Throughout Summer Rhythms Month we’ve been discussing the importance of routines and schedules in good communications and being able to adjust those rhythms to match the season you’re in.
When it comes to SEO (search engine optimization), there is a lot of work that goes into the beginning of the optimization process like keyword research, on-page optimization, claiming and updating your Google Business Profile.
There are also many tasks that should be done on a regular, recurring basis to make sure the initial optimization isn’t reversed and to continue to build the authority of your website. Here are our recommendations:
Weekly SEO Tasks
- Add quality content. In SEO, content is critical. One of the most important things you can do to improve search rankings is to add new, quality content to your website. For churches, this may be the weekly sermon, newsletter, announcements and/or pastor’s blog. Content will be different for other types of organizations
- Ask for reviews. For local/maps search rankings, the number of reviews an organization has is one of the top 3 ranking factors. Our experience is The BEST Way to Get More Positive Online Reviews is to email some members or customers each week a link to your Google Business Profile and ask them to post a review. Even if you email just one person a week, this will help grown your number of reviews.
- Add links/listings. Links are another major search rankings factor. One strategy we recommend is to create one new listing in an online directory each week. In one year, you’ll have 50 additional links.
Monthly SEO Tasks
- Check search rankings – For the keywords you’re targeting see how your search rankings compare to last month and last year. You can do it manually or using an online tool.
- Check search traffic – This is most easily done using Google Analytics, where you can compare the number of people who came to your website from search engines in one month to the previous month and a year ago.
- Check Google Search Console for crawl errors – Sometimes a web administrator can inadvertently do something that prevents Google from being able to read pages of their website – pages get unpublished, settings change, plugins get added or removed. It’s a good idea to check GSC for crawl errors every month.
- Check page speed with GTMetrics – Adding, removing or changing a website’s plugins, images and other content can have a big impact on a web page’s load time. We recommend using GTMetrics once a month to check page speed.
- Plan content for the next month – I’ve been blogging for more than 15 years and one thing I’ve learned is if you want to publish quality content on a consistent basis, you’ve got to plan it in advance. This is true whether you’re content is blog articles, podcast episodes, videos or sermons.
- Website software updates – Mark covered this in Is your church website in rhythm? but it bears mentioning here because obsolete and insecure plugins can cause your search rankings to drop.
- Guest Blog Article – Writing articles for blogs or other media that publish guest articles is a great way gain links, better search rankings, awareness, and authority. While I would categorize this as optional, writing one a month would be a great goal and have a big impact. See our case study on guest blog articles here.
Annual SEO Tasks
- Re-do keyword research – Search trends change, culture changes, your organization changes. The keywords you targeted last year may not be the best keywords to target this year.
- Re-do on-page optimization – If the keywords you’re targeting change, you’ll need to update your web pages to target the new keywords. Even if your keywords haven’t changed, there’s a good chance that over the course of the year, you made changes to your website that have undone the initial optimization that was done.
So, there you have it, 12 recurring SEO tasks. Take a few minutes to schedule reminders for them in your calendar, to ensure they don’t get neglected.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act, but a habit. -Will Durant
For more help with SEO, check out the Ultimate Guide to Church SEO. And if you’d prefer to focus on your ministry and leave your SEO in the hands of trusted, Christian SEO professionals, complete the form below (mobile) or to the right (desktop) to schedule a call discuss your goals and options.
Post a Comment and Discuss
- What are your SEO rhythms?
- What’s your next step to improve your SEO rhythm?
2 Comments
Above mentioned points are effective factors. Also, there are other points that help to boost the ranking like internal linking, image optimization and so on. But all over should be placed the stuff by considering user focus.
Hi Jill, sure there are lots of things that CAN be done. The question is… are they being done consistently? I think to be consistent at anything requires a plan, a schedule and a reminder system. What do you think?