Google Keyword tool bridges the tremendous gap between the amount of people searching online for ministry content and the content itself. This screencast from the New Media team of Campus Crusade for Christ demonstrates how to place your website’s pages directly in the path of the millions of people going online for answers.
As powerful as Google is the search engine cannot read the mind of the one searching for information; Google’s “best guess” comes from matching the various keywords people type in with websites that in some way have the same keywords. These keywords can be placed strategically in the url (ie “mediaforministry.org”), the heading, and the body of a web page.
The purpose of working through this process is to help those who DO NOT YET KNOW ABOUT YOU find you; those who have heard of you will most likely type in your website url directly, or click on a link shared with them by a friend. When you start to incorporate specific and high-volume keywords into your ministry website you will begin to expand your reach exponentially.
Listen to this helpful quote from Hubspot’s Inbound Marketing blog:
“One way to do this is to target the people who are already searching for you. There is somebody out there who is looking up your brand online or is actively interested in your industry- or location-specific niche.
For instance, if you run a bed and breakfast in the village of Cataumet on Cape Cod, your low-hanging fruit would be “bed breakfast Cataumet.” There aren’t many bed and breakfasts in Cataumet, so the competition to rank for this keyword will be low.”
Spend thirty minutes with your team brainstorming the low hanging fruit and figuring out how to strategically place those keywords in your website. Then make sure you are using analytics of some kind to be able to track how its effectiveness. We recommend Google Analytics.
Brian Barela is the Director of New Media at Campus Crusade for Christ. He blogs regularly about leadership, social media, and starting a ministry.
