Richard Kraneis Blog

How do I get my church on Google?

I wrote a blog article regarding Google and my church’s advertising, and a few days later, someone was looking at it on the Internet.  Their search phrase according to my blog was:  How do I get my church on Google?

It doesn’t really matter whether you’re a church, a painting contractor, or a $20 million manufacturer, getting your website Googled is still the same.

1. Create a website, even a small one, with reasonably good content.
2. Submit your website to Google for indexing.  (Go to http://www.google.com/addurl/ and submit your website.)
3. You’re done.

In a few days, Google will spider through your site looking at all of your web pages and it will be indexed within Google on the Internet.

Perhaps a week after you submit your site for indexing at Google, you’ll be able to find your church’s website on the Internet.  (But that doesn’t mean that others will find your website easily.)

You can even push more traffic or visitors to your church’s website using Google’s Adwords advertising.  (Go to http://www.adwords.google.com)  Yes, it will cost you money whenever someone clicks on your ad.  But it may be worth it.

But the question, “How do I get my church on Google?” is only the first question in a series of 3 questions.

• How do I get my church on Google?
• How do I attract new visitors to my church’s website through Google?
• How do I persuade new visitors to our website to come to church one Sunday?

I don’t mean to be overly religious on this blog.  I’m actually a Fishing Methodist (I’m either fishing or in church on Sundays.)

But a church’s effort to be visible on the Internet through Google is just part of a marketing campaign.  You want to attract people to a website, you hope to interest them in your services, and finally you hope they will visit your church one Sunday.  Church members want to believe there is something very different about their website compared to a law firm or a CPA firm, but the similarities are striking.

So yes, you can get your church “on Google”.  But just like a law firm, a CPA firm, or a boy scout troop on the northside of Chicago, the real objective is to get someone to walk through the door.  Building a website isn’t enough.  It needs to be marketed, traffic needs to be encouraged, content needs to be persuasive.

Good luck to the person who found my blog on Google with the keywords:  “How do I get my church on Google”.

Church Advertising and Google

I don’t know where I learned this concept, but I believe it’s valid:  plan, PPC, and then Organic.

My church’s website doesn’t get much traffic.  Although attractive, the website wasn’t designed for traffic optimization (much less conversion).  So I’m trying to change that.

The Plan:  How will people find your church on the Internet?

PPC:  Use this tool to test your plan and to drive traffic to the website or at least measure searches on Google.

Organic:  Once PPC has helped you determine the best keywords, try to get the traffic organically.  It’s free once it’s running, and if you combine organic with PPC it draws even more traffic.

So I made a small plan for attracting more church traffic on some keywords.  The keywords draw about 20-25 searches per day on Google.  But over 250 searches, my church’s Google Ad hasn’t been clicked even once.

When People Search for a Church on Google, do they Avoid PPC?

Some experts think that users click 80/20 on Google.  80% of all user clicks are on organic listings.  20% of all clicks are done on Google Ads.  So far, in my small Google ad campaign for my church, I have reason to believe that less people than expected click on my church’s Google ads.  Actually, in 250 searches, there have been no PPC clicks.

After running this ad one trend is becoming clear.  I’m getting more clicks from content ads than search ads.  Currently, 1 in a 1000 exposures yields a click.  But the price is right so I’ll continue it.

Time to Focus on Organic

So using PPC has shown that there is search traffic for my church’s keywords and its Google campaign.  Not much traffic, but enough to care about.  So if Google PPC is getting little traffic, I’m turning my attention to some basic website page optimization.

My church’s website scores this way regarding its critical HTML coding:

Title - The HTML does exist but the titles are generic.  They have not been customized to match the actual page.

Keywords - The HTML seem adequate.

Description - The HTML code is non-existent.  We are not feeding good descriptions to Google even if the page is indexed.

So for this simple test, it’s time to create meaningful titles for my church’s website, continue with good keywords usage, and to begin meaningful use of descriptions in the HTML code.

So at least for my church, I believe simple planning, a dash of PPC, and some organic SEO is a good idea.

Summary

PPC direct search in Google is surprisingly low, non-existent.

PPC content search is a pleasant and affordable surprise.  I’ll continue Google content search for my church.

I need to tune my church’s website for about 3 keywords and pages to get my church onto the first page.  It will be interesting to see how difficult that will be with churches as competitors.

Clements Fishing Barge: Catching more Fisherman

Today, let’s take a look at the website http://www.clementsfishing.com/ . Great fishing in Genoa, WI on the Mississippi River. I look forward to my fishing visit in the fall of 2008.

But let’s take a look at its website for a few minutes. What’s good about it? Can it be improved? What simple things would improve it?

I learned of Clements Fishing Barge in Wisconsin reading one of my various fishing magazines. But I always had trouble remembering their name. I knew they had a fishing barge on the Mississippi in Wisconsin.

Here’s a good thing, when searching for fishing barge Wisconsin, their name shows up right away.

So if you search on Google for fishing barge Wisconsin, fishing barge, or Clements fishing, www.Clementsfishing.com shows up at the top on Google. That’s certainly a good thing.

Another good thing is that Clements Fishing does try to build an email list with their Add me to your mailing list option. An email opt-in would be more attractive. Gathering emails with a manual email opt-in is time consuming and doesn’t ensure the double-optin method.

Their website shows a problem that even larger websites have: a failure to use HTML code for title, keywords, and description. If they used those features with planning and intention, they could increase traffic to their website. The title for many of their website pages is blank.

Google has indexed 40 pages of their website and Yahoo has 165 inbound links to their website (very impressive). They might consider looking at each inbound link on Yahoo to see if advertising at that site would be helpful (or a thank you).

So this little website for a Mississippi fishing barge does have some good things going for it.

What would I suggest at a minimum?

1. Consider using an email opt-in for gathering emails. More efficient. Send fishing reports to people. Send emails giving discounts or special services for group fishing.
2. Consciously use better HTML with title, keywords, and descriptions. Their website traffic should improve.
3. They might consider writing more website pages with targeted keywords.

At $15 per adult customer and $5 per child, will improving the website increase the number of fishermen (and fisherwomen) to Clements Fishing Barge? Only they know for sure.

I hope to see them soon for some fishing (only 270 miles from Chicago to their fishing barge).

If you’d like an outside opinion on your website, please send an email to me. Time permitting, I’ll give your website a good look.

Really Mediocre Websites

I’ve started observing, keeping track, and analyzing some mediocre websites. It’s a delicate thing, telling someone that their website needs work.

Who am I to say that someone else’s website is mediocre? Am I an expert? Well after 5 years SEM (search engine marketing) part-time, I think I qualify as a knowledgeable source on SEM. In the Middle Ages you had apprentices, journeymen, and master craftsmen.

In the world of SEM, I believe I fit in, for now, as a journeyman. So, as a SEM journeyman, I think I’ve learned enough to comment on the SEM of other websites.

But humility is always a useful concept. I’m old enough to know that just because I think something is true or accurate, that doesn’t mean that I’m right. So my unsolicited opinions on other people’s websites is just that: opinion.

But in a positive spirit of helpfulness I’m going to start commenting on websites that I see on the Internet. To compliment what is good, to advise what could be done differently. To entertain, to educate, and to hopefully acquire some new business along the way.

If you want me to comment on your website, for free, send me an email and I’ll do so, time permitting.

2009 Nissan Murano Advertising – April 17, 2008 - Great Car, Not so Great Advertising

Actually, my wife loves the look of the Murano. That’s why I clicked on this beautiful graphical ad that was displayed prominently at www.weather.com .

Unfortunately, the ad didn’t work. Mozilla’s Firefox blocked the pop-up. Yes, I could allow the popup in Firefox, but that’s not my job. Nissan’s job is to get the ad to me quickly and easily.

Then I tried going to www.weather.com to see the same ad using Internet Explorer. This time, the pop-up worked. But it was like watching paint dry…

It took about 15 seconds to load on my T1 connection and then displayed another beautiful ad. I wondered how long the ad would need to load in DSL/Cable, or dial-up. See below.

Also, I’m confused. Isn’t it still 2008? Does Nissan release their 2009 models this early? It’s 2008 and the advertising says 2009?

From an advertising standpoint, from a metric standpoint, how are they keeping track of clickthroughs from Internet Explorer vs. Mozilla Firefox? This is the link from my clickthrough at Internet Explorer:

http://www.nissanusa.com/murano/?dcp=25868130;&dcc=24722859;&dcn=1

But even if the dcp, dcc, and dcn coding means something (and it does), whose tracking this and will they notice the blocked Mozilla clickthroughs vs. better clickthroughs from Internet Explorer?

This brings up another point, whose the target audience for the Nissan Murano? Is it the Internet Explorer kind of person or the Mozilla Firefox kind of person? I know, the beautiful graphics ad should be tested for both ads, but who is their audience?

I bet that the majority of purchases for the Nissan Murano come from the Mozilla Firefox users than the good, old fashioned Internet Explorer users.

So, lots of thoughts on this 2009 Nissan Murano ad today. The ad was beautiful, its click through rate is questionable. I wonder what Nissan would say about this blog article?

Pivot Tables and Web Analytics

Each year I use web analytics for each customer to describe the last year. Maybe you can call it a progress report.

In January 2008 I crunched some numbers for one client (confidential, of course).

Let’s say my client’s hypothetical website name was www.superdupersrollerskates.com . It isn’t but let’s say that’s the case.

Let’s also say, that the majority of their website visitors come because they remember the website name: www.superduperrollerskates.com

And finally, hypothetically, understand that www.superduperrollerskates.com makes the finest molybdenum roller skates in the world. Last year, a pound of molybdenum cost about $35. But I believe it’s sold by the ton. So these are pricey roller skates.

The client sells its share of fancy molybdenum roller skates. But that’s exactly the problem.

When I did my analysis for the roller skate company, I took traffic logs from www.ConversionRuler.com , aggregated the data into one big Excel spreadsheet, and then sliced and diced the data with an Excel pivot table.

Guess what?

Even though my client makes terrific molybdenum roller skates, I found that hardly any sales were attributable to users searching for molybdenum roller skates. And let’s also assume that for my hypothetical client, that many people search for molybdenum roller skates on www.Google.com .

If only my client would build a custom web page with the HTML title: Molybdenum Roller Skates. At least hundreds or more of visitors a day would find the company. You bet, more sales.

Well, like I said, www.superduperrollerskates.com is a mythical company. But my client is real. I told them Monday morning that even though they make the best XXX widgets in the world, nobody ever finds them on the Internet searching for XXX widgets.

So my client authorized building a web landing page that can be found by people searching for molybdenum roller skates (again, I can’t tell you the actual name of the company or their product.

So, Excel analysis of www.ConversionRuler.com data for my client was the key. And using Excel pivot tables was critical. If you’d like to learn more about using pivot tables, this advanced Excel tutorial will help.