Everything You Need for Effective Church SEO

‍A surprising number of churches are struggling to reach people with the gospel. You would think that getting traffic should not be a problem for websites these days. Yet, often, this is not the case for churches. Why?

‍Because many neglect or don’t know much about the role of search engine optimization. And without good SEO, you simply can’t reach most people, and they can’t find you.

‍Still, it can quickly get overwhelming for anyone who is just starting out. So, in this guide, we will be laying out everything you need to know about SEO church tactics. By the end, you should be on your way to becoming a pro.

The phrase church SEO is really used to describe any activity you take to make it easy for people to find your church (or at least your church website) online.

So, in practice, this could be anything from creating useful content about your weekly church activities to hosting a popular Christian singer and publishing it in the local news.

But why would any church need to worry about SEO? More than half the population (91%) start their online journey with a search engine.

Most will Google churches to find their new spiritual homes or get answers to some of their burning questions. For example, questions like “Who is God?” and “How to pray” get thousands of monthly searches in the US alone.

‍Source: Semrush

‍That’s thousands of website visitors you could be pulling monthly with good SEO for church strategy.

Interestingly, depending on who you ask, doing SEO for churches might be a great idea or a waste of time. This comes from the belief that:

🤦‍♀️ Myth #1: Size Matters

People think only the big, recognizable churches with nationwide (and international) presence need SEO. But if they are already so easily recognizable, maybe they don’t really need it as much as the local churches do, right?

The truth is that local churches can get a lot of foot and online traffic if they take advantage of SEO (more on how later).

🤦‍♀️ Myth #2: SEO Is Too Expensive and Complicated

To be fair, most advanced SEO tactics are going to cost some kind of money, especially if you want to hire an in-house team or outsource it.

Still, there’s a lot you can DIY, starting with the ideas in this blog post. At the end of the day, the returns are far more cost-effective than paid ads and last longer, too.

🤦‍♀️ Myth #3: You Need Specialized Training

There’s a lot you can pull off easily by reading helpful posts like this one and using free tools. In fact, basic Christian SEO is hardly complicated for anyone who’s ever posted anything online.

🤦‍♀️ Myth #4: The Internet Is No Place for Churches

This one is a holdover from the time the Internet was viewed with suspicion. But hey, a knife can also be dangerous, right? It really depends on how you use it.

With SEO, you can easily control your own narrative and push out wholesome content to counter the messy noise out there. Plus, you could be helping others find the answers that they need to navigate life better.

There are many good things that can happen when you take church website SEO seriously. Some of these include the fact that you will be able to:

• Get more traffic to the church website, and some of that will eventually become foot traffic at your church;
• Rank higher in search engines and make it easier for people to find your posts;
• Broaden your awareness and reach more people interested in what you have to say;
• Get more old and new members involved in your community projects and charities.

Clearly, then, ignoring SEO is not a smart move in this age where everything is going digital.

Without it, you’d be facing several challenges, from little (or no at all) traffic and engagement with your online content to missing out on reaching people who need your guidance and struggling to build your credibility in the digital space.

Still not sure whether SEO is that effective? Let’s just say that 46% of all Google searches have local intent, and 76% of the people who use this feature go on to visit the places they searched.

So, if you want to raise awareness about your church, you will really need to optimize your website for SEO.

The idea of doing SEO for a church might sound like a complex task. Yet, in reality, it’s not much different from search engine optimization for a regular website. Here are some church website tips you can use right away:

💡Strategy #1: Get Your Church Listed in Google Business Profile

Did you know that an average listing on Google Business Profile (GBP) receives about 1,260 views monthly, and those with complete profiles get 7x more clicks than those with details missing? By getting listed, you make yourself more visible in online searches.

For example, the Catholic search engine rankings are pretty high. Because of its popularity in the US, there is a great chance that a Catholic church will appear among the first three results of the search for a “church near me.”

Source: Google

The best thing about GBP is that it’s free. Besides, it is so easy to get listed that you only need a few minutes for that. Simply go to your Google business page and create a profile for your church.

If your church already shows up on Google Maps, claim it and complete the rest of your profile information. Make sure that all the data you enter is correct and consistent, including:

• Name of your church,
• Address,
• Phone number,
• Your church website,
• Service times.

Once you verify that you are the real owner (or representative) of the listing, then go on to add quality images to help people get a good idea of what your church looks like.

Use the posts feature to inform the public about upcoming sermons, events, charity works/outings, share holiday greetings, etc.

Don’t forget to ask your church members to review your church, and be sure to respond to these when possible. All this activity will help improve your church search engine rankings and drive traffic to your website.

💡Strategy #2: Come Up With Church Content Ideas

You’d be surprised how many churches focus solely on publishing posts about their church history, events, and community projects while hardly sharing anything else. All these are great ideas, but you also want to post other valuable content that people search for.

People want answers to life’s important questions. If you can be the source they go to for an answer, your website will be getting a lot of traffic – thousands of visitors every month if you do it right.

Source: Semrush

Plus, these keywords are really new opportunities to spread the gospel and, at the same time, nudge people to your church’s website. If you really think about it, not everyone online will be searching for a church. So, to pull this off:

• Find SEO keywords for churches using Semrush, Ahrefs, or other SEO tools;
• Create relevant content around those keywords and add those special phrases to the headings, titles, meta descriptions, and headers;
• Add high-quality images and some keywords to your alt texts, too.

For all this on-page SEO (everything you optimize on your site) to work, make sure you evenly spread keywords in strategic places like your church’s About Us page, homepage, blogs, etc.

Besides, you can try to diversify your content with topics that touch on felt needs (depression, parenting, addiction, etc). These can also have great potential for backlinks, which brings us to our next tip.

💡Strategy #3: Build Your Backlink Profile

Backlinks are a big deal for SEO. If you want to appear on the first page of search results, doing link building is a must.

For many, though, getting links is one of the toughest parts of SEO. Yet, don’t throw in the towel because doing link building for a church might be a bit easier than for others. Here are some ideas you can try:

• Exchange backlinks with the churches from other regions.
• If your pastor gives a speech at a local event or charity, ask organizers to link to you in their online announcements (e.g., blogs, social media posts, press releases).
• Get listed in local directories (use the same details in your Google Business Profile and other platforms).
• Collaborate with religious guest blogs, YouTubers, and influencers whose values align with your church.
• Consider whether you want to get some link-building help from credible Christian SEO services.

💡Strategy #4: Use Social Media

If you haven’t skipped our second strategy and created some great church SEO content, now you can promote it. How? Start by sharing your blogs and other important updates on your socials.

You can also encourage your church members to support you and repost your publications. While it doesn’t directly increase your rankings, it spreads the word about your church and shows Google that people talk about you.

If you want to try a more creative approach, why not use visuals and short-form videos? They tend to be easier to consume for people, so you can popularize your message better.

As for the optimization, add church SEO keywords to your SM posts whenever it makes sense. But don’t overdo it – one or two keywords per blog are more than enough.

💡Strategy #5: Improve Your Performance

Here’s the thing: all that hard work building up your church’s Google rankings is worth little if you have poor performance. There are many issues that can influence how your website works, whether it’s bad security or poor mobile optimization.

That’s why Google Search Console should become your best friend. You can use GSC to check your site regularly. When you find any issues, try to fix them ASAP. Still, maybe you won’t face anything major if you:

• Used a responsive web design from the start;
• Minified your code and ensured that there were no unnecessary code lines in there;
• Compressed your images and videos so they were smaller in size and didn’t take long to load;
• Used secure HTTPS connections (the best file hosting for churches should have this by default);
• Used schema markup so your content was structured and easy for the search bots to understand.

You can still work on all these if you didn’t do them before. This will probably require some external help, and it’s okay. Just make sure you don’t neglect this part, especially when it comes to mobile-friendliness. Why?

Over 60% of your website traffic will likely come from mobile devices, and a ton of local searches are done on phones.

So, the earlier you optimize your page for phones, the quicker you can see your web traffic improve. The payoff is definitely worth it for your local church’s SEO rankings.

💡Strategy #6: Try Google Ads for Churches (It’s Free for Nonprofits)

Ads cost a lot of money in the long term, even if they seem cheap at first. The spending adds up really fast. Paid adverts aren’t something you must do; still, they can work for some, especially if you do a lot of community work and support some local causes.

The Google Grant for churches can be worth up to $10k in free advertising. If you qualify, the application process is rather simple.

If you get approved, find what keywords you’ll target in your ad campaigns. What are the best SEO keywords for the church?

Try to find phrases that people are typing in the search when they seek spiritual direction or simply want to find a church in their region. Of course, it is also important to look for keywords that are relevant to your congregation.

At first, the whole idea of doing local SEO for churches can sound complicated. And probably, it won’t be easy at the beginning. But once you get the hang of it, things will go smoothly, and you’ll wonder why you haven’t done this before.

Start small with something that seems like the easiest task, whether it’s getting church website ideas or earning some links. Yet, make sure you address everything we’ve mentioned in today’s guide. Because SEO is all about that comprehensive approach and much less about creativity.