How to Optimize Your Church Website for Easter

2For many churches, Easter is the most attended service of the year, which also makes it the biggest opportunity to connect with people seeking a church to worship with on Easter.

According to the Pew Research Center…

More Americans search for “church” around Easter than at any other time. -Pew Research Center

There are several things your church can do to help those who are searching.

Start with the Church SEO basics that apply all year:

1. Eliminate SEO Killers.

Connect your website with Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools which will tell you if there are any problems with your website that prevent it from being read by search engines.

2. Make it Mobile Friendly.

Make sure your website is mobile friendly. This is important for good search rankings and a good user experience.  You can use the  Bing Mobile Friendly Test to see if there are any issues with your website’s mobile usability.

3. Setup/Check Local Listings.

If you don’t have a Google Business Profile yet, get that setup ASAP. See How to Create, Claim and Verify Your Google Business Profile for step-by-step instructions.

If you already have a Google Business Profile, review it. Make sure all the info is up to date and that you have info about Easter services and events on it.

It’s also good to setup or review listings in other local/maps sites like Bing Maps, Yelp, and Apple Maps.

4. NAP Time.

No, don’t fall asleep… Make sure your church Name, Address and Phone number are in the header or footer of your website (top or bottom of every page).

Optimize Your Church Website for Easter

Once you’ve taken care of the basics that are essential for good search rankings, there are some additional steps you can take to connect with people who are searching before Easter.

1. Create an Easter page for services and other events.

In addition to mentioning Easter services on your homepage and calendar page. If you want it to be found in search engines, create a page specifically for your Easter services and Easter events.

2. Promote and link to all events on your homepage.

This will help both human visitors and search engines that visit your homepage to find your event pages.  The idea is to use headlines or promotional graphics on your homepage just to get people’s attention, and link to the Easter page where people can get the rest of the details. This way your homepage doesn’t get cluttered with all the details.

3. Share your Easter events on social media.

Social media shares and likes help search rankings. Plus the more people who see the event in social media, the more links it will get.  Consider creating a Facebook Event and sharing to any local Facebook groups.

4. Email newspapers and community groups.

Many newspapers and community websites list upcoming events. Email them and see if they’ll post and link to info about your Easter events.

And somewhat of a hybrid between social media and community groups, there are social apps like Eventbrite, Meetup, and Nextdoor.

People are searching online for Easter services in your community. Will they find your church?

Get some help from our team of experienced SEO pros!

If you are interested in having our Church SEO  experts help your church bring more people to your church website through search engines, we would love to talk with you!

Complete the form below (mobile) or to the right (desktop) to schedule a call.

Comment & Discuss:

• What are you doing to connect with people searching online for Easter services and events?

Continue reading… 5 Things to Prep Your Website for Easter