Tag: google

I want the gospel to spread, the kingdom of God to grow and it would be nice if the church I lead was seeing those visitors come and lives getting changed.

One part of that is whether people who are looking for a church, find your church!

Search has changed rapidly this year – more people are using chatGPT or Claude and Google often put an AI overview at the top, where people can read the information without visiting the website.

In part 1 of this series, we will look at the importance of local search. That’s where people type something like “Church near me”. Those results will be driven by your Google maps entry and structured data (part 2)

Have you claimed your “business” on Google maps?

Head to google.com and type your church name and town in.Over onthe right it will have what it knows about it.

The church on the left has “You manage this Business Profile”, which means I am in control of the Google Maps entry.

The church on the right (my old church!) has left it to chance. I’ll help them later 😉

It also means that on Google maps, there are good details on the map for my church.

If you have “Own this business?”, then people will likely scroll past and Google AI overview will recommend three other churches.

So do click on it and Google will take you through a verification process, which involves sending you a postcard with a code on it or an automated phone call. Once that is done you can edit the business and get those all details correct.

It is worth doing because…

It puts you on Google maps – “church near me” is something people do search!

It feeds the Google AI overview that is at the top of any Google search now.

It powers voice search – when someone asks google “when does church start?” your church will be part of the answer.

Find and Follow

Google Business Profile helps people find your church. Social media helps people follow your church – that’s for another post!

A new family that have just moved to the area aren’t searching Facebook or Instagram for your church, they ask Google for “church near me”

The person that has hit rock bottom and wants to know if Jesus can help, will google it!

Fill out all the fields!

All of them – address, service time, phone number. And add some photos to show what a friendly bunch you are and the kind of church you are – a picture speaks a thousand words.

Don’t let it get stale

I always google my church and you get that nice sidebar to quickly access the “business profile”

Ask people for reviews – there’s a linlk “Get reviews”. Copy it and send it to some people to do a review,

Add some more photos every now and again to keep it fresh!

Then do some updates

I just spotted this recently. You can add a quick post on Google – much the same as you may add a post to thechurch Facebook page.

“Add update” is just under the reviews section.

I’ve started adding a quick update – takes 5mins. And look at the results…

The weekly email from Google maps has told me our profile has been viewed 8,000 times – and 80 of them this week. So in the last ten days of doing a quick update, I have had 1% of the total views of The Gateway Church on Google maps/business search.

Why not take 30mins to sort out your Google Business entry. Google your church and click “Own this business” or edit entry if you already do. Add a weekly quick post and see what the Lord will do with the Google Algorithm!

Next time we will look at some specific newish features of the Church Admin Premium version that will help you “Do better on the web”

If you haven’t installed the plugin on your Church WordPress powered site, click one of the options below!