We have looked at a great many masjid websites over the years, usually because a new committee has inherited one and wants to know what to do with it. The pattern is remarkably consistent. The site was built with real care by a brother who has since moved on, the prayer timetable is a PDF from two Ramadans ago, the donate button goes to a bare PayPal page, and the last news item is from 2021. Nobody is at fault. The site was simply built as a brochure when it needed to be built as a tool.
This checklist is the tool version. Twenty things, grouped by who they serve. Use it to audit what you have, or to brief whoever builds the next one. Our mosque website design page covers how we approach each of these, but the checklist stands on its own.
For the person checking their phone at Maghrib
1. Today's prayer times on the first screen
Not behind a menu, not in a PDF, not a screenshot. The five times and Jummah, today, readable on a phone without zooming. This is what most visitors came for. Everything else is secondary.
2. The full monthly timetable, as text
A table that can be read, searched and printed, updated monthly by your office in a minute. If the timetable is an image, screen readers cannot read it and Google cannot index it.
3. Jummah details that are actually right
Times for each khutbah if you run more than one, the language, and any seasonal change. Jummah time is one of the most common reasons someone visits a masjid website for the first time.
4. A Ramadan page that exists before Ramadan
Iftar and suhoor timetable, taraweeh details, iftar arrangements, the Eid salah plan when known. Build it in Sha'ban, not on the first night.
5. Directions and parking that work
Address, map, nearest transport, where to park on a Friday. A first-time visitor should not have to ring.
For the donor
6. A donate button that opens a proper form
One-off and monthly options, card, Apple Pay and Google Pay, no account needed. The whole thing should take under thirty seconds on a phone at 2am in the last ten nights, because that is when a great deal of it happens.
7. Gift Aid captured at the point of giving
If the masjid is a registered charity, the declaration should be one tick on the form, stored with the donation. That is 25p on every eligible pound that most mosque websites currently give up.
8. A choice of fund
Running costs, zakat, sadaqah, the building project, this month's appeal. Donors give more, and give more happily, when they know where it is going.
9. A record the treasurer can use
Every donation with donor, amount, fund and Gift Aid status landing in a spreadsheet or CRM automatically, not being re-typed from a payment provider export. Our charity website design page goes deeper on this, and the same rules apply.
10. A visible charity number and named trustees
Trust is the first conversion. A donor who cannot find the registered charity number will give somewhere they can.
For the community
11. Notices the office can post from a phone
A janazah, an Eid time, a khutbah change. Posted in under a minute by whoever is on duty, visible on the homepage immediately. If it needs a laptop and a login only one person has, it will not happen.
12. Events and classes with their own pages
Halaqas, tafsir circles, sisters' programmes, youth clubs, each with times, teacher and a sign-up form that emails the right person. Recurring events should not need re-entering each week.
13. Madrasah information and enrolment
Term dates, fees, what is taught, and an enrolment form with the questions you actually need. For a madrasah with a real roster and monthly fees, the form should feed a proper system; see our note on madrasah management software for where that line falls.
14. Nikah, janazah and hall booking pages
What the masjid offers, what it costs, who to contact, with an enquiry form for each. The office stops answering the same questions by phone.
15. Livestream and recordings
Embed the Jummah khutbah or a lecture series from YouTube or Facebook Live, and keep an archive people can find months later. This is the page that grows your reach beyond the postcode.
16. Arabic, Urdu or Bengali where your congregation needs it
Proper right-to-left layout for Arabic and Urdu, not English pages with translated text bolted on. The elders in your community are often the ones who most need the site to work.
For the committee
17. Domain, hosting and logins in the masjid's name
Not the web designer's, not a trustee's personal account. When the committee changes, the website should survive it. This is the single most common failure we see.
18. An admin at least two people can use
Separate logins for the office, the imam and the treasurer, with training for whoever does the updates. One person holding the only password is how sites die.
19. Fast on a phone, on 4G
Under two seconds to load the prayer times. If it takes six, people stop coming back and ask in the WhatsApp group instead. We publish real speed results from our client sites so you can see what is achievable.
20. Someone responsible after launch
A named person and a modest monthly care plan for hosting, updates and security, or a committee member with the time and the training. A site nobody owns after launch is a site that will be a PDF from 2023 by 2025.
Scoring yourself
Most masjid websites we audit score between four and eight out of twenty. That is not a criticism; it reflects how they were built and by whom. Anything under ten usually means a rebuild is cheaper than patching. Anything over fourteen means a good site that needs a few additions, most often the donation flow and the admin access. We wrote about the why behind all this in why every masjid needs a professional website, and about what happens once the site is in place in how masjids can use automation for donations and notices.
How to start
Print the list and take it to your next committee meeting. Tick what you have, be honest about what works on a phone, and agree the three that matter most for your congregation. For most masjids that is prayer times, donations and notices, in that order. Those three alone, done properly, change how the community relates to the website. The other seventeen can follow.
