162: 3 Types Of People Who Visit Your Church Website (& Why It Matters) | with Derek Maxson

In this episode, Laurie Graham welcomes Derek Maxson, an expert in helping small churches improve their online presence. Derek shares his insights on the three types of church website visitors:

• Insiders
• Shoppers
• Seekers

He emphasizes the importance of catering to "Seekers" - those visiting in crisis - and provides practical tips on what to add to your church website. 

This episode is a must-listen for small churches looking to leverage their website as an effective front door to their community.

Connect with Derek Maxson:
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Transcript

Laurie Acker: 0:01

Hey, this is Laurie Acker, welcome to the small church ministry podcast. Hey, hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the small church ministry podcast. Another fabulous guest coming at you today, before I introduce him, though, I just do want to encourage you all, like, get involved with our Facebook community. Follow us on Instagram. We have such an amazing community. It's been so fun working with the conference we had in January, because, like, the power of what we're doing is really coming from the collective of everyone, just kind of coming together, not just in the US and Canada, but really all over the world, people in small churches who are doing amazing things, watching God work, whether or not your church grows in number, like really acknowledging that God is here now and we can be a light right where we are. So really excited and grateful for all of you just for being part of the community. So make sure to find us. If you're not plugged in yet, we'll make sure to leave the link in the show notes. But until then, I've got a fabulous guest with us, Derek is joining us, and Derek, I'm going to have you introduce yourself and tell people why you're here.

Derek Maxson: 1:17

Yeah. Hi everyone. Hi Laurie. Thanks a lot for having me on I'm I'm excited to be here, and I love what small church ministry does here, and I am a follower on the Facebook group. So that's not how I was introduced to you, but how I really gotten acquainted with your ministry and the Ministry of other people and then in the network. So it's really great. Yeah.

Laurie Acker: 1:39

Okay, so since you said that. I just have to say, Do you feel like the positive vibes from that group? Because so many people who join our Facebook community say this is so different from everywhere else on Facebook, because we just keep it so positive and solution oriented. Like, have you felt that, too?

Derek Maxson: 1:53

I really have. And, and, you know, just kind of a shout out on it is that. I mean, we've all been to conferences where the churches are just, they're big, you know. And the things that they're talking about, it's like, yeah, I'll get my 23 staff on this right now, you know? And yeah, and then we're all trying to figure out, what do we do with this? And so that's what I really love about what you're doing, is just people who are kind of in the same place and and sharing ideas and sharing joys and frustrations, it's good.

Laurie Acker: 2:25

Yeah, yeah. Okay, so share about your ministry background, what you're doing now, before we jump in, because we're going to be talking about websites, I don't think I even said that yet, but maybe people read like the title of the podcast before they clicked on it. But do you want to share a little bit about your ministry background? Because you've done a lot more than websites, and that's not even your main thing that you do now, right?

Derek Maxson: 2:44

Yeah. So yeah. My name is Derek, and so I went straight from high school and went to Bible college. And while I was in Bible college, this is when my first real small church ministry experience came about for me. I had grown up in kind of a big church in Southern California, but went to Bible college, and there was a little church, Laurie Community Church Outside of Hillsboro, Oregon, about 100 kids, 10 kids in the youth group, and they invited me as a second year Bible college student, to come and lead the youth group.

Laurie Acker: 3:17

So you went from a really big church Southern California to a church of 100 is that? What you're saying? Yeah, that's like, culture shock. I just know that from my own experience. How fun. But it was

Derek Maxson: 3:26

so great, though, because I got to experience a whole different way of doing church. You know, there, there wasn't any such thing as potluck at the big church in Southern California that had things, but like, oh, pot luck. I think I can be with these people and anyway. And it was great. And my wife is grew up in that church, and so we met there. And, you know, and I have lots of family who go to that church still, because of my wife's extended family, multi generation, in that church, so it's a real blessing to me. And what do

Laurie Acker: 3:57

you think is unique and special about small church ministry? Well, I think that what's

Derek Maxson: 4:01

what's interesting about well, okay, so what's interesting about it is that the dynamics of family are stronger than the dynamics of like, say, like church, government or ministry structure or strategy or something like that, that that like how we navigate as individuals within this familial concept is is, I think that's the governing element of small church ministry. What I think is strategic about it is that people long for relationship, and you can find relationship in lots of different places, and small churches have a niche in which they can create a certain kind of community that is authentic, and people who find it will love it, and and so we just need, we need churches from all over the you know, the size spectrum and denominational spectrum and all that, and for each one to be. Be who they are. That's That's my heart and the whole thing. So which relates to what I do now, primarily after I spent 25 years after, kind of being in youth ministry for a while doing technology and building stuff for, you know, technology companies and and so now I'm really full time working with churches and equipping pastors. My primary thing is that I lead cohorts and workshops primarily for small churches that are great commission alignment. And very much like, how can this church, in this context, be best about the Great Commission and so we are talking about websites today, and we're really talking about them within the context of Jesus's charge for us as as he was leaving the Great Commission. And because one of the things I'm passionate Well, I'm super passionate about the Great Commission, because there's just people all around us who need to know Jesus, whose lives will be so much better when they know Jesus and and we are His ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. And then our website's kind of our front door in a lot of cases, and so is our social media. And of course, so are all of us as as people. So that's what I

Laurie Acker: 6:17

love it. We just Yeah, no, that's so cool. We just have been talking last year, at one point in the small church network, we we spent a good chunk of time talking about, you know, our welcoming ministries, our hospitality, which most people think of as like, what's happening in your foyer, what's happening when people walk in. You know, where are your greeters? And we really did that shift of saying, hey, in today's day and age, your front door, your patio is your website. Like people don't usually come to a church first they check you out online, and you have a really cool perspective of the types of people who kind of find your website. Do you want to share a little bit about that too?

Derek Maxson: 6:54

Yeah, yeah. Thanks. So every website for a church has three distinct kind of visitors who come to it, the first part we're really familiar with, and those are the insiders. They're the people who already go to our church. And so what are they looking for? Well, they're they're maybe looking to catch up on the sermon that they missed from this last weekend before they have small group and they're gonna, you know, talk about it, they're also maybe looking for what day a certain activity is happening, or, you know, what the details are on that, what their child didn't tell them before? Oh, we have a junior high thing tomorrow. You know, that kind of, that kind

Laurie Acker: 7:35

of thing. And then you hope, DM, so is actually there, right?

Derek Maxson: 7:39

Yes, exactly. So those are the two main things that the insiders look for on a website. The second group of people who visit a website, I call them the shoppers, and this is like, Zacchaeus. Okay, so, so Zacchaeus is is up in the tree. Jesus is going by, and he's checking out. He's observing it because he wants to know what it's about. And so a lot of times churches have this kind of thing, hey, you know, visit us new here, that kind of a link where the shopper finds the information. They're looking for a couple things. They're looking for things that tell them, pictures and words that tell them, can I envision myself being a part of this church? And so they're looking for, you know, well, I fit in here. And if they're an experienced church person, they're like, Well, what kind of style of church is this, you know, is this, you know, doctrinally and stylistically aligned with who I am as a person? And then they're also looking for when and where does this church meet? Like, how can I get involved? So we're really familiar with the shopper too. We're familiar with website information for the insider, for the shopper. But here's the third group, and this is the one that that you know, my great commission heart really wants all of us in our churches to lean into this, which is the seeker. The seeker is the person. This is like in Mark, where Jesus is teaching inside a house. And some guys bring their friend to Jesus, he's paralyzed. He's lying on a mat, and they try to get him inside, because they know Jesus will heal him. And and they and they can't get him in inside. We all know the story. So they, they do whatever you know, youth group kids, basically, they're tearing apart the roof of the house to lower their friend into where Jesus is so that Jesus can both heal him from his physical problems and save his save him through the power of the forgiveness of Christ. And so the seeker, then, is who we're missing in most church websites. Laurie, before we started you, I told you I that I looked at over 100 church websites before I found a church that I could use it as an as an example for a church that really does a sensitivity to the person who's seeking because this person is in. Crisis, or in need, they're coming to your church and saying, I just I'm in grief because I just lost a family member, or my marriage has fallen apart, or my teenager, I'm struggling with my teenager. You know, any one of the number of things that we deal with, substance abuse, all the issues that we encounter in the human condition. And they they say, you know, maybe the church can help me. And it breaks my heart that most church websites don't have a door so to speak, on their website for how someone can find out information that's going to help them in that point of need. And so we want to Yeah, and

Laurie Acker: 10:41

let's talk about that for a minute. Because, like, this is why we're talking about this. Like a lot of people think, well, we have a website. It's fine. You know, we have a website. It has our information on it. And you and I both know, as well as most people listening, most church websites, especially smaller churches, there's a lot we're missing the it is not an appropriate like, welcome to our church. We haven't put as much effort into it as even we do sometimes in our coffee areas. So you're saying that there's three types of people. And I just want to go over this, because this is new. This is a new way of looking at it, because we're all familiar with the insiders and the church shoppers, as you mentioned, but the difference between the shopper and the seeker, if I'm hearing you right, is the seeker isn't necessarily hunting for a church and church shopping, they have needs, like they're looking for a place that's going to meet their real needs, And I love that you're even bringing that to mind, because how often are we serving church shoppers more than the needs people actually have? Like, why did this come to mind for you? Or how did this even come up as like, part of your heartbeat that you like to talk about?

Derek Maxson: 11:57

It came about for me that that, in a lot of ways, just the visit us link, while that's important to the church, because, you know, if somebody wants to visit, we of course want to make it easy for people to visit, you know, obviously. But the thing that kind of it just broke my heart was to say, if somebody came to our church and they were, you know, feeling like they didn't know whether or not they could wake up tomorrow, and we're trying to decide whether or not they were going to keep keep on going. And did our church have anything to say to them on that site? Or if it's if it's like, yeah, what we have is kids ministries at 930 and church service at 1045 you know, I just, I just couldn't feel good about how we're reaching on this channel. And of course, this channel is 24/7 Yeah. And, you know, in our churches, can't be so the rule. And

Laurie Acker: 12:56

I love that you just brought up depression. I mean, that's really an issue of depression. Am I going to make it? Am I going to keep going? Because that's a crisis around us, and we're putting so much emphasis into how do we get people to come to our church, whereas, like, yeah, it's much more Jesus like to say, how can we actually help people? How can we serve them? How can we help them find meaning? How can we help them find peace? How can we help them find joy? How can we help them find healing? So, okay, keep going. Derek, I know you got more to say. Oh, thanks.

Derek Maxson: 13:28

So then, really the issue, then, for probably everybody who's listening to this is saying, Oh yeah, I get the problem. But I'm, you know, a solo pastor. I got, you know, like, how am I going to do anything with this? So what I want to do then is I want to share what I share what I think is a great recipe for for what to do next. And

Laurie Acker: 13:49

let me mention this too, and I know you're aware of this because you just mentioned a solo pastor. We also have many, many volunteers who are listening right now, who are like, I am just a volunteer. How do I influence this? What do I do? And I know the things you're going to share are things we can be sharing to our leadership, to our pastor, because sometimes we do, we're able to take on some of that weight and say, Hey, here's a guy who can help, here's a thought that can help, here's an idea. So Okay, keep going with your solution. Okay,

Derek Maxson: 14:22

I won't leave them out. All right. So the I think that the steps that can be made because, you know, frankly, we don't need lots and lots of content, web pages of lots of text of if you're feeling this way, then you need to do this. If you've lost a relative, then you need to do this. Really. What we need to do is we need to open up our hands and say, you know, we're here for you. And so having a link at the top navigation of your site, that is, how can we help? So that's the first step. How can we help. And then on the next page, I think a great thing would be even to have a video, a. Of two minutes, maybe from the pastor, or maybe from some people in the church, where it's where it's like, no matter what you're going through, if you're going through this or this or this, we're here to help, and here's how to contact us. And so you don't need to have like, all these web pages that answer everybody's questions. You can have links to things if you want to, especially if in your community, there's resources that you're you know, if you're in this situation, contact this organization. Every church can put the 988 phone number on there, the emergency line, if you're feeling like you might commit self harm. So every church can do those things and then have either a fill in the blank form on your website or a text message number that people can just in the middle of the night, text in and say, Pray for me. Help me with this, just to give that opportunity of the church communicating through the video and through that, how can I help to the person who visits? We care. We're here for you. And then a way that they can respond, and then a team of people behind that, somebody that that is reading those forms, not just Monday through Thursday, but really, whenever they come in, and then being able to say to someone in the church I know who would be perfect to follow up with this individual and to go and do that and put them, you know, either show that love directly, or put them in contact with an organization that can help, but that every church would open up that front door to the people in their community, in need.

Laurie Acker: 16:41

Yeah, you know, I love that you said, you know, there just needs to be a team of people who are going to respond. And for those of you in smaller churches right now thinking, oh my gosh, we don't have a team. We don't have that many volunteers. This does not take a lot of people. And almost every small church I know has a prayer team that wants to pray more like they want the request. They want to know what to do. They want to be like, you have these people in your church now, this doesn't have to be we talk a lot. Derek, I know you know this about like, how to make it easy? Like, yeah, the the yoke of Jesus is supposed to be easier. Sometimes we're doing hard things, but we're doing it the easy way. And I think everything you just mentioned it is easy to put a button on your website that says, How can we help? It is easy, believe it or not, to make a less than two minute video saying, Hey, we're here for you. I really love that you said we don't need all the answers. We just need to let people know we're with you. And honestly, that's often the answer that people are looking for, just that they're not alone.

Derek Maxson: 18:14

Yeah, that's great. And thanks for catching the vision with this. Laurie, I knew from the very first time I shared it with you that you know that you're you got it, and I know that everybody who's listened this is getting this too, and and because we all have a heart for those who need Jesus in our communities and and our churches exist by the grace of God for the benefit of of not only ourselves, but that the light would pour out from our doors, from our from even our own homes, to the people around us. And so to use our website in that way. And, you know, we can apply the same thing to social media to reach people in our community. So, so that's really what, you know, what this is about. Can I share a couple other kind of things about the website? Stuff might be helpful to I would

Laurie Acker: 19:09

love you to. I was even going to ask you, you may want to share just a little bit like, you know, I've learned to build a website. My kids actually laugh at me. They're like, Mom, I can't even believe you have a website, because I am not techie, you know. And so they laugh. They'll say, Mom, I just can't believe you're you would have a website. But so for me to say, it's easy to put a button on, it's easy to drop a two minute video in if at some point, even if it's the end, we can come back to it. Derek, if you could just give some tips, like a lot of our church websites, they may be on the the Freer sites, like some are on Wix, some are on Weebly. There's a few church sites that that have kind of made it easy. Some of them are running, you know, people through a WordPress site. And I don't want to get totally in the weeds, but maybe just a couple tips on like we're saying, it's easy to put a button and it might not be going, I don't know how to do that. Like, what would you say to them?

Derek Maxson: 20:03

Well, what I would sometimes, what happens? And probably there's people in who are listening to this today that describes it exactly, where somebody in the church, maybe even several years ago, said, I can build our church's website, and then that person isn't as fastidious about keeping it up as they were about starting it. And so this is a problem that happens a lot. Yeah, so I have a couple bits. Of advice on this. One of them is the that minimize the total number of pages on a website. So I think we can remove things like, if there's anything on your website that's more than two years old it, you know, in terms of it has dates on it, like if you have a blog, or, you know, announcements about new small groups or something, and it's old, then just get rid of it. Have less is more. No one expects a small church to have all of these pages of ministries. So if you have, like, a ministries tab on the page, and down is like eight things, and there's 140 people on an average Sunday at your church, or whatever that the size is, and you have eight minute people know that those aren't like, full ministries of lots and lots of people. It's, you know, it we don't need to be, you know, whatever North Point church, just be who we are. And so it's, it's enough to say, Come on Sunday, and here's our calendar of things for new people. It's good to say whether or not you have kids ministries, because if someone's coming and bringing their children, it's good to know what, what's going to happen there. It's good to know if you have student ministries, and it's good to know what kinds of groups that people have. So just a page, like list, oh yeah, we have home Bible studies and women's Bible study and, you know, recovery group or something like that. It's great to give people a list, but it isn't that all of those things need their own page and lots of information. Keep it simple. That way there's less to update. So keep it simple is really good have one page that's like, the about us, history, doctrine, mission statement, like, one simple page doesn't need to have all of that on there. Use,

Laurie Acker: 22:25

yeah, and it doesn't need to be multiple pages. Like, I've been to church websites, like, there's an about and there's all these different pages just put on one page, because if somebody's looking for your mission statement, they're the ones who are going to care about everything else you're talking about with the core values, and they don't even want to be clicking around. So I love that. So keep it simple. Less pages keep going. Derek,

Derek Maxson: 22:43

yep, and really view one of the primary things that you can do in the with that website is provide the opportunity for a quick submission to the site that results in an actual person who contacts back. Because, again, taking advantage of the fact that this is a family type of an atmosphere versus a big organization, kind of an atmosphere is really to the advantage of the small church in this and so I think that that's great. So those are a couple of things. And then here's a Derek pet peeve on church websites. You know, sometimes one button is, like, a bigger button than every other button, or it's or it's a certain color, you know, whatever, just don't have that be give. When give is the most important button on the web page, I'm like, I'm like, Oh, I get it. But you know, like, that's, it's it for visitors. That's only perpetuating a stereotype. And yeah, and

Laurie Acker: 23:43

remember, and you know, just keeping in mind that your website is your front door or your patio or your welcoming area or your parking lot, you wouldn't have an offering box at the when you pull into a parking lot, like, give us some money before you come in. And I think that's really interesting. And this goes back Derek to your three types of people who visit websites, and so between the insiders and the shoppers and the seekers, those who have these needs. Like, would you say that that there should be a certain focus on our website? Like, you know, to me, the insiders can look a little harder. Like, we don't have to have the calendar on the front page. To me, the front page. They know that that site should be more for the seekers or the shoppers. You know, your insiders know to click where the calendar is right? Would you agree with that? Or am I a little off in that?

Derek Maxson: 24:37

Yeah, just a couple other kind of, like tips of things that relate to that. Is that that we call above the fold to be the part of the website you see when you first go to the website. So

Laurie Acker: 24:49

without scroll, without scroll, above the fold is what you see before you scroll. Okay, keep going, and

Derek Maxson: 24:55

I got more details on this. I'll tell you about it in a few minutes. You know, tell everybody about this in a few minutes. But above that fold ought to be the name of the Church and its general location. So if you have on there, like, Hey, we're, you know, First Presbyterian Church of any town USA that's really put that on there, because sometimes people don't know where this, where this church is really located, and so you click on it, you're like, oh, okay, this is the First Presbyterian Church I was looking for, all right, so that's one of the things on there. The other thing. Is that that above the fold oftentimes is really great to have some pictures, and it's great to have some pictures of like what you look at when you're sitting in those seats. So

Laurie Acker: 25:45

your actual church, everybody, not stock photos. We don't want to use stock photos of other churches. Please stop doing that. Yeah,

Derek Maxson: 25:52

not stock photos, not kind of artwork of, you know, like logo, we artwork, or something like that. Not, not scenery from the area like, oh, we live near Niagara Falls, so I live near Yosemite National Park. So there's couple churches in our area that actually have Yosemite as their main picture. I'm like, You're not selling Yosemite. You're selling people on the idea that they want to fellowship with you. Yeah. And so present, actually, what your church is, have that new I want to visit, link up there, and that I want to help. And, yeah, and then you can have, you know, even, I mean, most churches now, even small churches, are doing something to put their sermons or their whole services on on the internet now. And this is really great. It's probably the best thing that happened to our churches coming through COVID, right? And so have that available. Let people be connected easily. And Laurie, you said at the beginning, you know how our website is our front door. The stat that I heard from glue is that people visit a church website eight times, or watch eight segments of information or video about a church before they visit a person eight Wow. And so that's why, that's another really great reason to just have some things, like, when you have your, you know, meet the pastor page on the website, perhaps, to have a short, again, short video of like, hey, you know that I'm so and so, and I'm the pastor at this church. I'd love to meet you. And, yeah, I love to play pickleball. So if you're ever the pickleball court, make sure you meet me.

Laurie Acker: 27:36

Yeah, I love it. Well, Derek, we are almost out of time. Thank you so much for taking the time to meet with, you know, our whole audience right now. And you know, get introduced to this whole new crew. And I know you've been in the Facebook community, but getting on the podcast is, is a little is a little different too, which I just love it. And so I'm so glad you're here, but you all this is Derek max. And Derek, can you tell them, like, how to get in touch with you if they have more questions, if they want website help, and also, I know you have pastoral cohorts, and so please let us know a little bit about that before we leave.

Derek Maxson: 28:12

Yeah. Thank you. I want to invite everybody to go to www dot spiffy, dot church. And spiffy is spelled s, p, i, f, f, y and on there. I have a couple of resources for you. One of them is a free video course that just outlines these principles of how to take your website and great commission it. And if this isn't for the techie people out there, this is for ministry leaders to know how to talk to the person who makes their website to get great commission.

Laurie Acker: 28:48

So, and you said free, so you know us. Oh,

Derek Maxson: 28:51

yeah. And anyway, I think you'll love it. It's less than an hour of content, and it's great. I show lots of examples on there, so and then there's

Laurie Acker: 29:00

spiffy dot church, spiffy. We will also put that in the show notes,

Derek Maxson: 29:04

great. And also put this in the podcast, because I also have a service where I'll go through your website and I'll do a video recording of me walking through the website and commenting about easy things to do to fix it. And so, because what I don't really want a church to do is to feel like, Oh, now we gotta throw it all out and start all over. No, it's like, let's do some tweaks. Let's just, let's just, you know, not spend a lot of time or money and do that. And so that service is inexpensive, but it's even better, because I'll do a 50% off discount with the promo code of podcast on that. So anyway, but it's real inexpensive, and I'd love to, I love to do it. It's like a joy for me to help your church with this. So you can do that, all right. And so where can they find that one that's also at spiffy dot church, perfect. And if you are a pastor and you're interested in cohorts, all of these are on Zoom. They're interdenominational pastor groups, and we go through principles around the Great Commission and apply them into our churches. And so we just got done doing what I'm really excited about, which is, how do we develop a framework for what a follower of Jesus is like and how our church is producing that outcome? And so all of that's really great, and you can just contact me through spiffy dot church. We don't need to make. Get too complicated about it, find me and all those cohorts are free to the pastors.

Laurie Acker: 30:38

Wow, awesome. Well, great. Thanks for all you do, Derek, I know your ministry kind of is exploding in a lot of different ways, and I know you have different trainings. And thank you for just coming on and seeing the need, really, to speak about websites, because it is it this is something that should have been higher on our list, like, even pre COVID. Like, I just feel like we've we've missed people, right? Because if people visit your website eight times before they come to your church, think about what happens when your website is terrible and they don't come back. Like, if they're not coming back to their web, your website, they're probably not coming back to your church. So I think it's so important, all right, Derek, before we go, any last words of wisdom.

Derek Maxson: 31:18

Oh, boy, that's tough. You know? I know,

Laurie Acker: 31:22

yeah, let's I, but you look like you're up with a challenge. It's, it's

Derek Maxson: 31:26

January 7 right now, and so I'm really thinking about the beginning of the year and and stuff for me. And so this year for me is just about how, and a phrase I've adopted over the last couple years is to grow fruit on other people's trees. And so that and I, and that comes from Bob Buford, who is a really great person who loved Jesus and is now with him, but this idea that all of us who are involved in ministry are really growing fruit on other people's trees, that we're giving them what God has given to us in order that they would bear the fruit of abiding in Christ. And so no matter where you are today, on the small church ministry world, just know that that's where it is.

Laurie Acker: 32:15

Wow, I love it. All right, y'all don't forget to check out the links in the show notes and check out spiffy dot church for more help with websites. And if you just want to get connected with Derek in the future, he's also in our creative solutions Facebook community, and he's been hanging out there, already giving some tips and just being part of the community. So we are grateful for that. So until next week, you all keep doing it be a light you