SEO is definitely important for churches.  I still think the priority should be to target keywords used by people searching for churches, though.

When a person searches, they are only going to click on those search listings that they think will provide them with the information they’re looking for.  So, if someone is searching for “church in your town” you want your church to be at the top of the listings.

There’s nothing wrong with targeting phrases relevant to the community like the local fair or convention center, but if you’re going to do that, you’ve got to provide information that is helpful to fair-goers or convention attendees.  If you don’t then people will not click to your site.  Or if they do, they will quickly leave because it’s not helping them.

They key is, don’t try to bait-and-switch searchers.  Provide great relevant content that searchers are looking for.

Paul Steinbrueck
OurChurch.Com / ChurchMarketingOnline.com

Paul - thanks so much for stopping by and commenting.

I agree very much with your statements about bait-and-switch and about providing relevant content that searchers are looking for. I also agree that if someone is searching for “church in your town”, that we want our churches to be at the top of the listings.

I just think that the vast majority of searchers aren’t searching for “church in your town”. Admittedly, I haven’t looked recently, but the last time I looked, there weren’t a lot of searches of this type. For example, when I use Google’s search-based keyword tool and look for monthly searches on “church santa cruz california”, it results in zero monthly searches. Same for “church trinity florida”.

If no one is search for “church in your town”, it’s not particularly strategic to focus our efforts on coming up high in the listings for those searches. I’m not saying ignore that completely - just that it would be much more strategic to optimize our sites for things that people in our local area are actually searching for.

You’re right - if we’re going to do that, we have to provide information that is helpful to those who are executing those searches. That’s why I strongly advocate creating profiles of people in our congregation - not testimonies with only religious stories, but the stories of their lives. Their interests, their hobbies, their challenges, their joys. These interests, hobbies, challenges, and joys are shared by many in our communities. If we provide content that will interest unbelievers and optimize for related keywords, then we have a chance of introducing unbelievers to believers around common life themes. And that’s the foundation of effective outreach - introducing unbelievers to local Christian community.

My .02,

Frank

Frank thanks for adding your $0.02.

You make a good point that a church does need to consider keyword popularity when selecting keywords to target.  We have people email us or come up to us at conferences and tell us excitedly they are #1 in Google.  Then when we ask for what keywords it’s either the name of their church or something something like Lutheran Churches in Humbug, NE (and they’re the only one). LOL.

I’m skeptical of Google’s keyword tools when it comes to low volume keywords.  On numerous occasions Google has said there are 0 searches or “not enough data” for a keyword but the analytics report for the site will show visitors arrived at the site after searching that keyword.

FWIW, when I check https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal for “church trinity florida” it shows 1600 searches a month and “church santa cruz california” shows 140.

I can tell you without a doubt that we have dozens of families involved in my church because they first found its website while looking for a church.  We also interviewed the pastor of another church in the Tampa area who said 2/3 of their people found the church through the web.  They do Google AdWords, but it still means they are still targeting people searching online for a church.
http://churchmarketingonline.com/2008/09/church-adds-hundreds-of-new-members-with-online-church-marketing/

Do you have an evidence targeting non-church keywords works?  Examples of real people who have connected with a church after searching for something unrelated to church?  I am skeptical that someone would search for something, stumble onto a church page that discusses it and say, “Hey these look like some neat people, I’d like to check out that church.” But its worth experimenting with.

Paul Steinbrueck
OurChurch.Com
ChurchMarketingOnline.com

Hi Paul.

Regarding the searches for churches in Trinity and Santa Cruz - silly me, I was in a hurry yesterday and I used Google’s new Search-based keyword tool (http://www.google.com/sktool) without specifying a website. So you’re right - 1600 for “church trinity florida” and 140 for “church santa cruz california”. My follow-up question would be how many of those people are unbelievers?

I quickly read the article about Relevant Church. It’s encouraging. But I noticed that Pastor Wirth talked about growth in overall numbers as a result of web marketing, but he doesn’t say a lot about whether or not that growth came from unbelievers who convert to Christ or from believers who are looking for a new church. He does mention 13 people converted to Christ during the 30 Day Sex Challenge program, but he doesn’t seem to tie that directly to web marketing (not that it may not be tied to web marketing - just that I don’t see him saying that in the interview).

The strategy I advocate focused on reaching out to people who are unbelievers, who probably are not interested in church to begin with. As you can see from the number of searches on “church santa cruz california”, interest in Christianity in our area of the world is pretty low.

What I want to see is a cyberspace version of Romans 15:20-21 - “It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. Rather, as it is written: ‘Those who were not told about him will see, and those who have not heard will understand.’”

Regarding evidence of targeting non-church keywords working - no, I don’t have any evidence, primarily because finding a church which is willing to take this approach is rare. If it’s going to be done right, then the content that the searcher arrives at much be compelling (much more than “these look like some neat people"). I want to see unbelievers with cancer connected with believers with cancer who are finding their relationship with Christ is vital to living a fulfilled life while battling their disease (see this article for more on that idea). When the person searches on cancer, clicks on a link to a church web page, and sees video profiles of cancer survivors in his/her local area who are living fulfilled lives because of their relationship with Jesus, that content must compel the unbeliever with cancer to want to meet the believer with cancer. The overwhelming majority of churches don’t want to put that amount of work (the work involved in creating online profiles of people in their congregation) in - they just want a brochure website that talks about their programs, staff, events, etc.

I was able to try it once with a church years ago, but alas, before we could start the effort of marketing the profiles, a new pastor came on board and he wanted his friend to build a website for him so they replaced the website that had profiles.

Frank, it does sound like a lot of work to create a site like that, but I hope at some point you get to create one.  If you do I would certainly be interested to hear how it goes.

I think perhaps the best chance for success would be to do something like that for a recovery ministry/12 step program.  There are a lot of churches that have recovery ministries, a lot of people struggling with addictions, and a lot of unbelievers who already know that there’s usually a spiritual component to recovery.