The Ultimate Guide to Church SEO

Does your church want to reach the people in your community who are searching for God or a new church home?

I hope so.

Let’s take a few steps in their shoes, so that we better understand what they’re going through and how they’re searching.

Go to Google and search for “church in [your city]” (Replace [your city] with the city your church is located in, don’t include the quotation marks.)

This is how most people who are looking for a church these days start their search – using an online search engine.

Look at the results the search engine is showing you.

You probably have a lot of questions like:

• How did Google determine which church is listed first? Second? 100th?
• Why are some churches shown on a map?
• Why are some churches not shown in the results at all?
• How do I get a link to my church on the first page of the results?

Did you know…

Google uses more than 200 factors to calculate its search results!

You can influence many of those 200 factors, so that your church appears higher in the search rankings, and when the people in your community search online for a church, they find your church.

We call these efforts to improve search rankings “search engine optimization” or SEO.

Church SEO includes anything we can do to improve the position a church is displayed on the search engine results pages (SERPs.)

In this Ultimate Guide to Church SEO (updated for 2024), we’ll help you understand everything you need to know about search engines and how to improve your church’s position in the search results so you can reach more people in your community.

The Ultimate Guide to Church SEO includes:

1. 4 Reasons Why Your Church Should Do Church SEO
2. 3 Ways to Improve Church Search Engine Results
3. 6 Technical SEO Things to Check Before They Kill Your Church SEO
4. What to Optimize for Better Organic Search Results
5. 6 Benefits of Hiring the Same Company for Church Website Design and SEO
6. 5 Ways to Improve Local Search Results
7. Getting Links and Local Listings
8. 3 Ways to Get More 5-Star Google Reviews for Your Church
9. The Church SEO Tactic that Improves Relevance AND Authority
10. The LAST Thing You Should Do for Church SEO
11. How to Optimize for Multisite Church SEO
12. Church SEO Success Stories
13. Tips from the Pros

1. 4 Reasons Why Your Church Should Do Church SEO

A person who uses our church website builder asked us:

Why should [church SEO] matter to me? We’re a small church and I already struggle to manage this site on top of all my other jobs, so what kind of return could I possibly get that would make it worth the time it takes me to invest in this?

Great question!

Before you do decide to do anything, you need to know WHY. What’s the goal? Is the goal worth pursuing?

1) Souls are at Stake

Many of the people who search for a church are not yet followers of Jesus. Let’s be honest, some Christian churches are not all that welcoming to unbelievers. By doing church SEO (search engine optimization) and improving your search rankings, you make it possible for people who are seeking God to find Him at your church.

Some churches go beyond trying to improve their search ranking for “church in [your city]” to trying to improve search rankings for other things people in their community may be searching for like a divorce support group, recovery support group, mothers of preschoolers group, things to do in [your city], or “what does the bible say about…”

2) Church SEO produces a positive financial return

The median family income in the US is about $80,000. If your SEO efforts result in just one new tithing family joining your church, that’s $8,000/yr of additional giving.

Imagine what your church could do with another $8k a year!

Imagine if you were to add 5, 10 or 20 families?

Continue reading 4 Reasons Your Church Should Do SEO for two more compelling reasons.

Church SEO is both a spiritual and financial investment that more than pays for itself.

 

2. 3 Ways to Improve Church Search Engine Results

Did you know there are multiple ways to get onto the first page of the Google search results pages (SERPs)?

That’s because there are 3 different types of listings shown on each page.

Let’s start by taking a look at a screenshot of what I saw when I searched Google for “Church in Tampa” (without the quotes).

3 Types of Search Listings

The screenshot above shows 3 types of search listings:

1. Paid Ads
2. Local 3 Pack
3. Organic Search Results

If you’d like to learn more about each of these 3 types of search listings, including screenshots, where Google gets the data for each, and how to improve your church’s placement for each, you can do that in 3 Ways to Improve Church Search Engine Results.

Why Does This Matter?

First, each of these 3 areas (Ads, Local 3 Pack, Organic Listings) provides an opportunity to get onto the first page of the search results. Yes, it’s possible for a church to be in all 3 places.

Second, each of these 3 areas has a different search ranking algorithm. Therefore, the church SEO tactics for ads, local, and organic listings are all different.

Google is the highway to your church. -Paul Steinbrueck

 

3. 6 Technical SEO Things to Check Before They Kill Your Church SEO

Most of the time when we talk to people about church SEO (search engine optimization), they immediately start asking about what keywords to use and where to put them on their pages. That’s important, but before we go there, it’s important to make sure you don’t overlook some things that could absolutely tank your search rankings.

What are those things?

“Technical SEO” issues.

Technical SEO issues are things related to church website design that could cause search engines to penalize your website or not be able to read it at. To use an analogy…

Failing to address technical SEO issues is like starting your SEO journey with the parking brake left on.

The good thing is, Google wants to be able to be able to crawl, index, and accurately rank your website. They created Google Search Console (GSC) which has the tools we need to check all 6 of the potential problems we’re going to look at in this section.

Connect Your Website with Google Search Console

If you haven’t yet connected your church website with Google Search Console, go there, click “Start Now,” and if necessary, create or login to your Google account.

Next you will need to verify you have ownership of the website. Once you’ve verified your website with GSC, you’re ready to do your first technical SEO check.

For a detailed look at all 6 technical SEO items to check, click to read 6 Critical Things to Check Before They Kill Your Church SEO

Do the checks. Fix any problems you discover. Then your website will be primed to win the SEO race!

 

4. What to Optimize for Better Organic Search Results

We discussed earlier that one of the three types of search listings displayed in the search results are “organic search listings.”

Google’s search algorithm looks at more than 200 different factors to produce its search results. A person could spend years analyzing and optimizing all those factors, so in this article we’re going to focus on the factors that are most important so you can make the best use of your time.

Before we get to the specific ranking factors, it’s important to understand the general concept of how Google ranks websites for each search query (or keyword).

Relevance x Authority = Search Ranking

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

• Relevance is how closely related a web page is to the search query. Search engines look at the text, headings and other elements on a web page to determine what that page is about, and how closely related it is to a search query.
• Authority is how reliable, reputable and important a web page is. Search engines look at what other sites are linking to or mentioning a website, who is posting links to the site in social media and how often, and the quality level of the content on the website.

If a web page’s content is not related to a particular keyword, no matter how high its authority is, Google is not going to show it in the search results. If a web page is closely related to a certain keyword but has low authority because few other sites link to it, Google will display it in the search results after web pages that are also relevant to the keyword but have more authority.

Therefore, for a web page to rank well in the search results for a keyword it must be very relevant and have more authority than other relevant web pages.

Church Keywords to Target

Before you can optimize any web page, you have to know what keyword(s) you want to make the page more relevant for. We call these your target keywords.

For Christian businesses and ministries, to determine which keywords to target, it’s important to do keyword research to compare how often various keywords are searched for and how hard it is to rank for each keyword being considered. But churches can usually skip this step, because there are 3 keywords that are far more popular than any other:

• Churches in [your city]
• [your city] churches
• [your city] church

If there are cities with the same name in other states, then your top keyword might be “churches in [your city, your state]” or “churches in [your city, state abbreviation].”

If your church includes people from multiple cities you can also try to target “churches in [adjacent city].” When we work with churches, we usually don’t target more than 2 adjacent cities because in our experience, it is difficult to fit all those keywords into the various parts of the web page that can be optimized.

Some churches also choose target keywords related to their denomination or style of church like “Baptist church in [your city]” or “multicultural church in [your city],” but a lot fewer people search for these keywords.

Church SEO to Improve Relevance

Once you know what keywords you want to target, the next step is to try to work those keywords into the parts of the web page that can be optimized. We refer to this step as “on-page optimization.”

We provide an extensive guide to which elements of the web page to optimize to improve relevance in Church SEO: What to Optimize for Better Organic Search Results

Church SEO to Improve Authority

Improving the authority of a website is much more difficult and time consuming than improving its relevance. For this reason, we always improve a website’s relevance first before we start working to improve its authority.

We also list 5 things you can do to improve the authority of your church website in Church SEO: What to Optimize for Better Organic Search Results

With this guidance you should be able to optimize your church website and improve its organic search rankings. After all…

If your church wants to reach people online, those people need to be able to find your church website.

 

5. 6 Benefits of Hiring the Same Company for Church Website Design and SEO

In the previous section, we were discussing changes to make to your website to improve its organic search rankings. Because that involves website design and website management, you might be thinking about whether it may be time to redesign your website or build a new church website, and you might be thinking about whether to do that website design work yourself or hire a web design agency to help with that.

Some churches choose to work with separate companies for their website design and SEO needs, but there are significant advantages to hiring the same company for both tasks.

This approach can streamline communication, enhance functionality, and ultimately drive better results for your church’s online outreach.

For detailed explanation of all 6 Benefits of Hiring the Same Company for Church SEO and Web Design, click to read more.

To sum it up…

Choosing a single company to handle both your church’s website design and SEO needs is a smart decision that leads to better integration, more efficient communication, and cost savings.

It ensures a cohesive online presence, allows for consistent branding, and provides ongoing support as your church’s needs evolve. By simplifying your approach and working with a trusted provider, your church can maximize its online visibility, engage with its congregation more effectively, and reach new people with the message of hope and faith.

 

6. 5 Ways to Improve Local Search Results

Earlier in this Ultimate Guide we explained the difference between organic search listings and local search listings. Now let’s turn our attention to how to optimize for better local search results.

Before we get to that, though, it’s important to understand one thing you probably can’t change.

The #1 factor in Google local search results is distance from the city center.

Google has determined what it believes to be the center of every city in the United States. The closer your church is to that point, the better your church’s position in the local search results for “churches in [your city]”.

A while back, I was talking with a pastor of a church in a small town that’s about 20 miles away from a larger city. He wanted his church to be towards the top of the search results for “churches in [the larger city].”

I did a quick search on Google Maps and discovered there are more 100 churches closer to the center of that larger city than his church. Additionally, the map Google displays with the results for “churches in [the larger city]” is zoomed in on the larger city to the extent that the location of his church isn’t even on the map.

I had to tell him the only way his church would ever appear in the local search results for that city is it if moved closer to the city or planted a new church/campus in the city.

If your church happens to be located close to the center of your city, you have a built in advantage over other churches. If your church is on the outskirts, you’re at a disadvantage and will have to work harder to optimize things you can change.

5 Ways to Improve Your Church’s Local Search Results

If you’d like to get into the details, click to read Church SEO: 5 Ways to Improve Local Search Results

Bottom line…

A verified, optimized Google Business Profile is a key component of church SEO, marketing, and outreach.

 

7. Getting Links and Local Listings

Earlier, we discussed how 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 Maps (Google Business Profiles)
• Bing Maps
• Apple Maps
• Yelp

Start with these 4.

More Local Directories

There are dozens of other local directories on the web like CitySearch, SuperPages, and YellowPages. 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 will be in more popular search engines like Google.

Church Directories

There are also some church-specific directories in which you can list your church like Church Angel and USA Churches.

New church and local directories get launched every once in a while, and existing directories get discontinued. Therefore, it’s good to search Google periodically for “church directories” and “local directories” to find new directories in which to list your church. You can do this at your own pace. Set a goal to set your church up in one new directory each month, or if your more ambitions, one a week.

Directories are one of my all-time favorite marketing strategies. -Anna Crowe, Search Engine Journal

 

8. 3 Ways to Get More 5-Star Google Reviews for Your Church

Did you know… the number of Google reviews is one of the biggest factors in Google’s local search algorithm?

Take a moment and see for yourself:

• Google “church in [your city].”
• Look under the map at the “Local 3 Pack,” add together the number of reviews the 3 churches there have, and divide by 3 to get the average number of reviews.
• Click the map in the Local 3 Pack to see the top 20 results in Google maps
• Scroll down and take a look at how many reviews churches towards the bottom of the top 20 have.

Big difference, right?

How do you get more Google reviews for your church?

Glad you asked.

We go into detail in the article 3 Ways to Get More ★★★★★ Google Reviews for Your Church

One additional word of advice

Google knows it has a problem with fake reviews. It uses an algorithm to look for patterns in reviews that look unnatural. If your church has a handful of reviews and then all of the sudden gets 50 reviews in one day, it’s going to look suspicious. Nobody knows how many reviews in a short amount of time is too many. But the goal should be to continuously add more reviews.

Therefore, instead of emailing your entire congregation at one time, go through your email list gradually. Try to get around 5 reviews a week. Start by emailing 20 people, wait a week and see how many new reviews you received. If you got 10 new reviews, scale it down and email 10 people the next week. If you got 2 reviews, scale it up and email 50 people the next week.

If that feels like a lot, scale it back and just email one person a week to ask them to write a review.

When it comes to online reviews, you have not because you ask not. -Mark Steinbrueck

 

9. The Church SEO Tactic that Improves Relevance AND Authority

To improve a church’s organic search rankings,

one has to take steps to improve two categories of search ranking factors:

• 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 adds content to its website about a specific topic, its website becomes more relevant to that topic. Additionally, the more quality content published on a website, the more authority it gains.

For that reason…

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.

However, search engines don’t understand the topics addressed, questions answered, and scripture passages referenced in audio or video. They are using AI to get better at this, but they still need help.

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, summary, and scripture references.

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. We discuss those and other ways churches can reuse content they’re already creating in The Church SEO Tactic that Improves Relevance AND Authority

 

10. The LAST Thing You Should Do for Church SEO

Throughout this Ultimate Guide to Church SEO, we’ve discussed many things you can do to improve your church’s search rankings.

If you’ve taken these steps, congratulations! You are probably already experiencing a significant improvement in search rankings and seeing more people visiting your website. You deserve to be commended for taking action to help reach people in your community!

But the last thing you should do is stop your church SEO efforts now.

(“The last thing you should do…” is a strange phrase isn’t it? It’s not really the last thing you should do but actually something you should never do.)

Church SEO is never finished

The only constant in life is change. This is especially true of search engines and SEO.

• Search engine engine algorithms are constantly changing.
• Your website is constantly changing. (You are updating your website regularly, right?).
• The way people search (voice search, image search, mobile search)… yep, constantly changing.

Therefore, if you optimize your church website once and let it go, whatever improvements you experienced in search rankings will eventually erode back to where they were (or worse).

5 things to do to monitor and manage your church SEO for long term success

To keep this Ultimate Guide concise, we’ve put together a guide to ongoing church SEO in The LAST Thing You Should Do for Church SEO

SEO is an ongoing project, not set-it-and-forget-it. -Rebecca Lieb

 

11. How to Optimize for Multisite Church SEO

Multisite churches have a unique challenge when it comes to search engines.

Generally speaking, a multisite church is one church congregation that gathers at multiple geographic locations, often referred to as campuses.

If you are a part of a multisite church, you want each individual campus to be shown as close to the top of the search results as possible for the specific city or neighborhood its in.

However, you also want visitors to understand you are one unified church, therefore you probably have just one website.

This year we’ve updated the Ultimate Guide to Church to SEO with a new guide which explains How to Optimize for Multisite Church SEO

 

12. Church SEO Success Stories

Sometimes when we talk with church leaders about Church SEO, they respond with something like:

“I know we need better search rankings to reach more people searching online, but does church SEO really work?”

We could answer that question ourselves, but we thought you might prefer to hear from some of the churches we’ve worked with.

Search engine optimization: you need to have it, it’s well worth it, and they [OurChurch.Com] do it right. -Jack Scalfani, Knott Avenue Christian Church, Anaheim, CA

Read: Case Study: Knott Avenue Christian Church – Church Growth Through Search Growth

We appreciate being in the top 10 for lots of other phrases, but none of that matters if we’re not in the top 10 for “Church in San Diego.” -Brett Schoeneck, Barabbas Road Church, San Diego, CA

Read: How This Church in San Diego Went to #3 in Google

I offer my highest recommendation to OurChurch.Com. They have a keen grasp of developing n effective strategy of search engine optimization. –Beverly Leasher, North Way Christian Community (6 locations in the Pittsburgh area)

 

13.Church SEO – Tips from the Pros

We close the Ultimate Guide to Church SEO with some advice from some local SEO and church communications experts.

Search rankings are constantly changing, but there three things you can count on: Have great content, optimize for mobile, & make sure your site is user-friendly. Google’s latest algorithm changes favors these things so your site ranks higher in search results. -Dawn Nicole Baldwin, Lead Strategist, AspireOne.com

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Make it easy for your church to post online reviews. A growing number of 5-star ratings on Google and Facebook will help you stand out and boost your visibility. I recently gave a short announcement at my church sharing one URL with links to Google & Facebook Reviews, and we got a great response! -Matt Ehresman, CourageousStorytellers.com

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Content. That’s it. There are lots of technical things you can do that will help, but the easiest way for most churches to improve their SEO is to create good content and post it online. Let your website archive grow and give search engines more things to link to. -Kevin Hendricks, ChurchMarketingSucks.com

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Add backlinks to internal web pages. Create pillar content with other content that links to it. What does that look like for a church? Create a kids ministry page with links to other pages about kids ministry. This is what SEO experts call the cluster topic model. -Katie Allred, ChurchCommunications.com

The Ultimate Guide to Church SEO was written by the OurChurch.Com team which has been helping churches, schools, nonprofits and businesses live out their mission online with web design, web hosting, and SEO since 1997.