Guides · Churches
Church Website Checklist: Test It Like a Guest Before Every Big Sunday
By Josh Croom · October 27, 2026 · 11 min read
A church website checklist tests what a first-time guest needs on a phone: service times, the address, a visit form, giving and the livestream. Run it on Thursday before every big Sunday, fix what you find on Friday and freeze the site on Saturday, because Sunday is the busiest day your website has.
Last year's times on this year's Easter
Easter Sunday, 9:05 AM. A family that moved to town in January decides to try church for Easter. At 9:05 on Sunday morning, from the passenger seat, the mom searches the church's name and taps the website. The home page still shows last year's Easter schedule, and the 9:30 service it lists moved to 10:00 this year.
They pull into a quiet parking lot half an hour early and wonder whether they have the right place. Another family checks the same page at 9:40, decides they've already missed the 9:30 and stays home. Nobody at the church ever hears about either one.
The site looked fine on the office computer all week. It just had the wrong year on it, and nobody had opened it on a phone the way a guest would.
What Sunday does to a church website
We looked at the church websites and church Grant accounts we track to see how guests find and use a church site. Sunday is the busiest day of the week, and nearly all of it happens on a phone.
- 3.2xSunday visits against an average weekdayacross 7 church websites
- 90%of Sunday visits came from a phoneacross 6 church websites
- 11%of Sunday visits to the top pages went to givinga giving page, on the busiest day
- 37%of clicks on local church searches had near me in themamong searches that didn't name a church, across 7 church Grant accounts
Why a church website needs its own checklist
Your members already know the service times and where to park. The people who need the site on a Sunday morning are guests on phones, and some of them have never walked through your doors.
A guest who's deciding whether to come checks a handful of things: the time, the address, where to park, what happens with the kids and whether the place looks friendly. If any of those is wrong or hard to find on a phone, there's no one standing in the lobby to fix it for them.
Google reads your site the way a phone sees it, too. Google's own guide for site owners says it uses the mobile version of a site's content, crawled with the smartphone agent, for indexing and ranking. So if the service times are missing from the phone version, or only appear in an image, Google can't read them either.
The church website checklist
Run this on your own phone, off the church Wi-Fi and logged out of everything, starting from a Google search the way a first-time visitor would. Your ticks stay on this device.
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The big Sunday week, day by day
Big Sundays include Easter, Christmas Eve, Mother's Day and any launch Sunday. Run the same four days before each one, so nobody has to plan the week from scratch.
Name one person for Sunday morning who watches the visit form inbox, the church phone and your Google listing's messages. A guest who asks a question at 8:30 needs an answer before the 10:00 service, not on Tuesday.
| Day | The job | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Thursday | Run the checklist on a phone, starting from Google | It leaves a full day to fix what you find |
| Friday | Fix everything, then test again anything that touched a form or the phone number | A small fix can break a form or a phone link without anyone noticing |
| Saturday | Freeze the site and make no new changes | A late edit with nobody watching is how things break |
| Sunday morning | Check the stream, giving and times before the first service | It's the last chance to catch a problem before guests arrive |
When people search for holiday services
Easter fell on April 5 in 2026, and April brought 33,100 searches against 4,400 in all of March. A page posted the week of Easter goes up while the searching is already at its peak. Google also needs time to find a new page, which is why the work starts six weeks out.
The six-week countdown for Easter and Christmas
For Easter, start the week of Ash Wednesday, which in 2027 falls on February 10, ahead of Easter on March 28. For Christmas, start in the middle of November, before the calendar fills with concerts and parties.
Week 6
Set the times and build the page
Put every service time, the parking plan and what the kids will do on one page, at an address you'll use every year, like yoursite.com/easter. Reusing the address means you never start over with Google.
Week 5
Link to it from everything you own
Point your emails, social posts, church app and bulletin at that one page. Links help Google find a new page sooner, and they give every guest the same answer.
Week 4
Update your Google listing
Post the times and the link on your Google Business Profile, and set Special hours for the day. Google's map shows whatever hours your listing has, so without Special hours it tells everyone nearby that it's a normal Sunday.
Week 3
Put it on your home page
Add one banner at the top of the home page with the service times and a button to the holiday page, so a guest who lands on the home page sees the big day before anything else.
Week 2
Check it all on a phone
Run the full checklist on a phone, and tap every link and button on the holiday page. Make sure the times match everywhere they appear, including the bulletin and the church app.
Week 1
Answer fast
Watch the phone, the inbox and your Google listing's messages every day that week. Families ask about parking, seating and the kids, and a quick, friendly answer helps them decide to come.
After
Keep the page up
Swap the times for a thank-you and an invitation to next Sunday, and leave the page at the same address. Next year you'll update the times instead of starting from scratch.
If your church runs a Google Ad Grant, a holiday ad can send searchers straight to that one page. Here's a sample for Easter.
easter service near me
If your church runs a Google Ad Grant
Google's Ad Grant has website rules of its own, and every Grant site has to meet them. Four of them match items on the checklist, so one pass on a phone covers both.
Our Google Ad Grants guide covers the rest of the Grant rules, from setup to the monthly checks.
- Your church owns the domain. Google's website policy says your nonprofit must own the domain your ads point to.
- The whole site uses https. Google says your entire website must be served over HTTPS, and it names expired certificates and mixed content as common slips.
- It works on a phone. Google says your website must display and function correctly on smartphones and tablets.
- Every button works. Google asks Grant sites to make sure all buttons, especially donation links, lead to the correct, working pages.
Five mistakes that hide from the office
Each of these looks fine from the church office, so it lasts until someone checks the site on a phone.
- The check happens on a desktop at the office. The church Wi-Fi and a big screen hide the problems a visitor on a phone runs into the moment the page opens.
- The times live only in a flyer image. Nobody can tap it or copy it on a phone, and a guest using a screen reader can't hear what it says.
- Someone tests giving while logged in. Guests aren't logged in, so the test skips the exact steps a first-time giver has to get through.
- Each holiday gets a new page address. Every new address starts over with Google, so bring last year's page back with this year's times instead.
- A change goes in on Saturday night. Nobody checks the site late on Saturday, so a form that breaks then stays broken until a guest tries it on Sunday morning.
Is your site ready for the next big Sunday?
Answer five quick questions. Your answers stay on your own device.
Have you checked your site on a phone, off the church Wi-Fi, in the last month?
Do your service times show on the home page without scrolling?
Has someone sent a test gift while logged out since the last change to giving?
Does your Easter or Christmas page live at the same address every year?
Are this year's holiday times set as Special hours on your Google listing?
Your site is ready. Keep the Thursday check on the calendar before every big Sunday, because one edit in between can undo it.
You're close. Fix your first No this week, starting with the times on the home page, since that's the first thing a guest looks for.
Start with the phone check this Thursday. Search your church's name from your own phone and tap through like a visitor would, and the problems that matter most will show up within a few minutes.
How we help churches
We run Google Ad Grants for churches. We start with local searches like church near me in your town, then fill the rest of the grant with Bible and life questions. We count holiday searches like easter service as local searches too, so a holiday page that's been live for weeks gives those ads a good place to land. Our church page shows how we run a church Grant.
We also build church websites around the visit page, with times on the first screen and forms that reach a person. A nonprofit website from us is $2,997, paid once.
If you'd like a second set of eyes before Christmas or Easter, book a call with Miguel. He'll walk through your site on a phone with you and point out what a guest would trip over.
Questions people ask
What should a church website include?
A church website needs service times, the address with a map link, a plan your visit page, a way to give online, the livestream and a phone number that dials when tapped. Put the times on the first screen a phone shows, because that's the first thing a visitor looks for.
When should a church update its website for Easter?
Start six weeks ahead. Easter falls on March 28 in 2027, so the work starts the week of Ash Wednesday, February 10. For Christmas, start in the middle of November.
How do I test my church website on a phone?
Use your own phone off the church Wi-Fi, stay logged out, and start from a Google search for your church's name. Then tap every service time, map link, phone number, form and giving button the way a first-time visitor would.
Should our Easter page get a new address every year?
Keep one address, like yoursite.com/easter, and update the times each year. Every new address starts over with Google, while a page that's been up for years is already known.
How do I put Easter service times on Google?
Post the times and a link on your Google Business Profile, and set Special hours for the day. Google's help page says to set Special hours for days when you have unusual hours, such as holidays or special events.
See how we build websites for churches and nonprofits
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