Easter is the second most attended service of the year after Christmas Eve.
Most churches recognize this and put extra effort into reaching people in their community and inviting them to their Easter service.
As I’ve said many times, most people start their search for a church online, so one of the best ways a church can connect with people looking for a church to worship with on Easter is through search engines like Google. So…
How does a church show up in the search results for “Easter service near me?”
And how does that differ from what a church needs to do to show up in the search results for “Church near me?”
Here’s a screenshot of the search results I’m shown for “Church near me”
You see Anchor, Bayside, and Holy Spirit Old Catholic churches get the top 3 spots.
Now let’s look at the results for “Easter service near me”
Notice Bayside is the only one in the top 3 for both searches. Harborside and Heritage UMC get in Google’s “local 3 pack” for “Easter services near me.”
Why the difference?
First, notice in the “church near me” results that Google displays a review below the name of each church that has the word “church” in it. In the “Easter services near me” results that Google displays an excerpt from a “post” below the Bayside listing.
Reviews are posted to Google Business Profiles by visitors and members. This highlights the importance for a church to get members and visitors to post reviews.
Posts are articles the church itself has posted to their Google Business Profile. In this case Bayside posted a post to their GBP encouraging people to invite their friends to an Easter service.
Second, Anchor Church and Holy Spirit Old Catholic Church are both in the local 3 pack for “church near me” but not for “Easter services near me” and neither church mentions Easter on their website at all.
Based on these observations, here are some recommendations.
5 Tips to Get Your Church in the Search Results for “Easter service near me?”
1) Use the word Easter on your church website homepage.
Preferably more than once. The bigger the heading the better. Include the times for your Easter worship services and any other Easter events you have planned.
2) Optimize Easter images.
If you are using one or more images to promote your Easter services, make sure the images are optimized for search by giving them a filename and alt attribute with “Easter service” in them.
3) Claim and verify the Google Business Profile for your church.
Google cannot know your church website is connected to your Google Business Profile / Google Maps search listing – and thus will not see the Easter content on your website – unless you claim and verify it. Verify My Google Business Profile
4) Add a “Post” to your Google Business Profile about your Easter services.
If you have a page on your website about your Easter services and events, a GPB post can be as simple as the title of that page and a link to the page.
5) Ask for Easter reviews.
As we see with Harborside Church, having Easter mentioned in the Google Reviews people post can have a huge impact. It’s probably too late to have people post reviews and for those reviews to have an impact this year, but you could ask people during or after the service to post a review.
The bottom line is…
Most people start their search for a church online. Will people find your church when they Google “Easter service near me?”
Get Help Ranking for “Easter Service near me” (and more!)
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May God bless you as you celebrate the resurrection of our Savior, Jesus, and seek to introduce the people of your community to Him and his kingdom!
Discussion:
- Where does your church rank in Google for “Easter service near me?”
- What questions or comments do you have about setting up your Google Business Profile or ranking for “Easter services near me?”
Read more articles about preparing your website, SEO, and online communications for Easter.
Co-founder & CEO, OurChurch.Com
Paul has been the CEO of OurChurch.Com since its founding in 1996, combining his passion for faith and technology to lead the organization.
An accomplished writer, Paul has authored over 2,000 articles on faith and technology, featured on platforms like ChurchLeaders.com, The JoyFM, and his personal blog, LiveIntentionally.org.
Beyond his professional achievements, Paul serves as an elder at Journey Community Church and is deeply engaged in his community through his involvement with the Florida Sheriffs Youth Ranch and the Safety Harbor Chamber of Commerce. He is a contributing author of the book Outspoken! Conversations on Church Communication.
2 Comments
Churches ought to come up higher in the search results than grocery stores, especially when searching for churches and church services.
Look at your results from a variety of connection points – Google thinks my desktop at home (or any device connected to my network) is in the adjacent county. Adding the city to the search brought up more relevant results (“church near city st” and “easter services near city st”). Check from your phone – when not on wi-fi. Check using other search engines – Bing and DuckDuckGo are 2 to reckon with. You can also claim your church on Bing Places. Ask Alexa and Siri. At this point, Alexa uses Bing and Siri (and Android phones) uses Google.
Continuing on the local scene, claim your location on Yelp! and Foursquare/Swarm. Have you claimed your page on Facebook? More opportunities can be discovered using Moz Local.
Great stuff, Paul!
Hey Steve, what’s up? It’s been a while. Thanks for the additional suggestions. Churches do come up higher in the search results than grocery stories for “churches” and “church services.” But if you think about it grocery stores do provide “Easter services” (products and services for Easter) so churches are competing for those searches.