Investing in SEO is one of the FIRST things you should invest in when marketing your church!
All churches want more guests, right? Investing in SEO for your church is one of the easiest and quickest ways to help more people find your church. Here are 5 questions you may be asking that are keeping you from investing in SEO and why you should reconsider.
What Even Is SEO?
What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? Put simply, it is the strategy to ensure that search engines like Google, Bing, etc. find your website and list it in search results. There are two primary categories of SEO when it comes to churches.
The first is Local SEO. This is impacted by your Google My Business Profile and other similar factors. Optimizing this is what will lead people who search “Church Near Me” to find your website as one of the first churches to pop up based on geography.
The second is On-Page SEO. This comes into play when people search for specific services like Celebrate Recovery or Children’s Ministry.
Currently, what is the most common reason people share for how they found your church? Drove by? Knew someone who went there? What if we were able to turn “I found you on Google” into the most common way that people would find you? There are more people in your community on Google every single day than drive by your building in a week, and you probably have invested a lot of money into the outside of your building to make it inviting. Investing in SEO is the digital version of ensuring your grass is mowed and bushes trimmed.
Isn’t It Too Expensive?
At our starting rate of $500/ month, you can easily be covering your expenses with the addition of 1-2 more families regularly giving as a result of finding you on Google. This does not even take into consideration the FREE $10,000/month Google Nonprofit Ad Grant that is available that Mission Support would work with you to have access to and utilize.
Aren’t Personal Invites More Effective?
An invitation from a friend will always be the best way to get someone to go to church, and that should always be your priority when discipling people. However, if that is the only way you’re inviting people, you’re always going to be limited by the number of people who go to your church (and the number of people out of those actively inviting people). What if there were no limits on the number of invites going out into your community? Thousands of people can learn about your church every day as opposed to dozens from personal invites.
Also, investing in SEO enables people to easily find your church and the information they need when they respond to people’s personal invites. SEO is NOT a replacement for personal invites, it is an addition that will help make personal invites even more effective.
Do I Have Time?
Do you have time to maintain the SEO of your website at a high standard? By yourself? Probably not. What about with the help of a Specialist whose sole focus is to help churches like you be found on the internet? Absolutely.
Our specialists will invest hours that you don’t have available in combing through your site and optimizing all of the metadata to be best interpreted by search engine algorithms. They will work with you to set up and update your Google My Business Profiles, Yelp Profiles, and any other relevant sites for you. All we need from you is to confirm accurate information and then review your monthly report to see your website traffic going up!
Does SEO Really Work?
That is why we offer a Front Page Guarantee. If you invest at least six months into SEO Support, we guarantee that you will be on the front page when people search “Churches in (Your City)”. If for some reason you are not, we will happily give you one month back and do what it takes to get you there.