The Ultimate Church SEO and Content Guide
What if I told you that your church can save $30,000/year and simultaneously grow your church?
One of my clients experienced this. Their estimated website traffic cost was over $30,000 for 2024. They also experienced rapid growth during a pastoral transition.
This is because we focused on digital marketing, specifically the content on their website.
I sat down with Jono Long, founder of Faithworks, to discuss church content and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). By the end of it, you'll have the toolkit and strategy you need to achieve similar results.
The Most Essential Component of Your Church Digital Marketing
What do you think is the most crucial part of your website?
Is it having a video in your main visual area? Original photos vs. stock photos? Or, Is it having the coolest website design available?
The most essential component of your church website is content.
Your website must have content (words and media) for it to rank well. Yet many churches would rather have media than text.
"Churches are notorious for wanting content-thin websites," Jono said. "When we build websites for churches, the phrase I hear the most is we want a lot of white space."
Here's the thing: Google needs words to understand what you're about. Yes, it knows what a church is supposed to be. But what makes you unique? What makes "First [Denomination] [City]" different than "First [Same Denomination] [Neighboring City]?
"From an SEO state, if you want to show up on Google, Google needs words," said Jono.
And please, this doesn't mean having a heading like "Looking for a Church Near Me?" or "You Belong at Our Church in [City]." SEO is about appeasing Google and, most importantly, helping people. To do both of those things, you have to have helpful text that makes both an algorithm and a person understand.
Why it's Essential to Have Content-rich Websites
Google often changes its algorithm. When these changes happen, Google prioritizes quality content more and more every single time.
"The businesses, organizations, churches, nonprofits that don't see their rankings and totally fall off a cliff are the ones who have just been writing good content consistently for a long time," said Jono. "you've got to be strategic and put some words out there."
This happened with my client. Once we started posting blogs, their traffic skyrocketed after a Google update. They went from about 1,000 views per month to over 8,000.
Website Improvements for SEO Success
Remember, content is the foundation of effective SEO. The first thing you have to improve is your website's content and functionality.
Add text content where appropriate. One thing anyone in the church website space will say is to have original photos on your site.
"Give up all the stock photography," Jono said. "There are lots of pictures of the front of the building on websites, and that's just not very inviting... You need to show people what it looks like to be in the foyer or who the people are. You can answer many questions with the first image at the top of your website."
Additionally, the user experience as they transition online to offline should be simple for both them and you.
"Make a good plan of visit page that answers people's questions," said Jono. "If someone fills out the form, actually have a plan for following up."
Creating Consistent, Valuable Content
Local SEO Considerations
"From the standpoint of local SEO, you're trying to show up in Google Maps," said Jono. "Blog posts, I don't think, help you show up in Google Maps."
Jono is right. A blog post (probably) won't help with showing up in Google Maps.
You could create fun posts that help local searchers. Ask the staff or volunteers what they like to do or where they like to eat. Then turn that into a "Best place to {XYZ} in {City}" post. Not all content on a blog has to be scripture-based.
Your Content Creation Roadmap for Churches
If you want to upgrade your church's content, here's a roadmap.*
Months 1-2: Core Ministry, About Us, First Time, Giving Pages
These pages will act as the backbone for everything else. If these aren't correct, the other months will not work well.
The core ministry pages would be pages like:
- Kid's Ministry
- Youth Ministry
- Men's or Women's Ministry
The first two months should be focused on whatever you're promoting the most. During this time, whichever ministry pages are most popular should also be the focus.
The About Us page is often the second most visited page on your church's website. That's what the data has pointed to for my client's analytics. A killer about page should include
- Lead Pastor (photo, name/title, and (ideally) a brief biography)
- Pastoral Team (photos, name/title required)
- Staff and Admins (you can get away with no photos here, but I encourage it!)
You'll have to divide the staff by location if you have multiple campuses.
Additionally, the About Page should tell a story the reader relates to. Don't talk about the history and that your church started 50 years ago. Talk about what prompted it to begin, how people saw a need for a church, and the main problems the church tackles and fights against. Avoid overly spiritual language.
Giving is the third most visited page on a church website (based on my data). So you should have a giving page, not a link!
The items that should be on a giving page should include
- A section on "What is giving?"
- A section on "Where your giving goes" and highlights the options people can give to (max 5). This makes the journey easy.
- Two (minimum) call-to-actions on giving or answering other questions
Life.Church has the BEST giving page I've ever seen. The giving experience is seamless, and the best part is that you can easily replicate it.
First Time guests page is often the fourth most visited page. This is your chance to answer the basic questions people will have.
- "What do I have to wear?"
- "What times are services?"
- "Do you have free breakfast/coffee?"
- "Are kids allowed in service?"
- Etc.
The key to this page is to answer relevant questions people ask. You should also post Google reviews people have shared about your church here. It's not braggy or tooting your own horn.
Think of it like those reviews are people inviting others to your church. It's them telling a neighbor why they like attending.
What is the ultimate way you can do great with all these pages? Interview the leaders of that area.
- Core ministry pages: Talk with the Kid's pastor, the youth pastor, etc., and find out their goals. Use their words and phrasing.
- About Us: Talk with the lead pastor (or founding if they are still around/different)
- Giving: Missions/Community Outreach/CFO, whoever sees the dollars correlate to the Gospel being preached and meeting community needs
- First-time guests: Ask new members what questions they may have had. Interview lead greeters and ushers about what questions they are often asked.
Months 3-5: Spiritual Belief Pages, Secondary Ministry Pages
Once the top 4 pages (in addition to the home page) are finished, start creating pages for your secondary ministries
- Young-at-heart (ages 65+)
- Missions
- Sports
- Young adult/College (depending on if that's essential)
Have the same approach above with interviews.
More importantly, the spiritual beliefs. I'm not talking about a page that talks about your beliefs or links to your denomination page about it.
I'm talking about creating a full page (not a blog post). Some page ideas
- "Who is Jesus?" (over 8,000 searches/month)
- "What is Salvation?" (over 8,000 searches/month)
- "What is Christianity? (over 6,000 searches/month)
Similar to the above pages, these spiritual beliefs pages will act as pillars for the months to come. It helps answer questions people are asking online and in your area.
Please note that so far, none of these pages (except for the home page) are to be intentionally made to rank #1 on Google. Not because it's impossible (though it may be), but because some of the volume isn't worth it.
For example, nobody is looking up "missions ministry near me," so you don't have to go crazy with it.
Months 6-12: Blog (Sermon Repurposing)
By now, you should see the efforts of Months 1-2 paying off—even month 3. Now is the hard part: posting regular content consistently. The simplest way to do this is by repurposing your pastor's sermons.
You should repurpose your pastor's sermons because they deserve to be heard more than once. A blog post about the sermon helps people experience it in another way. Plus, it gives you something to point back to for social content.
And guess what? The spiritual pages you build will get internal links from those blogs. Each blog, just like each sermon (in my opinion), needs to be tied to the Gospel. There must be an explanation of Jesus' life, death, resurrection, and ascension. Having a page where people can learn more about these essential topics will beef up your SEO through internal links.
Before you start posting week to week, create a library of 3-4 ready-to-post articles. That way, you can post weekly. This also allows for your followers and congregants to not get bored with the same message in quick succession.
Now, let's briefly mention AI.
Does AI make it easier to repurpose? It makes it take less time.
Is AI required? No.
Now we're done.
After month 12, you should have a growing online presence. Is it easy? No. Is it worth it? Yes.
I've seen my client's web traffic increase by over 400% in less than a year by doing this. In-person attendance also increased rapidly. Now, we're focusing on content to improve member giving.
More giving, more chances to help others. More giving, more opportunities to hire qualified employees to help minister and disciple. More disciples, more chances for others to hear the Good News.
*The above roadmap can be shortened when you work with me.
What's Your Content Strategy?
You've read (or skimmed) a lot in this article. But I hope your understanding of content and SEO has improved.
It's easy to read but hard to implement and do consistently. That's why I started The Content Pastor. I help churches like yours create Kingdom-Advancing Content.
If you need help with your SEO and content creation, click the button below to book a free call with me.
If you're interested in what Jono and his team at are doing, visit the Faithworks website.
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