Help Out of Town Visitors Find Your Church

This spring there will be many occasions where out of town visitors might be visiting their relatives.

If they want to attend a special service at your church, such as your Easter or Resurrection Day services, can they easily get the information from your website?

Example from Christmas

Over Christmas, my family visited relatives.

We wanted to attend a Christmas Eve service in a nearby church.

Through our friends, we were recommended to a Presbyterian church less than 5 miles from where we were staying.

Step 1.  We Googled the full name of the Church.

Funny thing is, they didn’t show up #1, even though their name is somewhat unique.  They showed up #3.

For their exact name, a similar but different name church showed up #1.

This is an easy fix.

In their webpage, they didn’t include the name of the church in their meta tags for description or keywords.

They used generic words like “church, christian, fellowship, worship, worship services, praise and worship.”

They could have used their church name, as well as their tribe, and town in these descriptions.

Use can use your church name as alternate descriptions in some of your photos as well.

Step 2.  We looked at the home page for Christmas Eve Services.

When we found the website, it was 2pm on Christmas eve.  We wanted to attend.

We couldn’t find the schedule of Christmas eve services on their home page.

In fact, we couldn’t find it at all.

They post the church calendar on line, but it wasn’t there.

The rest of the website seemed to have current information, but this critical information was missing.

Step 3.  We stayed home for dinner.

We gave up after a few minutes of searching.

We stayed home for dinner, and missed Christmas eve services for the 2nd year.

Coaching corner

If you have a church website, and there is a time of year like

• Christmas
• Mother’s Day
• Easter
• Graduations

You might have out of town visitors looking for your church.

Consider posting your special services prominently on your home page for those out of town visitors.

If you are having a sunrise service on Easter, put the time on there and how people should come dressed (if it’s outdoors).

If you are having multiple extra services for Christmas and New Years, put your entire calendar of those events on your home page — make it easy for your church visitors to find that information

Do you need help with your church website?

From a list of church administrators I subscribe to, look into Clover for your church website.  This affiliate link will benefit our ministry work in Latin America.