Freshen Up Your Website: A Web Programmer’s Summer Checklist for Churches

As summer rolls around, church communications teams often find a little more space to breathe, regroup and plan ahead for the busy fall season. Ministries may slow down a bit but your church website shouldn't be on autopilot. In fact, summer is one of the best times to make intentional updates that will set you up for a strong launch into fall programming.

Why Summer Website Maintenance Matters

It’s easy to let your church website become a digital attic over time—full of old events, outdated pages, oversized images and forgotten files. While those things may seem harmless, clutter impacts your site's speed, usability and even your church's first impression with visitors.

Cleaning up your website now can save headaches later and helps you launch your fall ministry season with clarity and excellence.

Where to Focus: A Programmer’s Summer Checklist

1. Review and Update Your Site’s Navigation

Before making big edits, start with your site’s navigation. Your navigation is prime real estate and it needs to stay clean, logical and mission-focused.

• Remove seasonal pages that are no longer relevant
• Check that everything listed still matters for your core audiences
• Make it as easy as possible for someone new to find service times, ministries and next steps

2. Audit Your Site’s Accessibility

Accessibility isn’t just a technical detail … it’s part of your church’s hospitality.

Take time this summer to run a free accessibility scan (we recommend WebAIM) and look for ways to improve. Fixing small issues (like alt text for images, contrast ratios, and heading structure) makes a big difference for people of all abilities to engage with your content.

3. Declutter Old Content and Pages

It’s common for church websites to accumulate content in the form of draft pages, outdated ministry content and long-past event information.

• Remove or archive pages that are no longer active
• Remember: Even unlinked pages can still be searchable through Google!
• Outdated content can create confusion for someone exploring your church for the first time

4. Clean Up Media Files

Photos, videos and documents can weigh down your website more than you realize.

• Delete unused or outdated media from your CMS
• Compress image sizes (aim for each photo to be under 400KB—use Compressor.io if needed)
• Host videos externally (on YouTube or Vimeo) instead of storing them directly on your site

Reducing file sizes and cleaning your media library improves page load times creating a faster, better user experience.

Quick Wins for Churches with Limited Time or Budget

If you only have time to tackle a few small things this summer, prioritize your events calendar and fall content.

• Simplify your public events list—Highlight only the most important, visitor-friendly events
• Update event pages—Include clear descriptions, dates, locations, registration links and next steps
• Freshen key pages—Use new photos from recent services or events to refresh your headers and add new life to your pages

Content updates don’t have to be massive to be meaningful. Sometimes trimming text and improving structure (like using headings and bullet points) can make your site dramatically easier to read and navigate.

A Few Things We Wish More Churches Knew About Website Health

Maintaining a church website is an ongoing commitment … it’s not a "set it and forget it" project.

• Uploading sermons, posting events, keeping content fresh—this takes real time and attention. Give your communications team margin to manage your site well.
• Some changes that seem “simple” can have ripple effects. Always ask: Is this change necessary and lasting? Is the time commitment worth it in the long run?
• Know your digital assets! Document your website hosting, domain registration, CMS access and critical account logins. (Watch for a future post where we’ll dive deeper into creating a digital inventory.)

As we like to say at Fishhook, your website is your welcome mat. Keeping it clean, updated and inviting reflects your care for people exploring faith and community.

Want a Little Help?

If your team doesn’t have the margin to tackle these summer projects, we’d love to come alongside you! Our team of designers, strategists and developers partners with churches to help keep their websites fresh, functional and focused on ministry.

We’d love to help you get ready for a strong fall season! Click here to reach out.