The Church SEO Tactic that Improves Relevance AND Authority

Earlier in our article Church SEO: What to Optimize for Better Organic Search Results we discussed two important things that can impact a church’s visibility in search:

• Relevance – how closely a web page relates to the targeted keyword
• Authority – how reliable, reputable and important a web page is

In that article I wrote…

“All 200+ search ranking factors can be put into one of two categories – relevance or authority.”

Actually, that’s not exactly true…

There’s one thing that impacts both relevance AND authority.

Quality Content

Content is any information or media. It can be web pages, blog posts, images, audio, or video.

When a church publishes useful, original content about a particular topic, it gives search engines more information about what the church knows, teaches and serves people with. Consistently publishing helpful content can also demonstrate greater expertise and authority on those topics.

Fortunately, churches have an SEO advantage many organizations don’t have:

One SEO advantage churches have is they already produce at least one unique piece of content every week: the Sunday sermon.

The Sunday Sermon

Most pastors put a considerable amount of time, effort, thought, and prayer into their sermon each week. Most try to reveal something significant about God through the scriptures, and then explain how that impacts the way we live for God.

This is life-changing content!

You could allow it to be spoken once and for the Holy Spirit to use it however he chooses for just those in the room who are paying attention.

Or you could put that sermon onto the church website in a format that is useful for human visitors and readable by search engines.

People like to listen to sermon audio and watch sermon videos, and many churches are already embedding sermon audio files and/or video files onto web pages.  This is a good first step.

Search engines and AI systems are much better at understanding audio and video than they used to be. However, giving them additional written context makes it easier to understand what a sermon is about and can make the sermon more useful to people as well.

So, when you put audio or video of a sermon onto a web page or blog post, it’s helpful to also include

• a relevant title
• a short summary
• scripture references
• a link to a sermon transcript

A transcript also makes sermon content more accessible and gives people the ability to search, scan or read the message instead of only watching or listening.

Sermons Can Demonstrate Experience, Expertise and Trust

Original sermon content can also contribute to E-E-A-T. That’s the Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness Google looks for in the pages it shows most prominently in the search results.

A sermon written and preached by your pastor reflects the actual people, beliefs, teaching and ministry of your church. Publishing that original content helps both people and search engines better understand who your church is, what it teaches and the subjects its leaders regularly address.

That’s much more valuable than filling a church website with generic content that could have been published by anyone.

Producing Additional Content from the Sunday Sermon

In addition to putting sermon audio or video on your website, there are many other ways you can use your sermons to create additional content.  Some include:

• Sermon audio can be put into a podcast.
• The most meaningful parts of the sermon video can be spliced into short-form videos like Reels and TikToks.
• Quotes and scripture references from the sermon can be used to create images that can be shared on social media.
• ChatGPT or another AI tool can help turn a sermon transcript into a blog article, devotional or summary that the pastor or church staff reviews, edits and personalizes.
• Frequently asked questions addressed in the sermon could become helpful articles on your church website.

These are just a few ideas. You can probably come up with others. Or ask an AI tool like ChatGPT, “Give me 10 ideas for ways I can repurpose sermon content.”

The goal isn’t to publish as many pages as possible simply for SEO. Focus on creating content that is genuinely useful to people, and avoid publishing large numbers of thin, repetitive or lightly edited AI-generated pages.

Other Church Content Ideas

Chances are your church is already creating other content beyond the sermon that can be also published to your church website regularly, including:

• Weekly bulletin or program
• Announcements given during the Sunday service
• Weekly or monthly newsletter
• Stories of life transformation by those who trust in Christ and are baptized
• Daily devotionals related to the sermon theme
• Thoughts (blog posts) from the pastor
• Answers to questions people in your community frequently ask about faith, your church or its ministries

Adding quality content to your church website doesn’t have to take a lot of extra time if you start by publishing the content you’re already creating.

Partner with an experienced Church Website Design and Church SEO company

If you would like some help with your church website design so that your church can add sermons, blog posts, newsletters, or other content, complete the form below (mobile) or to the right (desktop) to request a free phone consultation.

If you’d like our team of church SEO experts to help your church improve its search rankings and reach more people in your community, we’d love to talk with you about that as well.

Complete the form below (mobile) or to the right (desktop) to schedule a complimentary discovery call!

Comment Below and Discuss:

• What content is your church already creating? Are you getting it on your website?

This is just one part of The Ultimate Guide to Church SEO & GEO