Last week, conservative political organizer Charlie Kirk was assassinated.

That terrible act (Prayers for the bereaved!) has reverberated through society, and it has even impacted churches. Some churches report new visitors in the wake of the tragedy.

Others have been unfairly targeted due to false information about employees making malicious statements about the Kirk assassination - including harassing emails and negative reviews, for example.

Getting a bad review for your church can feel like a gut punch, no matter the circumstances.

What do you do if your church receives negative reviews? We’ll be taking that topic up in today’s special edition of the Church SEO Shapeup Newsletter. Here is what we’re going to cover:

• Personal and Business News. Flood Benefit Update. Church SEO Shapeup Coming Out. Stupid App.
• God stuff: Paul as a Cilician
• From Around the Web
• Free link you can build
• Tool
• What to do about bad reviews.

But first, and speaking of gut punches, here is your meme:

Personal and Business News

Flood Benefit Update

A couple of weeks ago, I released my first e-book: Your Church and AI Search. I released it for a one-time sale of $5, with all of the proceeds going to aid churches in the Milwaukee area that were affected by flooding.

So far, I’ve sold 30 copies, and a customer donated an additional $100 to the cause. That’s $250 raised.

The price and fundraiser is good through the rest of the month, so make sure to pick up your copy today, if you haven’t already.

$14.00 Your Church and AI Search [E-Book] Your Church and AI Search is a practical, plain-spoken guide to help churches thrive in the new era of artificial... Read more Get it now!

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Church SEO Shapeup Coming Out as an E-book

Last week, I finished writing every workout for the Church SEO Shapeup. If you got this email, you’ve probably been receiving my weekly workouts.

I thank the Lord for seeing me through this project - it was quite the commitment!

Next week, I will be offering all of the workouts compiled as a single, downloadable e-book (PDF) at a special, launch sale price.

Look for the offer email on Monday.

I Made a Stupid App

I vibecoded a stupid web app just to learn how to do it. (If you don’t know what vibecoding is, it’s when you use AI to do the coding for you.)

Ironically, I vibecoded an app to aid ai-proof, personally written creativity: https://typewriter.ink.

The idea is to keep you moving forward with writing. Therefore, no cut-and-paste, no formatting, no backspace or delete. It forces you to keep moving forward in your writing.

Issues, Etc.

I was on the podcast Issues, Etc. recently, talking about SEO for churches. Check out the episode here.

God Stuff: Paul as a Cilician

Going forward for these special editions, I intend to write a little bit about the Bible and theology. Just a quick hit. Here we go:

Paul was very much a man of his upbringing. He was from Tarsus in Cilicia (Acts 21:39), along the southern coast of what we now know as Turkey. Cilicia was a relatively wealthy area, blessed by fertile land and set along trade routes. Cilicians took full advantage of their natural bounties. They used their fertile land not only to grow food but also to feed flocks of goats, and from the hair of those goats made some of the most durable cloth the ancient world knew.

If the modern world runs on oil, the ancient world ran on durable cloth: sailers needed it for sails and land traders needed it for bags. Just like Saudia Arabia has amassed wealth through oil, Cilicia seems to have amassed wealth through their trade in cloth. Which is why when Paul mentions his hometown of Tarsus, the leading city of Cilicia, he could call it “no mean city” (Acts 21:39).

Paul seems to have benefitted from the wealth of Cilicia - his parents could, evidently, pay for Greco-Roman tutors. Paul knew the Pagan poets and philosophers. Not only this, but they also had enough money to pay for him to study in Jerusalem under Gamaliel (Acts 22:3), one of the leading Jewish scholars of his day. Paul himself knew the cloth trade (Acts 18:1-4) that provided his parents so much wealth.

Cilicia also seems to be marked throughout the centuries as a place of religious fervor, if not zealotry. Certainly, Paul and his Cilician companions showed a remarkable (though unholy) religious fervor. Whether Greco-Roman pagans, Jews, Christians, or even Zoroastrians, evidence points to Cilicia being a place of fervent religiosity.

When pressed on his identity, Paul’s answer was simple: “I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no obscure city.” (ESV)

Paul evidently thought these spare words communicated quite a bit. Understanding Cilicia helps us understand Paul better.

From Around the Web

Interesting links on SEO, church marketing, theology, and congregational life.

• ​Google broke web scrapers - This is mainly because they are at war with other AI companies, but it also broke third-party rank tracking tools, and some sites are seeing impressions drop as a result
• More and more users are adopting AI. However, while almost all ChatGPT users also use Google, only 15% of Google users also use ChatGPT.
• Churches get excited about the Google Ad Grant, and even hire companies to the tune of hundreds of dollars a month to manage it for them. However, even with recent price increases, Facebook ads may be the better deal.
• The Mormons have lots of money for two reasons: they demand a tithe, and they do not pay local leadership. How are they using all of that money? One way: paying influencers.

Tool

This is one of the most important tools in my chest: Loom. Loom is a screen recorder video platform designed to help reduce the need for synchronous meetings.

It works - I use this all the time to provide consults to churches and close sales, without having to show up at any particular time. Prospects and clients love my Loom videos.

What To Do About Bad Reviews for Your Church

Almost every church collects some bad reviews. Here is why they might come, and how to deal with them.

Why Your Church Might Collect Bad Reviews

Local Guide Account Farming. This is the most common reason churches collect bad reviews: People farming Google Local Guide accounts that they can then sell. In order to level these accounts up, they will have them give reviews for businesses, and some of those reviews will be less than 5-star. If you have reviews from people you’ve never met, and they are 3- or 4-star reviews, it was probably this sort of activity.

Revenge. People might leave bad reviews for the sake of revenge. I’ve seen churches targeted because someone had personal beef with a staff member. I’ve also seen churches targeted by terminated employees. Unfortunately, these revenge reviewers usually don’t act alone. They often recruit friends and family to give your church bad reviews, as well.

Mistaken Identity. I saw this one recently. In the wake of the Charlie Kirk assasination, people have been collecting social media posts of individuals justifying or celebrating that despicable deed. They will then attempt to identify the poster and even where they work and encourage people to contact their workplace. However, not every individual or workplace has been correctly identified, and that has led to bad reviews being left for businesses that have nothing to do with the posts.

An Actual Bad Experience. While this is rare, it happens even at the best churches: People have a legitimately bad experience. Perhaps that bad experience might seem unreasonable to us. A common example I see for churches in my own tradition (LCMS) is people leaving bad reviews because they did not like that congregation’s closed communion policy. But, it doesn’t change the fact that in that person’s mind, it was not what they were expecting.

How Your Church Can Deal With Bad Reviews.

Collect Good Reviews. Every church will collect bad reviews. The best way to mitigate that is by actively seeking out good reviews. When is the last time your church conducted a review campaign? Start by asking your friends and family for reviews. Move on to getting reviews from your council. It should be a regular habit to build reviews.

Reply To Reviews. You should reply to all reviews, even (especially!) bad ones. Personally, when I see a reasonable reply from a business to a bad review, it makes me think more highly of that business. Your replies to bad reviews should always show legitimate concern, invite the reviewer to reach out, and convey a desire to do well. In the case of revenge reviews from friends and family of the revenge seeker that have never been to your church, I do think it is good to point out that the reviewer has never attended, as far as you are aware.

Report Reviews. You may be able to get bad reviews removed by reporting them. To report a review, click on the three-dot menu next to it. Get as many people as you can to report a bad review as well. What should you do if your report doesn’t lead to the review being removed? Report it again, and again, and again. Eventually it might stick!

Send a Cease and Desist. In the case of someone sending revenge reviews, I would strongly consider sending a cease and desist letter. This might cost some money, but this will be money well-spent. Your profiles on review systems like Google, Yelp, and TripAdvisor are your most important digital assets, and people leaving vengeful reviews on them will lead to fewer visits. That means fewer prospects to turn into members. That is a threat to the wellbeing of your church’s employees. Even worse, that is a threat against the spiritual wellbeing of others. A few hundred dollars spent on a cease and desist letter is worth it in this case, and entirely justified.

God's blessings, Pastor Chris Jackson "SEO Priest" ​[email protected]​ Subscribe Now for Free Not subscribed to the free Church SEO Shapeup Newsletter? Subscribe now. Get My Free Comprehensive Church SEO Checklist ​Get the checklist that will guide you to winning top search visibility. Completely free. Get All My Free Resources ​This Google Sheet has all my free resources. Inexpensive 1-Page Church Websites Designed to make it easy for your church to get on the web. Check it out. Need Help With Your Church's SEO? I aim to give away all my SEO knowledge for free. However, if you need muscle to accomplish your church's SEO goals, here are a few ways I can help: ​Stratospheric SEO Package. This is a baseline SEO package designed to give your church name, address, and phone number across the internet and to boost your church's SEO power. It helps you show up better in map results. Start with this package. ​Orbital SEO Package. The Orbital SEO Package does everything in the Stratospheric Package and also optimizes your church's homepage and boosts your church website's authority. It will help you show up better in both the map results and the link results. This package offers powerful optimizations.

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