What if you could guarentee new guests would visit your church every week?
What if there was one tool, if you used it correctly, that could give you a steady stream of new guests for the forseeable future?
Good news! this tool exisists already, and it’s called Google My Business.
What is Google My Business?
Google My Business is a free and easy-to-use tool for churches to manage their online presence across Google, including Search and Maps.
Why does Google My Business Matter for churches?
Google My Business helps churches connect with new and potential visitors in their local community. By optimizing and managing their listing, churches can improve their visibility in search results, reach more people, and grow their impact.
How do I optimize our Google My Business listing?
Here are a few simple things churches can do to optimize their google my business listing:
Information
Make sure all the information on your listing is accurate and up-to-date. This includes your church’s name, address, phone number, website, and hours of operation.
Photos
Add photos and videos to your listing. Potential visitors want to see what your church looks like before they visit.
Reviews
Respond to reviews. This shows that you are active on your listing and care about what people are saying about your church.
Posts
Use google my business posts to keep your followers updated on news and events at your church.
Google My Business is a powerful tool
A properly optimized GMB can help churches reach new people every week. By taking the time to optimize and manage their listing, churches can make a big impact in their local community.
If you want to make your church GMB listing an automated chruch growth machine, click the link below to sign up for our free GMB training video where we walk you through the steps outlined above and one amazing strategy to maximize your results.
Additional Google Business Profile Resources
Business Profile Tips
Think of your GMB profile as a mini-website for your church. Include all the essential information that potential visitors would want to know, such as your church’s name, address, phone number, website, and hours of operation. Use high-quality photos and videos to give potential visitors a sense
Business Search Tips
Use keywords that potential visitors would use when searching for a church in your area. For example, if your church is located in Los Angeles, you might want to include keywords such as “Los Angeles churches” or “churches in LA.”
Business Listing Ads vs Church Listing
1. Churches can optimize their google my business listings to appear higher in search results. Businesses cannot pay to have their listing appear higher in search results.
2. Churches can add photos and videos to their google my business listings. This is a great way to give potential visitors a sense of what your church looks like before they visit.
3. Churches can create google my business posts to keep their followers updated on news and events at the church. This is a great way to make announcements about upcoming services or special events.
Google Business Profile manager
The google my business profile manager is a free and easy-to-use tool for churches to manage their online presence across google, including search and maps.
The google my business profile manager helps churches connect with new and potential visitors in their local community.
By optimizing and managing their listing, churches can improve their visibility in google search results and reach more people.
What does Google Like?
Google likes business clarity.
Google likes clarity and conciseness. As you’re writing your content, keep this in mind and try to be as clear and concise as possible. Also, be sure to include keywords that potential visitors would use when searching for a church.
GMB likes service areas.
If your church has a physical location that you want potential visitors to be able to find, be sure to include your address and service area in your GMB listing. This will help potential visitors find your church when they search for churches in their area.
Google likes customer friendly listings.
Be sure to include all the essential information that potential visitors would want to know, such as your church’s name, address, phone number, website, and hours of operation. Use high-quality photos and videos to give potential visitors a sense of what your church looks like before they visit.
GMB likes photos of your church.
Another great way to optimize your church’s google my business listing is by adding photos and videos. This is a great way to give potential visitors a sense of what your church looks like before they visit. Be sure to add high-quality photos and videos that accurately represent your church.
What does google not like?
Google doesn't like missing business information.
Incomplete or incorrect google business profile listings will greatly impact your rankings and your overall abilty to reach new people. Attention to detail will help you keep your listings correct.
Google profile doesn't like inactive listings.
Staying active on your GMB google business profile is a key way to keep google happy and your map listing ranking well.
Google doesn't like confusing business information.
If the web crawlers can’t find what they are looking for about your business, or if the google algorithm shows that people can’t navigate your business or listing, they will consistnetly rank your business lower in search results.
Case Studies:
By optimizing their Google My Business listing, churches can improve their business visibility in google search results and reach more people. An optimized GMB listing can also help churches connect with new business and potential visitors in their local community. To get started, churches can create or claim their business on google my business. Once they have claimed their business listing, they can add photos and videos, update their information, respond to reviews, and much more. The google my business profile manager is a great way for churches to connect with potential visitors in their area.
Home Church, Galveston TX
Local search’s impact is still significant, especially for local and regional churches in the Houston, Texas area. The majority of outreach emails to consumers go to spam or stay unread.
When trying to connect with the region around Home church in Galveston we knew that an email messaging would not be sufficient on its own to target the local market. Instead, we focused on Facebook ads and optimizing the church’s google my business listing.
One we had thier actual listing optimized and moving up in rankings our group created handouts with a QR code that sent reviewers to the church’s’ Google My Business site. We handed these out at outreach events adn community life moments. This added a growth element to the listing that increased the speed to the top 3 .
(It also allowed for open discussion and honest criticism with the route personnel or management at Home. Church Metrics Matter!).
Results:
Out goal with this campaign was to increase new guests. Before the listing optimization Home church averaged 2 to 3 new guest familes a month.
Within 3 months of optimizing their GMB lisitng, Home Church saw a 400% incrrease in new guest up to 12+ new familes a month.
This is before we started to run facebook ads or any other media campaigns!
When you master google my buisiness for your church you will be able to drive more traffic thourgh your doors and increase growth. To learn more, sign up for our free video training by clinking below!
TLDR; (Too Long, Didn't Read)
Google My Business Deep Thoughts:
Google my business stress:
The business listings provided by google can be great assets but also cause stress for church leaders. This stress can come in the form of Google My Business listing struggles my with the business rpofile manager, profile, google in general, service area business, and business metrics google can make things difficult to get an accurate business lsiting of your church.
Google my business business side can also be less effective for churches to get effective local seo google decides to put in place than a dedicated contract with a content marketing business coule provide through search engine marketing and google ads.
Google my Business and business metrics google profile topics:
Google my business can look at church profile topics and struggle to adapt them to the business profile of your church. This can lead to missed contacts and confusing listing instances. Google my business offers a few suggestions on how to optimize your listing for better church visibility.
To ensure your Google My Business profile is as effective and accurate as possible, consider the following:
– Use keyword-rich descriptions to describe my your church and its services
– Include photos and videos of your church and its activities
– Use your church’s address, hours of operation, and contact information
– Encourage customers to leave reviews of your church on your profile page
By following these tips, you can help your church’s Google My Business listing stand out and be more visible to potential visitors. google my business for churches can grow your church by optimizing your listing and making it easier for people to find you.
Tags: Google my business, business, profile, of your business.
Google maps marketing vs Search engine marketing: Googe my Business and the growth of your church reach:
Marketing your church through conventional search engine strategies has a few drawbacks .
– You have to spend time and money on SEO, which can be difficult to maintain.
– You’re competing with a lot of other businesses and organizations for top ranking keywords.
– You’re also competing against churches with much larger marketing budgets my.
With Google My Business for Churches, you can get your church’s listing in front of potential visitors with little to no effort on your part. Simply create and optimize your church’s profile, and Google will do the rest. google my business for churches can help you grow your church without breaking the bank.
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t worry about website SEO. We are huge believers in an optimized website for church growth, but that google business profiles and an optimized website are two tools that work hand in hand to drive the maximum traffic to your church
Tags: my google’s business, business, google my business, profile, my profile
Profile in Google search:
Business GMB listings are easy to set up in that my GMB tags and keywords for the business profile will be determined by the industry, niche, and service area. When deciding how to structure your profile of your church listing, you need to take different steps than if you where working on my business listing.
Google my business enables google to to corelate of your information with one location of google’s map listing. The business listing profile needs to be as accurate and consistenta representation of your business information as possible.This will allow google to show your business when someone is searching for a church in your area.
When your profile is inconsistent, google’s algorithms have difficulty connecting your business information with a physical location. This can result in google not showing your business in the search results, or displaying incorrect information about your church.
Google will also use your business information to determine if your church is eligible to show up in google maps results. This includes google’s local 3-pack, which displays the top 3 businesses for a given search query.
To be eligible for the google local 3-pack, your business must meet the following criteria:
– Be located within the my google maps boundaries for the search query.
– Have a google my business profile with up-to-date and accurate information.
– Be categorized as a church in google my business. You can do this by selecting “religious organization” as your primary category.
– Have positive reviews from google users.
If you need to add more positive reviews you can use google’s “short URL” feature to make it easy for your church members to review your business.
To create a google short URL:
– Go to google.com/business.
– Click on the listing you want to create a short URL for.
– In the “Info” section, click on the “Short URL” link.
– Copy the short URL and share it with your church members.
Google my business is a powerful tool that can help you grow your church. Follow the steps above to create and optimize your church’s profile, and start reaping the benefits today.
Tags: Business google maps, business metrics google, and google ads, profile, my profile
Business:
When you open a business account google will assign you a new business profile. This profile can be used to claim and verify your business google maps will not rank my profile in the local business profile until my listing is verified.
When you set up a business with a new profile you wil lneed to go through the verification process all over again. Every time you change any relevant business information on your profile you will need to verify your profile again.
Tags: Business, Profile, business google maps, google business, google business, hubspot, business account, small businesses, google analytics,