The world is constantly changing. Churches are changing their approach to reach their audience all the time. One way that churches are pivoting is by multiplying by having multiple locations all part of the same family. This is commonly known as a multisite church and we are focusing on the connection they are able to make through the use of their multisite church websites. They are taking something that is working and capitalizing on it.
According to The Leadership Network, “The new official statistic is that there are more than 5,000 multisite churches in North America. That’s more than 5,000 different churches, each of which has two or more different geographic campuses – one church in two or more locations. This finding was extrapolated from a national survey of churches of all sizes, and validated by Leadership Network’s constantly growing database of multisite churches.”
We wanted to give you a little look at some of their websites, showcasing the best ones. Let’s jump in.
Looking for more inspiration? Check out our list of the Top 100 Church Websites.
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Table of contents
Multisite Church Website Design
Before we jump into our list of the top 11 best multisite church websites, it’s important for us to look at the design of these websites in general. What should you look for when designing them? What’s important and what’s not?
Multisite churches may still feel newer, but they are quickly on the rise. According to RavePubs, there were 5,000 multisite churches in North America as of 2019, and that number is only getting higher!
Designing a multisite church website comes with unique challenges. With multiple campuses under one umbrella, it’s essential to ensure that every location feels connected while maintaining its own identity. The goal is to make it easy for visitors to navigate, find information, and engage with the church.
Good design not only serves church members but also reaches new visitors. This is why search engine optimization (SEO) and thoughtful structure are crucial.
Structure and Navigation
When working with most multi-site campuses, it’s essential to make the website structure intuitive. Each campus needs its own page, clearly labeled with service times, locations, and events. For the best church websites, visitors should be able to find a campus near them quickly through a well-organized “Locations” section. For larger churches with multiple campuses, an interactive map can be useful.
Design also plays a role in supporting campus pastors. Each campus page should have a space for introducing key leaders, such as the campus pastor, and offer ways to connect. This builds a sense of belonging and gives each campus its own personality within the larger church network.
Search Engine Optimization and Outreach
Search engine optimization (SEO) is vital for any multi-site church website. With multiple campuses, it’s important that each location ranks well on search engines like Google. This means optimizing each campus page with keywords like “church near me” or “Christian church in [city name].” Church leaders involved in church planting should also consider creating blog content or event updates for each campus. This helps with SEO and shows that the church is active in the community.
The goal is to make it easy for people searching for a church to find your website. Good SEO practices ensure the website ranks higher in search results, helping each campus reach more people.
While not a multisite church, the Village Church in Texas does a great job of optimizing the text on its page for search engines so they appear high up on search engines.
Keeping it Simple for Church Leaders and Visitors
Designing for a multi-site church website also means considering the needs of church leaders and visitors alike. The best designs simplify backend management for staff while creating a welcoming and easy-to-navigate experience for visitors. Features like a centralized calendar or events page can help visitors stay connected across multiple campuses.
For church planting, a flexible website structure is key. As new campuses are added, the website should easily expand without needing a full redesign. This helps church leaders and web teams manage content efficiently as the church grows.
In summary, a well-designed multi-site church website should be simple to navigate, optimized for search engines, and flexible enough to grow with the church. By focusing on clear structure, SEO, and user-friendly design, churches can effectively reach their communities and support their multiple campuses.
Top 11 Multisite Church Websites
And that’s what you need to know about website design for multisite churches. Now, let’s jump into our list of the top 11 best multisite church websites.
Designing a website for a large church with many locations can be difficult, but here are some examples of designs that work great! We encourage you to borrow what works on these websites, as well as avoid any of the things that don’t. Hopefully, you’ll be able to take all these things to design your very own awesome website
Ready to get inspired? Let’s jump into our list.
1. Elevation Church
We start with maybe an obvious choice, Elevation Church. Sometimes when things are really popular it’s because they are just really good. Simple as that. They have over 20 different locations.
They have a great map and picture icons for each church. This gives you a little sneak peek at what you can expect to see before you visit. Anything you can do to give a visitor information that will help them come and assimilate it is very important to do it!
Elevation Church has done well to show who they are through its site and did a wonderful job with its multisite web page. The multisite location map provides a way for a visitor to easily see which location would fit them.
The different sites are also in an eye-catching tiling. The square tiles with rounded edges look clean and give just enough of a look at each geographic location. A clean white background helps the photography to stand out as well as their pop color of orange.
2. Life.church
Life.church is a great example of a church that is using a website to the fullest. This one main site is connecting churches in 12 different states! All in all, this is a robust site that offers good connections between their multiple locations acting as one large group collectively.
We love the larger look at the body of Christ and how we can all work together. Life.church makes a very large amount of free resources available to other churches and ministries. When an unchurched visitor is on the site, they are sure to be refreshed by such a spirit of love, care, and generosity between churches. Great work, Life.church!
3. Eagle Brook Church
Eagle Brook Church has very engaging videos that catch your attention quickly. Their videos include adults and children, making them appealing to a wide audience. We also really appreciate a well-done opening video, which often captures interest better than a still photo.
They have 13 locations. The locations/churches are easily available. The menu links are completely focused on the visitor. This is a great idea because members of your church WILL use your website but you want to appeal to the person who is not yet a member of your church or user of your website.
If you want more information you can use the drop-down menu to find the right one. You can also link from the main site to the smaller locations. There is also a button on the main page to link you to service times and locations. We also appreciate how Eagle Brook kept their site very simple. Just the right amount of information but not so much you are overwhelmed. Great job!
4. Dream City Church
Dream City Church is anchored to a landscape, namely the Arizonan desert. The beautiful aerial video is a great way to show pride in a place and also give a visitor a glimpse of the building they will be looking for when they first visit. We also think that they have a pretty cool logo.
They have a dual menu bar that is interesting if you have 2 distinct menus. It’s not a good idea if what you need to do is edit down your separate pages. Dream City Church has 11 different locations. On their locations page, you can also find what the different service times are. This eliminates the need to go off the page if you are looking for simple information.
One last thing that we thought was smart was social media invite links. 4 different invite links are a modern way to invite a friend. Though it is not as personal as a verbal invite, it is how people invite friends to things in this modern age, and it’s always smart to adapt.
5. Saddleback Church
Good photography that communicates real emotions and human relationships is a vital tool in the multisite church website. Saddleback Church does a fabulous job of this. People are emotional creatures and if you can honestly appeal to your visitor with a warm emotion, you will be doing well.
Organization and intentionality are well and good but if they fail to appeal to the emotions and the heart you are missing a big opportunity. You would be hard-pressed to find a more joyful picture than an awesome baptism photo capturing this big moment in a member’s life.
Saddleback Church’s tagline is “one church, many locations”.
“We are one church in many locations. Whether you’re from Orange County, Hong Kong, or somewhere in between, we have a campus for you.” This is clear information that says, “We prepared for you. You are wanted here.” They have churches across the nation and even across the world.
6. Woodside Bible Church
Woodside Bible Church shows the value they place on their many locations all being one church by putting a button right on the landing page. The accent color draws the eye and prompts action. The scrolling photography communicates that everyone can be included and that all types of people are represented.
The 14 locations are all represented by a photographic link. It is striking how different all the locations and buildings are. You would never guess they are all in the same group of churches. If you hover over a location link you are also provided with an opportunity to “Read More” about a location before actually leaving for that page. This is a smart choice for multisite church websites.
7. Doxa Deo
We really enjoyed this look at an international group of churches called Doxa Deo. They have churches in the UK, New Zealand, Europe, and Africa. The first obvious choice on the main website is to choose a location. There are a few different panels on the site that encourage interaction. These are just simple questions but they engage your visitor and hopefully helps them a step closer to actually visiting your church IRL.
Another thing we noticed is that there are pages that a similar in message but the colors had been altered depending on the location. This further points to the message, “We are alike and yet have our own personality”. Simple and smart solutions on how to connect multisite church websites to each other. Great job, Doxa Deo!
8. North Point Church
North Point Church has 6 churches in the Atlanta metro area. To start, there are a number of short videos introducing different age groups. These are effective and communicate that there is a place for you at North Point.
It is so important that you are aware of the message you send your visitor through your website. You want to try hard to identify your values so you know how to communicate what’s important to your organization.
Something that we have seen on almost all of the multisite church websites we are featuring is the ticker clock for their next live service. This is a great way to build a feeling of excitement around joining live with a service. Another feature we often found alongside the ticker clock was service times being available. You never know how long someone will be able to spend on your website. You want to capitalize on the time and give important information easily.
9. Cross Church
We love what Cross Church does with their simple and clear navigation and their campus finder. When you are looking at the churches in the campus finder, it gives you the simple options to “Visit Campus Site” or “Plan a Visit”.
It is worth mentioning that there is good intentionality in the design. While their website used to look more corporate, it now has a nice accent color to allow for some more visual interest. The color palate has some life to it, which works alongside the photos.
Churches of this size often ride the line between a bit of a corporation and a group of people with common core beliefs and worship practices. Anything that causes your church to pop off the screen is a good thing.
10. Church of the Highlands
With 26 different locations, Church of the Highlands is a massive multisite church. Because of this, simplicity in the organization of the site is really important. We also love the color scheme they’ve chosen. The very pale blue is reminiscent of the color of the sky which works really well with the darker accent blue color.
3 large tiles dominate this multisite church website. These 3 tiles answer 3 main questions a visitor might have: “What does the teaching sound like?”, “How do I plan a visit”, and finally, “How should I get involved with their Bible reading plan”. Yeah, that last one might not be the most important thing to put front and center in your website. Something like “I’m new, where do I start?” could be more effective for visitors.
There is also a ton of cool features and visual pops as you scroll down the website, highlighting all sorts of ministries and initiatives. All in all, we’re really impressed by Church of the Highlands.
11. Bethel Church
Bethel Church has a very striking home page. The text is black on white or white on black and everything is clear and easy to follow. There isn’t a hundred buttons or things grasping for your attention.
Bethel still functions as a multisite church, but their website communicates that there is one main church with some smaller affiliation churches. If that’s the way your multisite church works as well, you can pull some inspiration here!
Over the whole website, there is a lot of great emphasis on a new visitor. There are obvious buttons for you to “Join In-Person” or “Join Online”. For your own site, we’d encourage you to make the experience of the visitor as prioritized as possible.
Awesome Multisite Church Websites
And there you have it! Our top 11 list of the best multisite church websites. We hope that you were able to get inspired and collect some ideas for your own church website designs! There are a ton of practical things on this list you can take and use yourself, as well as some things you should avoid.
In fact, let us help you!
At REACHRIGHT we specialize in custom websites for churches. We also specialize in multisite church websites. Check out our site and see some of our work and how we might help you!
More Resources on Church Websites
About The Author
Comments 1
Hey!
I work on the website for the Bay Area Christian Church, I would appreciate if you could take a look at our site too! We’ve recently updated it to be more intuitive, since you have a pretty good grasp of what makes a good church site would appreciate your feedback. Maybe even putting us on a list like this!
Best,
Parker