CWS Podcast – Ep. 28: Get Your Church Known

cws_podcastJust having a church website is not enough today. You need to be proactive in your quest to get your church seen and heard on the internet. So what methods can you use to accomplish this? I propose you initially cove three primary bases; search engines, mapping services, and social media. These three are often very entangled, so spearheading efforts on all of them at once is often very easy and can generate awesome synergy to get your church known to the rest of the Internet.
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Local Search for your Church

Because churches traditionally have physical locations, the majority of searches for churches have locational context. As search engines have evolved, they realized this key component and integrated it into their search results. The prime example of this is Google’s integration of their search, maps, and location listings. If you execute a search for “pizza”, you will not get a global listing of pizza shops, but (especially if you are on a mobile device) ones closest to your geographical area. Given this illustration, you can see how optimizing and promoting your church for local search is of great importance. Here are three steps for accomplishing this.
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CWS Podcast – Ep. 13: Determining ROI (Part 4): From Analytics to Project

cws_podcastThis week’s episode will finalize our journey into analytics as I settle on one method to turn analytics data into an actionable projects. It should be a relief that you can finally do something other than collect data and then make a few educated guesses. It is time for some deeper analysis and the creation of test projects. The end result is hopefully a successful project that was initiated because of solid data rather than shaky conjecture.
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Site Analytics Basics: Language

Site analytics is the science of recording actions taken on your website; as well as the art of teasing out the meaning behind those actions. Before you try to understand this new craft, you first need to understand the language. In this article I will set a foundation of understanding by outlining a few key terms used in this field.
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Preventing SEO Dips During Site Structure Updates

Imagine a scenario where you launch a new church website with great new content and better navigation menu labels. You reimagined your church and are excited to see how your audience reacts. Unfortunately your Google search ranking just dropped through the floor, and for the next few weeks you are struggling to regain your foothold in the top results for your city. If you are planning a website redesign, the strategies in this article are a must for you.

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When to Retire Content

Many of my articles deal with creating new websites or new content for them. Yet there comes a time for content to be suppressed, archived, or even deleted from your site. This is especially true of time-sensitive information and news, as once the relevant dates have passed, its usefulness greatly diminishes. Part of your web content strategy should include what content can be retired, and when.
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Synonyms on your Church Website

Most modern search engines rank your site according to its content. The content that is most easily parsed is text. The frequency and relevancy of words dictate how it will rank against certain search terms. However, you should not let your church’s theology and terminology get in the way of letting your site bubble to the top of the search pile.

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Invest in Content First

Before you launch an online ad campaign, have a SEO agency make you rank #1 in Google, or start yet another re-design of your website; consider investing in your content. If you cannot engage your audience with good information, articles, videos, audio, and social media interaction; they why waste money by driving users to an empty space?
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SEO Basics for your Church Website

In a previous article I talked about SEO for your church website. Well it is a year later and I think I need to re-visit the topic. Mostly because every church I have ever talked to wants to rank high in Google’s search results. Being in the first few results greatly increases your chances of getting a new visitor to your site. However, when you looked into hiring a search engine optimization (SEO) consultant, your church treasurer probably fainted. These sorcerers of search are not cheap. So I will try to help explain some basics that you can do yourself at the expense of only your time.

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Church Websites That Help The Community

Churches often help their local community, but their websites often just display evidence of that help. Why not help the community right on your website? Yes you should focus on recruiting new members, but we should also strive to love our neighbors. This is content that will not only let visitors know that your church cares about the community; but it should rank well in search engines.

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Content Delivery Strategy: Say No to PDFs

How you deliver content dictates how your visitors can consume it, as well as what they can do with it. The easy route is often to simply a link to a file, but why restrict your audience. Give them content the way they want it, and with the ability to share it with their friends and family. The first part in this series will deal with the common approach to posting weekly bulletins; the PDF.
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Landing Pages and Your Church

If you are trying to promote an event at your church, one great tool for this is a landing page. If done correctly, they focus visitors on a much narrower scope and nudge them toward a single decision more quickly. But what exactly is a landing page, and how can my church use them? Read on my loyal reader while I hopefully answers all these questions and more!
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