A synagogue website has a lot of information to communicate.
Who are we? When are services? What’s happening this week? What do we offer for children and families? Who are our clergy? How does someone become a member?
But sometimes a visitor isn’t looking to learn something.
They’re looking to do something.
They want to register for an event. Make a donation. Find the livestream. Contact someone. Figure out when services begin.
In those situations, the job of the website is simple:
Help them accomplish what they came to do as quickly and easily as possible.
Here are five common tasks every synagogue should think about.
1. Find the Information They Need Right Now
This sounds obvious, but it’s probably the most important task of all.
Someone visits your website because they need to know:
What time are services tonight?
Where is the synagogue?
Is there religious school this Sunday?
When does the event start?
How do I watch the livestream?
Those answers shouldn’t require detective work.
Think about the information people need most frequently — or most urgently — and make sure it’s easy to reach.
For many synagogues, service times deserve particular attention. An Orthodox congregation with daily minyanim may need those times prominently displayed throughout the website. Another congregation may place greater emphasis on Friday night and Saturday morning services.
Likewise, if livestreaming is an important part of your congregation, don’t bury the livestream link three levels deep in the navigation.
The website should reflect what your visitors actually come there looking for.
2. Register for a Program or Event
Someone sees an interesting event in your weekly email.
They click through to the website.
They read about it.
They decide they want to attend.
What happens next?
Ideally, there’s an obvious Register, RSVP or Purchase Tickets button right there.
Don’t make them hunt for a registration form. Don’t require them to call the office unless there’s a good reason. And don’t send them through several unrelated pages before they reach the form.
If payment is required, let them complete that as part of the process whenever possible.
The path should be straightforward:
I’m interested → I have the information I need → I’m registered.
And once they’ve registered, give them a clear confirmation so they know it worked.
3. Make a Donation or Payment
People expect to be able to conduct financial transactions online.
For a synagogue, that might mean:
- Making a donation
- Paying a membership commitment
- Sponsoring a Kiddush
- Paying religious school or preschool tuition
- Purchasing High Holiday tickets
- Paying for an event
- Making a tribute or memorial gift
The exact payment system will vary from congregation to congregation.
Some synagogues handle these transactions through ShulCloud or another synagogue-management system. Others process certain payments directly through their public website.
Either approach can work.
What’s important is that visitors don’t need to understand your technology in order to use it.
If someone clicks Donate, they should arrive somewhere that clearly explains how to make a donation.
If they’re making a tribute gift, let them provide the appropriate information.
If members can pay an outstanding balance through their account, make the login easy to find.
And when you’re dealing with larger payments such as tuition or membership commitments, consider whether bank/ACH payments should be available in addition to credit cards.
The transaction may happen behind the scenes in another system.
To the visitor, it should still feel like a natural part of the synagogue website.
4. Connect With the Congregation
Not every visitor is ready to join.
They may simply want to begin a relationship.
Perhaps they’re new to the community. Maybe they’re considering membership. Maybe they attended a program and want to stay connected.
Give them an easy way to do that.
That might mean joining your email list.
But it could also mean:
Ask a Question.
Schedule a Visit.
Meet Our Rabbi.
Learn About Membership.
Come to Shabbat.
Make your contact information easy to find, but don’t rely solely on a generic Contact Us page.
Think about the kinds of connections people might want to make from different parts of the website.
Someone reading about religious school should be able to contact the appropriate person.
Someone exploring membership should have a clear next step.
Someone reading a clergy biography should be able to find out how to reach that clergy member.
Your website shouldn’t simply tell people about your community.
It should make it easier to enter it.
5. Find Their Way — Online and In Person
Eventually, many website visitors need to get somewhere.
Sometimes that’s a physical destination:
How do I get to the synagogue?
Make your address easy to find and link it to a mapping service so visitors can immediately get directions from wherever they are.
If parking isn’t obvious, explain it.
If visitors should enter through a particular door, tell them.
If security procedures affect how someone enters the building, provide whatever information is appropriate to share publicly.
But navigation isn’t only physical.
Visitors also need to find their way to the parts of your digital synagogue they use regularly.
That might include:
- Member login
- ShulCloud
- Livestream
- Calendar
- Religious school resources
- Forms
- Online payments
Don’t make regular users navigate through your entire public website every time they want to reach one of these destinations.
Give frequently used tools logical, predictable places to live.
Bonus: Accomplish All Five From a Phone
There’s one requirement that applies to everything on this list:
It needs to work on a phone.
Someone may be looking up the service time while they’re getting ready to leave the house.
They may register for an event after tapping a link in the weekly email.
They may make a donation after receiving a message from the synagogue.
They may need directions while sitting in their car.
Test these tasks yourself.
Pick up your phone and try to:
Find tonight’s service time.
Register for an event.
Make a donation.
Contact a staff member.
Get directions to the synagogue.
Don’t test whether each feature technically works.
Pay attention to how easy it is.
How many taps did it take?
Was anything difficult to read?
Did you have to zoom?
Was it obvious what to do next?
Did a form ask for more information than seemed necessary?
Those small points of friction matter.
Design Around What People Came to Do
It’s easy to approach a website by thinking about pages.
We need an About page.
We need a Worship page.
We need a Membership page.
We need an Events page.
That’s a perfectly reasonable way to organize content.
But every once in a while, stop thinking about pages and start thinking about people with tasks.
A member needs tonight’s service time.
A prospective family wants to schedule a preschool tour.
A congregant wants to register for a dinner.
Someone wants to make a donation in memory of a friend.
A visitor from out of town wants to find Saturday morning services and figure out how to get there.
How quickly can each of those people get from your homepage — or from a Google search — to what they need?
A good synagogue website provides information.
A great synagogue website helps people do something with it.
The less the website gets in their way, the better.