In our last article in this series we started looking at website analytics and how you can use analytics to track the traffic on your website.  In addition to tracking things like how many visitors you are getting and from where those visitors are coming, most analytics solutions have a feature for tracking your website conversions, an invaluable piece of information.

Online Goals
Every website has a purpose (or at least it should).  In many cases the webmaster wants the visitors to the site to do something.  This may be wanting people to buy a product, download a document, make a donation, submit a contact form, etc.  These are all goals, goals that can usually be tracked by analytics. Read more…

I was thinking about SEO and the importance of running reports and tracking metrics when it struck me that it’s very similar to trying to loose weight.

Optimization and link building are like diet and exercise.  Through your diet you fine tune the foods that you eat focusing on the healthier foods that help your body to run well.  At the same time, you exercise, building up your bodies strength and ability to perform. 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…

Good SEO can be the difference between a website succeeding in it’s mission or failing.  It can be the difference between a person visiting your church or going somewhere else, possibly even a church which is not really Christian.  In the Church Marketing Online University Updates on on-page search engine optimization, here are two final tips on church seo: Read more…

Search Engine Optimization is an important part of online church marketing.  Unfortunately, there’s a lot of misinformation about SEO out there.  Some of the misinformation is simply useless while other misinformation can actually harm your website in the search engines even to the point of getting your church’s website banned.  Not good.

In this Church Marketing Online University update, we look at:

4 Search Engine Optimization Tactics That Could Get Your Church Website Banned Read more…

To look at SEO simply for “church growth” is to ignore the real importance of what we are doing.  The church is working for the salvation of mankind and it’s ministries literally can save lives.  The stakes are incredibly high.

The high stakes of SEO for the Kingdom of God was the topic of an article in the Christian SEO Guys inaugural post today: Read more…

Want to rank well for a certain keyword?  Just tell the search engines what keywords you want to rank well for.  By optimizing certain parts of your web pages, you can greatly effect your church’s website’s search rankings.

As the search engines look at each page of your website, they read the various parts of the page to try to figure out what the page is about and, thus, for what search terms to rank the page.  By using your targeted keywords throughout the various parts of your web pages, you can get the search engines to list your church’s website for specific keywords.  Here are…

7 Essential Elements of Search Engine Optimization:

Click to read more…

Photos by adesigna

Every website should be optimized.  Especially church websites.  People use the search engines to find churches and find answers…answers churches have.  Not optimizing your church website is like building a church and then not bothering to put up a sign or tell anyone.

So, what is on-page optimization and how do you do it? 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…

Warning!!!

“Danger Will Robinson!  Danger!!”

There are certain practices that the search engines tell us they do not approve of. This is generally known in the SEO world as “Black Hat” SEO. The search engines warn that they will punish website that employ these tactics and possibly ban the site.  Unfortunately, I’ve seen a lot of do-it-yourselfers use use these tactics simply out of ignorance.  They heard using keywords in their text was good, so they just started sticking a bunch of keywords in the text without realizing that’s keyword stuffing and could hurt their site.

So, to be very clear.  I’m telling you about these things so that you DO NOT do them.  There are plenty of legitimate ways of ranking well in the search engines.  There is no need to go to the dark side.

Here are a few of the more common “Black Hat” practices: Read more…