The search engines are constantly changing. New sites area being created and shut down every day. More sites are realizing the value of search engine optimization. New strategies for SEO and link building are developed. Even the search engines themselves change as they try to refine their algorithms to produce the most relevant search results.  So, what do you do? Read more…

Google has announced that listings in Google Maps will now include descriptive phrases associated with the listing.

“Google Maps search results in the U.S. and Great Britain will include some of the phrases which are most frequently used to describe those places. These phrases come from sources all across the web, such as reviews, web pages and other online references, and they can help people quickly identify the characteristics that make a particular place unique.” Read more…

Last week I wrote about what factors are most important in local church SEO.  Yesterday, I wrote a related article over at the Christian SEO Guys blog looking at the top 10 things to avoid in local SEO.  These principles absolutely apply to church SEO.

Some of the things mentioned are: Read more…

Local SEO is crucial for churches.  Churches and ministries who aren’t doing SEO are missing out on new visitors and hindering their ministry efforts.  So, what do you need to do to get your church to show up in the local search results? Read more…

Earlier this week Bing announced that they were rolling out some great new features which integrate Facebook into their search results.  These features influence search results, show you your Facebook friends “liked” pages, provide for Facebook interactions with your friends while searching.  You can read more about the features here, “Bing and Facebook Launch New Integration Revolutionizing Search“.

While there are a lot of cool features Bing has announced, there are something that can really benefit churches greatly.  Here’s how… Read more…

In an article on the Christian SEO Guys blog, “Bing to Dethrone Google?“,I reported on the ongoing shift in the search engine market from Google to Bing.  According to Experian’s Hitwise.com, in less than one year Bing’s market share has increased by nearly 27% while Google’s share has decreased by nearly 11%.

So, what does that have to do with church marketing? Read more…

Search engine optimization is something that should simply be a part of any and every website design.  After all, aren’t you building the website so people will find it and use it?  Good SEO can be the difference between a website succeeding in it’s mission or failing.

Here are a few final thoughts on SEO… Read more…

If you are targeting the wrong keywords, you are simply wasting your time with search marketing.  With the a little research, you could figure out the right keywords and greatly increase traffic to your church’s site.

If you have been following our discussion of the importance of keyword research to search marketing for your church, we’ve looked at why keyword research is important and what is involved in keyword competition.  So, how do you determine how difficult it will be to rank well for a keyword?  Great question!

Read: “Determining Keyword Difficulty” and get some practical ways to determine what keywords you can rank for now and what keywords you’ll need to target in the future.

http://churchmarketingonline.com/2011/03/determining-keyword-difficulty/

Photo by sean dreilinger

Have you done search marketing for your church?

If so, how have you determined which keywords you would target?

Keyword research is the critical foundation for search engine optimization.  Without it you may be spending tons of time, energy and money targeting keywords you can’t currently rank for or keywords for which no one is really searching.

Learn how to set a firm foundation for your search engine optimization efforts and start getting more traffic to your website with good keyword research: Read more…

(Updated on 3/8/2011)

Perhaps as you’ve searched around the Internet and Church Marketing Online you’ve seen the term SEO. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is simply setting up your website to best allow search engines to read your website and understand what your website is about. Search engines aren’t very good guessers, so SEO is done to tell the search engines specifically what they need to know or what you want them to know.

The goal of SEO is to increase your website’s rankings in the search engines and bring more visitors to your website. An optimized website can bring 2 times, 3 times, or even 10 times the visitors than an un-optimized website. So, understanding SEO and its importance can make or break a website.

Read more…