do your buttons need to be? Asking questions like these can be helpful to get your mindset thinking about how users will interact with your website on their mobile devices.
Optimize for your mobile audience!
The statistics are pretty clear: internet users are fond of their mobile devices. Websites that are mobile-friendly have a higher chance of engaging visitors with a great first impression than websites that are not mobile-friendly. An obvious step towards making your church website a powerful resource is to determine if it’s mobile-friendly or not, and then move forward accordingly. If your church website is mobile-friendly, great! You can focus on optimizing other parts of your website. If your church website isn’t mobile-friendly, that’s alright. There are options for you to make it perform well on mobile devices.
