Tired of your church being insignificant in Google search results?
Help is here.
During the “Braintrust” sessions for FutureOfChurchWeb.com, Kent Shaffer from ChurchRelevance.com gave us practical advice on how to be a relevant player in search engine optimization.
Take time out to watch the clip below, and get out a pen and paper because you’re going to want to take notes. This is good stuff!
Kent’s right, no one is just going to start typing in random domain names to find your church. You’ve got to take the bull by the horns and be relevant.
Imagine the concept of churches caring more about interacting with folks in their community rather than just trying to get them through their doors.
Park Community Church, in Chicago, does this well in their “I’m New to Park” section. Not only do they offer helpful links for newcomers to Chicago, but they also list other churches in the city for folks to check out if they aren’t the right fit.
Imaginge the Kingdom impact your church could have to able to intercept someone’s search efforts to find a divorce lawyer or an abortion clinic and offer a glimpse of God’s grace and power to change lives and families.
“Engage people in a ministry route other than that one weekend that the pastor slaved for hours to write a sermon for.”
Here are links to the two tools Kent references in the video clip:
How is your church ranking on search engines?
Special thanks to Kent for spending time with us and allowing us to post this capture. I’m a big fan of the impact he’s making through ChurchRelevance.com, and will be posting more clips in the upcoming months.
Actually, the Google keyword tool is:
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Kent, the link is now updated. Thanks for the heads-up.
[...] I had the opportunity to discuss the future of church websites over a video conference with Cleve Persinger and the team at The Chapel (Libertyville, IL). I spent some time sharing my thoughts on effective [...]
You have a great blog here and it is Nice to read some well written posts that have some relevancy…keep up the good work
Wow – Kent really does give some good ideas.
There is definitely more ways (ie state fair) to be creative in SEO for local searches with a blog rather than a traditional website. Yeah, this gives me some good ideas.
Thanks for sharing!
Arvell Craig
Arvel, Thanks for the comment. I’d like to learn more about churchmarketing.tv. It looks like a great resource.