Top Tips for SEO on Church Websites

Search Engine Optimization is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via search results.

Below are some tips in making your website more “seen” on the internet through search engines.

Fill up your website meta-description and meta-keywords

These are located in Admin Management – Site Configuration & Navigation – Advanced Tab.

Use a one-two sentences description and 10-15 keywords related to your website.

Example:

Meta description: Kelowna Seventh-day Adventist Church, a Seventh-day Adventist church in Kelowna, BC. Looking for a church to join? Visit your local Seventh-day Adventist church in Kelowna.

Meta keywords: Christian Church Vancouver, BC, Seventh-day Adventist Church Vancouver, BC, seventh day adventist, seventh day adventists, seventh-day adventist, seventh-day adventists, 7th day Adventists, 7th day Adventist, local Christian church, sda church, find a church

Google Analytics

http://www.google.com/analytics/

This is a free Google feature that connects your site with Google statistics and builds many useful reports: visitors (how many, location etc), keywords, browsers used, languages etc.

You need to have a Google account to use this. You can signup free for a Google account at www.gmail.com , click on Signup. This will also provide a free email account for you. Google Mail is good to collect unwanted spam. Google analytics will provide a code for you and you can place this code into your website in Admin Management – Site Configuration & Navigation – Advanced Tab – Google Analytics box.

Submit your website to search engines

Submit your site to Google: http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl

Submit your site to Yahoo Search: http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html (Note: you must have a Yahoo ID)

Submit your site to MSN Search: http://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx

You also may want to submit your site to a Directory of websites called DMOZ: http://dmoz.org/help/submit.html

Google webmaster tools

http://www.google.com/webmasters/

Here you can add a Google sitemap for your site. This will help your website to be better indexed with Google.

Google AdWords

Here you can buy advertising for your site and setup where do you want to place it (by continents, regions or cities). For example you can target your ads to 100 km. Around Kelowna, Vancouver, Sydney, etc.

Google AdSense

http://www.google.com/adsense

This Google tool let you install contextual ads on your website. These are ads from other websites that are related to the text presented on your pages.