How to Create an Eye-Catching Landing Page for Your Online Church

How to Create an Eye-catching Online Church Landing Page

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First impressions are essential in church strategy- whether someone’s checking in at a visitor information table or just casually joining the service, you want to ensure they have a warm welcome! Online is no different - when an online visitor arrives, you want them to feel welcomed and eager to join you. A well-crafted landing page can be the difference between a visitor-turned-member or a quick click of the back button. Here are 5 tips & tricks for creating an eye-catching church landing page:

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What is a Church Landing Page (and Why You Should Have One)

A church landing page is similar to your homepage but with a few differences. While a homepage is a great place for visitors who are exploring or looking for general information, a landing page is built to encourage visitors toward a specific action. For example, a visitor looking for information about your statement of beliefs, staff, or church history might start at and browse your homepage. However, a visitor or member who is just looking to join the next event might prefer to go directly to your landing page where they can see a list of all your upcoming events.
While there are a variety of landing pages, one particularly useful landing page a church can benefit from is a virtual event calendar. A clickable virtual event calendar creates an easy-to-navigate space where your church can host the links to all their upcoming events. Instead of juggling Zoom links and weekly emails, leaders, members, and visitors alike only need one link to your landing page. Think of it like an usher in your lobby specifically dedicated to helping people get where they need to go.

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Church Landing Page Tips & Tricks

1. Make Navigation Easy. 

Just like an in-person building, the last place you want your visitors to be is lost! Altar makes finding the way to information and events easy for your visitors with navigation links and easy website integration. Consider the following tips to improve the navigation experience for your visitors:

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• Add navigation links to your landing page to make it easy for visitors to find information.  From connection cards to giving links, navigation makes it easy for visitors to find information about your community whether it’s their 1st or 100th visit.
• Link your landing page to your main website.  Adding navigation from your website/Facebook/etc. to your landing page is a simple way to make information such as upcoming events easier to access.

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💡Did you know? Altar Live subscriptions come with a customizable landing page that hosts all your upcoming events and meetings. No more keeping track of which link is for which small group - all you need is one landing page link! Learn more about Altar Live’s landing pages here.

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2. Choose Colors that say "Welcome to Church!"

Many landing page creators (including Altar Live) allow you to choose your landing page’s accent color, along with various other decorative elements. While choosing your landing page’s colors, consider the following:

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• Choose a color theme that matches your church’s branding.  A color theme isn’t the same as your accent color, but they should complement each other! Two of the most popular themes are light (light background, dark text) and dark (dark background, light text).  If you have a church website, consider choosing a theme that reflects your existing website’s theme.
• Choose accent and text color with readability in mind. Pairing a light background with dark text or a dark background with light text improves the readability and accessibility of your landing page.

Examples:

3. A picture is worth a thousand words.

Images are a great way to communicate information, catch your visitor’s attention, and keep branding consistent.  Consider adding images to your landing page in the following ways:

• Use a PNG logo with a clear background.  A logo is essential for branding the page and making it look professional. Logos without transparency in the background create a blocky border around the image. Use a PNG photo to avoid this issue.

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• Add images to your events.  Cover images are a great way to make sure the links to your event stand out.  It also helps the visitor quickly scan and determine where they need to go, instead of reading the description of every event.

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💡Did you know? When you create an event in Altar Live, the cover image not only automatically updates on your landing page, but it will display when a link to the event is shared as well!

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4. Pay attention to the details.  

While you can create a default landing page in seconds, a little extra care for the details can make a huge difference.  Consider giving your landing page a little extra sparkle with these tips:

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• Choose your Favicon with care. Favicons are unique and intended to be a way for visitors to know they’re on your site with just a glance (to learn more about adding a favicon to your Altar Live landing page, check out this support article).  When choosing a favicon, consider choosing one that is near size 270x270p, doesn’t contain text or complex images, and is easily recognizable at a glance.
• Make it your own.  A landing page is an excellent place for visitors to learn more about your community and see what’s coming next. If a landing page has not been edited or updated, visitors will not know whether or not your community is active.

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5. Keep it simple. 

A cluttered page can be distracting and make it difficult for visitors to find what they are looking for.  Consider these tips for keeping your landing page eye-catching and clear:

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• Use simple images. Event images without large amounts of text or shocking colors are best for keeping your landing page clean and concise.  You may want to think of event images as an enhancement to your event’s details section instead of a supplement.  This will not only increase your page’s clarity but also its accessibility since screen readers cannot read text from images.
• Keep titles short & sweet. While a longer title might fit more information, you may find that shortening the titles of events makes them clearer and easier to find.  

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The event title contains a brief description of the event with a more thorough description underneath.

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💡 Did you know? Altar automatically adds the time of your event to the event card and has a designated space for event details.

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How to Create an Online Church Landing Page with Altar Live

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On Altar Live, creating a landing page just takes a few clicks. From the dashboard, go to Community Settings > Appearance. Here you’ll find all the settings you need to set up and customize your landing page:

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• Logo - Separate from your community’s image for Altar Live, this logo will appear on your landing page.
• Accent Color & Customization  - Here’s where you can choose your text case, color, page theme, and accent color.
• Subdomain - This will be the address where visitors can find your page.
• Navigation - Here is where you can add up to 5 custom links. It’s perfect for linking back to your homepage, connection cards, and giving links.
• Favicon - This is the image that appears in a visitor’s browser tab, next to the page title.

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For full instructions on creating a landing page, check out this support article.

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We hope these tips and tricks inspire you to make your own eye-catching landing page!

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Looking for more digital ministry inspiration?  Check out how Shepnaz created a fun and inviting welcome strategy here!

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Who We Are

Altar Live is an online church platform designed for faith communities to livestream services and host interactive and engaging events.

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Whether in your browser or mobile device, our simple, intuitive platform gathers your people together online in real-time. Here, they can worship together in watch parties, freely socialize at virtual tables together, and find private places to pray with each other.

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Altar Live holds 3 major components: Events, Meetings, and Rooms.

With a church platform like Altar Live, anyone can easily create an engaging online church service that has the ability to bring people together regardless of location.

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The Altar Live team is honored to be able to provide video conferencing software, consulting & training for churches, reach every person on the other side of the screen, and create a community online.

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📞 Book a call with our online church engagement consultant who can help you increase engagement over 50%

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