So you have invested in a website and church administration software for your church.
That’s great, but it doesn’t guarantee that your church can be found online. You need to take it further by employing the best SEO practices.
What does that even mean? Not to worry, we’ve got you on this one. In this post, we will explain seven ways to put your church on the internet map using SEO best practices. Let’s get started.
Explaining SEO
SEO is an acronym that means “Search Engine Optimization.” If you are conversant with blogs and websites, then you must have heard it. The question is, what does SEO mean?
Let’s make it simple. SEO is a process that involves steps to ensure that your website enjoys better visibility for relevant search queries. Search engines have bots that crawl over websites a couple of times daily; these bots collect information that helps them to add websites to their index for different search queries.
With the best SEO practices, your church website gets excellent rankings for keywords. This puts you on the first page of Google and other search engines for relevant searches. With this out of the way, here are some critical SEO best practices to try out.
Best SEO practices for your Church Website
Make use of keywords
It is impossible to discuss SEO practices without mentioning keywords. SEO algorithm has changed over time such that now using keywords organically in web content is necessary. What this means is that you need to infuse relevant keywords into your content.
Examples of organic placement of keywords include:
• Within the topic
• H1 and H2 headers
• Within the meta description
• Alt text for images
• Within text
You mustn’t use keywords indiscriminately within the text. Up to 2.5 percent is enough. You can make use of synonyms instead as Google also recognizes these keyword synonyms as well.
User-friendly website
The term user-friendly encompasses a whole lot. However, it sits upon the foundation of customer satisfaction. You might ask – it is a church website, and we are appealing to congregants and other saints, so why focus on customer satisfaction?
Well, search engines check to see how much time individuals spend on your website. With this, they can tell if your website is user-friendly or not. User-friendliness means that visitors can navigate your website easily. It also means that they can find what they need without stress.
Most of all, your website must be responsive to different devices. By responsive, we mean that the website should be mobile-friendly, not just perfect for PCs.
Label images
True, many people find it easier to put meanings into pictures. However, Google needs descriptions for your images. So let’s say your picture should pass a message about digital donation. You should put an appropriate label beneath the picture to pass this message. Also, as we mentioned earlier, you should always add “alt-texts” to your images.
Add your location details.
You are probably wondering what your church location has to do with SEO practices. Here’s a simple scenario to help you grasp this better. If you went to a new city and you needed to attend church, how will you search? You’d type churches in your new location (name of the city), right?
This is how most people who search for a church in your location enter their queries. Even if they don’t, Google uses their location to present them a list of churches close by. This means that if your content doesn’t carry your location details, you won’t rank high enough to be noticed.
Here’s a simple secret that you should know. One of the most important keywords you should use in your content is “your location.” Using schema is a way to help search engines identify your location.
Set up “Google My Business”
Before we go ahead explaining this, note that this isn’t an easy process. However, you will get excellent results once you can get around it. Although, you should mix this with all the other steps on our list.
Simply put, Google My Business is a service from Google that allows users to promote their business profiles for free. The idea is to create a profile and link it to your business website. This will enable you to link up with your target audience and check out how they interact with your business.
Some of the benefits of Google My Business to your church website include:
• Easy interaction with prospects.
• A better understanding of your target audience.
• Expansion of your web presence.
Frequent blogging
Here’s a little secret you should know about blogging. It adds more pages to your website. The more pages you have on your website, the easier it is for it to rank high on search engines. High rankings ensure that people can find you easily.
There is so much to blog about on a church website, from sermons to church communication, from children church to teenage church, and even your church app. Remember to use images and keywords when posting.
Ensure that you put up posts on your blog frequently. Once a week isn’t good enough. The more regularly you put up posts, the better for you.
Make use of backlinks and inbound links.
This is one of the essential SEO practices, yet many blogs neglect it. Backlinks refer to links to other websites on your articles. When you use backlinks, it shows that you have credible information. This boosts the authority of your site, which is vital to improving your ranking.
Inbound links are links to other posts on your website. Using these links helps with indexing and showing Google how many resources you have on your website. You cannot neglect both if you are going to get the best of your SEO campaigns.
Conclusion
The information above will help you improve your church website’s SEO so that finding you becomes more effortless. However, you can aid yourself with ChurchPad products to further lighten the burden.