If you’re redesigning your church website, you need to know how to avoid losing content, dropping in SEO ranking, and forgetting about important features. Use this simple church website blueprint to preserve history, keep search rankings, and integrate giving, livestream, and forms from Day One.
Don’t Let a Website Redesign Set You Back
Your church website is often the first door people walk through, but when it’s time to move or migrate your site, it’s easy to miss critical steps. From lost content to broken links and SEO drops, the wrong move can hurt more than help. We’ve seen churches lose years of digital history in a single weekend because of rushed transitions or poor planning.
In this blog, you’ll learn the five most common mistakes churches make when moving to a new site—and how to plan your church website move so you protect your content, maintain visibility, and keep your church communication clear and simple.
1. Not Backing Up or Saving Key Website Content
One of the most frequent mistakes during a church website migration is launching a new site without safely storing the old one. Event photos, sermon notes, ministry pages, and donation links often vanish because no one backed them up. Even a missing homepage welcome message can confuse regular visitors.
Before you move, capture full‑page screenshots of key pages, export text, images, PDFs, and sermon media, save your current menu structure (top nav and footer), and list every third‑party tool you rely on—giving, livestream, forms, and podcast feeds—along with their embed codes. Preserving your digital history honors your past and saves hours of rebuilding later.
2. Neglecting SEO and Search Rankings
A beautiful new site that loses search rankings is like a new building in the middle of nowhere. If people can’t find you, they won’t visit. Search engine optimization (SEO) is foundational—don’t leave it for “later.”
Treat SEO as part of your launch, not an afterthought. Map 301 redirects from old URLs to new ones, carry over winning titles and meta descriptions, use clear H1/H2 headings with scannable copy, add alt text to images and sermon graphics, and keep your Google Business Profile accurate for address, service times, and website URL so new families can still find you before, during, and after launch.
3. Forgetting to Integrate Key Features (Giving, Streaming, Forms)
Some churches launch their new site…and forget the tools that matter most. If online giving, contact forms, or your livestream are missing or broken, you’ll create friction for members and guests.
As you go live, ensure online giving is active and visible by placing a prominent “Give” button on the homepage and in the main navigation, verify contact and prayer forms route to the right inboxes with a clear confirmation, re‑embed livestream and sermon media and test on both desktop and mobile, and confirm your events page supports smooth registrations. Core ministry tools—especially recurring giving for churches—should be easy to find and use so you can boost church engagement all week.
“ This is a great website for those like myself who are not very techy, but can also update little things at any time quickly and easily.”
Ted Kiger, Trinity Worship Center
4. Skipping Mobile Optimization
Over 60% of church website traffic is mobile. A stunning desktop site can become a frustrating experience on a phone if buttons are tiny, text is small, or menus are hard to open.
Preview your highest‑traffic pages on phones and tablets (homepage, sermons, ministries, plan a visit, giving), tap every button and form to confirm they’re thumb‑friendly, check that images resize and text remains readable, and simplify menus to surface the top actions (Plan a Visit, Watch, Give, Events, Contact).
If it doesn’t work on mobile, it doesn’t work period—prioritize the mobile experience as much as desktop when moving to a new church website.
5. Trying to Do Everything Alone
Assigning one volunteer—or the lead pastor—to run the entire migration leads to burnout, confusion, and delays. Worse, it risks launching a site that doesn’t serve your church’s real needs.
Here are a few different ways you can share the load:
Form a small launch team (1–3 people) with clear roles across content, tech, and ministry approvals
- Work a written checklist from content and redirects to features, mobile, and final QA
- Bring in expert help for redirects, embeds, and testing soft‑launch internally before going public. You don’t have to carry this alone—the right support frees your team to focus on people, not platforms.
Built to Support Ministry from Day One
Making a move to a new church website platform is about more than design and technology—it’s about how the right tools can support your mission from the very beginning. That’s why churches across the country choose solutions that are built for ministry, not just functionality.
ChurchSpring’s church website builder is more than a website builder—it’s a digital ministry assistant designed to serve your people with clarity, consistency, and ease. Instead of spending hours figuring out plugins or reinventing your content layout, you get tools that are ministry-ready out of the box.
“ We love our new ChurchSpring website! I especially like the inline editing and the ease of use. Thank you for a great product.”
Robert R., Hilltop Lakes Chapel
Move Your Website the Right Way
Redesigning your church website is a big step—and without a plan, it’s easy to fall into the very mistakes that hurt visibility, frustrate guests, and slow down ministry.
The good news? These five common pitfalls are completely avoidable. When you plan ahead, preserve what matters, and lean on the right support, your new website can launch smoothly and serve your church with clarity from day one.
Keep what works. Fix what doesn’t. And move forward with a platform that helps your team stay focused on ministry—not maintenance.
Try ChurchSpring free for 7 days or join our next demo webinar to see how our migration support and ChurchSpring’s Church Website Builder make it easy to launch a beautiful, functional site—without the stress.
