Local SEO Strategy for Churches: What You Need to Know

What's the best way for a local church to attract more parishioners who live nearby? This article discusses one of the most popular options: using local SEO to get the church's website to show up higher in online search results. Read on to find out the best ways to achieve this. 

Local SEO Strategy for Churches: What You Need to Know

It's important to note that while local SEO is a great thing to undertake when trying to attract more parishioners closer to the church, it's completely separate from the church's ongoing SEO efforts, which should always be focused on getting good, organic results for all kinds of search queries. Local SEO, on the other hand, is focused exclusively on getting good results for searches that are known to be 'locally relevant,' meaning that people searching for them are likely to be more interested in finding a nearby church.

What You Can Do

1 - Update Your On-Page Content

The church's website can be its most important asset when it comes to attracting more local parishioners. Making sure that it's well-optimized is one of the first steps that can be taken to attract more local parishioners. The exact kinds of things that need to be optimized will differ based on the website's content, but there are some good places to start.

One of the first things to do is to make sure your website's pages are optimized for local searches. This includes making sure all of your pages have 'local information' attached to them, i.e., address, phone number, and similar, as well as their corresponding location metadata. Also, make sure that your pages are well optimized for your church's name, including it in all your on-page content, in the metadata, and in the page's title.

2 - Add Listings and Directories

Most well-known local listings and directories can be found by searching for 'local directories' plus your city and state. Adding your church to these is an excellent idea and can be done for free in most cases.

Always use your official business information when adding your church to directories and listings. This ensures the information is accurate and that you are the only person from the church who is 'claiming' it.

3 - Claim Your Listing

If your church does have an official presence on the Internet, it's more than likely that you have your own business listing on sites like Google and Yelp. Make sure you're claiming your listing on these. This can be done either automatically by having your business' name, address, and phone number listed on the church's website or by going to the site directly and filling out the information needed to make the listing official.

Conclusion

Local SEO is a great way to effectively get your church's website to show up higher on search results pages and attract more local parishioners. There are many other ways to do this, including social media and content marketing. Make sure that your church is optimizing all of these and more!

Local SEO takes some time and effort, but with the right marketing strategy and a bit of luck, it can lead to a lot of success. If you have any questions about local SEO, digital marketing for churches, or other topics covered here, be sure to contact us at Faithworks Marketing.