SEO For Multi-Site Churches Part 1 – The Challenges

It’s a growing trend with churches today.  Instead of planting new, independent churches or building larger and larger buildings, churches are expanding through satellite locations.  There are several reasons for this trend, including:

• It allows people from an expanded area to enjoy, grow from, and participate with the church they want to be a part of, but otherwise would not be able to.
• If a particular pastor, worship team, or ministry is very popular, the church is able to utilize that popularity to grow the church in new locations.
• With satellite locations, the church can share resources and reduce overall costs compared to the redundancy that would naturally occur if they were independent churches.

There can be several advantages to multi-site churches, but it also creates some unique challenges for marketing the church in the search engines.

One Unique SEO Issue with Multi-Site Churches

When you are a multi-site church you are one church, but you are also multiple churches.  From an visitor perspective you probably want your church to appear as much like one church as possible with the exception of letting people know they can experience your church at a location close to them.

However, from a search engine perspective you definitely want to appear like multiple churches.  Otherwise, you will end up only being listed in the search engines for your primary location and not your satellite locations.  And if you want to reach people in your satellite locations, it’s a lot easier if the search engines are showing your church in those satellite cities.  This is one of the challenges multi-site churches are facing.

I don’t think there has been a lot of discussion of the SEO issues multi-site churches face, so I wanted to devote a couple of posts to this topic this month discussing the marketing challenges (especially SEO) multi-site churches face as well as finding solutions to those challenges.

I think the best place to start is is with you.  I’d like to get your input.

Join the Conversation:

• Do you have a multi-site church?
• If so, what marketing challenges have you faced as a multi-site church?
• And what specifically SEO challenges have you faced as a multi-site church?
• Is your church thinking about starting a satellite campus?
• If so, what marketing related questions do you have about going becoming a multi-site church?
• Feel free to add any other comments / questions.

I look forward to your questions and responses.  In addition to discussion in the comments, I’ll address these challenges in another post(s) in the coming days.  Read: SEO For Multi-Site Churches Part 2 – The Solutions

UPDATE: OurChurch.Com now offers a Multisite Church SEO service. Click to read more about it!

Kurt Steinbrueck

OurChurch.Com Director of Marketing Services

Kurt serves as OurChurch.Com’s Director of Marketing Services, bringing over 20 years of expertise in search marketing, and has developed numerous marketing services and served hundreds of churches, schools, ministries, and businesses.

He has authored more than 500 articles on the subject, contributing to platforms like the Christian SEO Guys blog and Church Marketing University, and is an active participant on LocalSearchForum.com.

In addition to his professional accomplishments, Kurt is an ordained minister, serving as pastor at Faith Lutheran Church in Wesley Chapel, FL, demonstrating his commitment to both faith and community. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree and a Master’s Degree from Georgia Southern University. He also holds a Specific Ministry Pastor Certificate and a General Pastor Certificate from Concordia Seminary.