Continuing our series What is Church SEO, in this article we look at link building and local listings.
Previously, in the article Church SEO: What to Optimize for Better Organic Search Results, I explained that getting other sites link to your website is one of the most important ways to improve the authority of your website and thus its position in the search results.
When a website links to your website, Google sees that as an endorsement or vote for your site. Generally speaking, the more sites that link to your website (and the higher the authority of those sites) the better your search rankings.
4 Major Local Directories
The easiest way to get links to your church website is by creating listings in local search engines and local directories. The biggest and most used local search engines are:
- Google My Business
- Bing Maps
- Apple Maps
- Yelp
Start with these 4.
27 More Local Directories
There are many other local directories on the web. You probably won’t get a lot of visitors from any one of them, but remember it’s not just about visitors from those directories. Each directory your church is listed in will link to your website, and the more links you get, the more authority your website will have, and the better your search rankings. Here are 27 additional local directories (listed alphabetical order) in which you can list your church.
- A2Z Yellow Pages
- Acxiom
- American Towns
- Brown Book
- City Search
- City Squares
- Directory Central
- EZ Local
- FourSquare
- Hot Frog
- Info Group
- Insider Pages
- Judy’s Book
- Kudzu
- Local.com
- Localeze
- LocalPages
- Manta
- Mapquest
- Merchant Circle
- MojoPages
- Show Me Local
- Superpages
- Yahoo Local
- Yellow Pages
- Yellowbook
- YellowBot
7 Church Directories
There are also some church-specific directories in which you can list your church.
- Believe
- Big Church Directory
- Church Angel
- ChurchCloud
- Church Pick
- RChurch
- USA Churches
So, there you have it – 38 local directories in which you can create a listing and get a link to your website.
Directories are one of my all-time favorite marketing strategies. -Anna Crowe, Search Engine Journal
If 38 seems overwhelming, don’t do all 38 at once. Start with the big 4. Maybe set a goal of creating one additional listing each week.
Another option is to let our church SEO pros at OurChurch.Com create, verify and optimize your local listings for you. This is included in our Top Church Search Rankings service. Request a free phone consultation.
Discussion
- How many local directories is your church listed in?
- What questions and comments do you have about local directories?
