Imagine you’ve been invited to someone’s house for dinner — and, being the thoughtful guest you are, you’ve brought along a beautiful cheesecake for dessert. You arrive, walk up to the front door, knock, and you’re welcomed in. Someone points you toward the kitchen. Simple. Straightforward. No stress.
Now imagine the same scenario… except your new friend is wealthy, and you haven’t arrived at a house at all — you’ve arrived at a mansion. There’s more than one entrance, and once you step inside you’re faced with a corridor lined with a thousand identical doors. None labelled. None giving any clue where the kitchen might be...
Too many choices overwhelm users
Church websites can unintentionally become like mansions: sprawling, complex, and full of doors. Navigation menus with dozens of options, dropdowns inside dropdowns, and pages buried three layers deep creating analysis paralysis — the moment where a visitor is faced with so many choices that they struggle to choose anything at all.
This slows people down. And sometimes, it stops them entirely.
Your navigation should feel like a clear front door, not a maze.
Complex menus tend to not be mobile friendly
Many church websites rely on hover‑based menus — which work fine on desktop, but fall apart on mobile.
Mobile users don’t have a mouse. There is no hover state.
So designers often switch to “tap to expand” menus. But this only works if it’s obvious that tapping will expand the menu rather than take you to a page. When it’s unclear, visitors get stuck:
- They tap “Contact”
- It expands instead of opening the page
- But “Contact” is also a real page
- So how do they get to it? Tap again? Tap the arrow? Tap the text?
It’s not intuitive — and unintuitive navigation is one of the fastest ways to lose a visitor.
How many top level navigation items should I have?
This is where many people quote Miller’s Law — the idea that humans can only hold about seven things in their working memory. It’s a fun idea (and if you’ve ever played “I went to the supermarket and bought…”, you know it feels true).
But it does not apply to website navigation.
Visitors don’t need to remember your menu. They can see it.
So if someone tells you “you must have seven items or fewer,” you can safely ignore that.
So how many items should you have...?
As many as makes sense
Here's some questions to consider for top level navigation consideration:
- How important it it?
- Will a new visitor care about this?
- Would it make more sense in the footer?
- What is convention?
For example:
- Privacy policies, safeguarding policies, and legal notices almost always belong in the footer, not the main navigation.
- “About us” and “Contact” almost always belong in the main navigation, because visitors expect them there.
No more than what will fit
This is a common issue on church websites: the newly added pages are added automatically to the navigation and suddenly the navigation wraps onto two lines on tablets or small laptops. The whole header breaks, and the site looks messy.
Your navigation must fit comfortably within the space available — not just on desktop, but on tablets and mid‑sized screens.
If it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t work.
Naming decisions and first time visitors
Most websites use familiar labels like “About us” and “Contact” because people instantly understand them. Church‑specific language can sometimes get in the way.
For example:
- “Vision and Values” may make perfect sense to Christians
- But “About us” communicates the same idea in universally understood language
Likewise:
- “Contact” is clear
- But “Get in touch” may better match your church’s tone
Our tips for naming navigation items are:
- Keep non-Christians in mind - Would they understand it
- Keep it short - ideally no more then two words, maybe with a "&" in between
- Keep to convention - familiar means muscle memory, unique means cognitive load
The bottom line
A simple navigation isn’t about limiting your church’s content — it’s about guiding visitors confidently to what matters most.
A clear front door. A predictable path. No thousand‑door mansion moments.
When your navigation is simple, structured, and visitor‑focused, people find what they need faster — and they feel more welcome while doing it.