As a savvy church pastor, you already know the importance of your website. It helps people learn about your ministry, attracts visitors, and keeps members up to date. You can spend hours crafting your message, choosing the perfect images, and keeping your calendar current, only to find yourself frustrated that people still can’t find you in Google searches. That’s where church SEO comes in.

Since more than 50% of your website’s traffic comes from organic search (online searches not resulting from paid ads), you need to make sure people can find you.

What is Church SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and refers to the steps you take on your website to help search engines find it more easily.

Think about opening a new church building. You wouldn’t just unlock the doors and hope people happen to drive by, right? You’d put out signs, spread the word, and invite the community.

Google can sometimes “find” your site on its own, but SEO is like putting out those signs. It’s how you tell search engines your website is here, what it’s about, and why it matters to people searching.

Simple church SEO steps make it easier for Google and potential visitors to find you, instead of leaving it to chance.

Why Church SEO Matters (and isn’t as scary as You Think)

When web professionals start throwing around technical terms like “Search Engine Optimization,” it can be super intimidating. Your blood pressure rises as you think, “I can’t possibly stuff another new thing in my brain.”

Take it easy, my friend. I promise it isn’t as scary as you think. You probably thought planning a church service was overwhelming at first, and now you do it every single week.

In reality, a few super quick, ridiculously simple steps will make a huge difference in helping Google find you. In turn, Google will start guiding people toward you as they search for a place to belong.

An Easy First Step

In the next few posts, I’m going to share quick ways to improve your church SEO. Right now, however, let’s start with something easy you can do today to make a big difference.

Change Your Website’s Main Title and Tagline

If you open your church website’s homepage and put your mouse over the browser tab, you should see the title of your site and its tagline. What does it say? Ideally, you want it to have the name of your church and its location, like this:

Example Baptist Church | Baptist Church Serving [Town, State] and Surrounding Areas.

Unfortunately, I see too many that say “Homepage | Welcome!” or something similar that tells Google very little about your church.

If your site runs on WordPress, as many of them do, you can change this in just a step or two. Just go to your site’s main settings and change the site title and tagline right at the top, then scroll down and save (more detailed instructions).

Now you’ve told Google two very important bits of information. First, it knows your specific church name and denomination, if needed. Second, you’ve told it where you are located. When someone searches “Baptist church near me,” Google can help them find your church. You may also wish to include other terms in your tagline that you’d like to stand out, such as “affirming Christian church in [location]” or “Gospel teaching Presbyterian church serving [location]”.

See? That’s not so scary!

Over the next few posts, you’ll learn more simple steps you can take to improve your church SEO, such as page titles, image tags, and local SEO.

Take a few deep breaths… you’ve got this. In the meantime, keep swimming along!