Greetings in Christ, Reader,

And welcome back to the marketing newsletter for those even more optimistic than a Latin American dictator facing charges for narcotrafficking:

A new year is a time for optimism, and as Christians we have more reason than anybody to be optimistic. We know how the whole story unfolds in the end!

Church work depends on optimism. It's a lot of casting bread upon the waters, hoping for a return.

One form that optimism takes is running marketing campaigns for the church. They might bring in a slew of people to what you're promoting. Or, you might find yourself sheepishly explaining why things didn't work to your board. This special edition of the Church SEO Shapeup Newsletter will help you implement more effective marketing campaigns for your church around special events like Christmas or VBS through what I call the "4 Pillars": Web, Press, Ads, and Social.

Here's everything we're going to talk about in this edition:

• My website's going to the moon, and other personal and business news
• Google's getting greedy, and more bits and bytes from around the web
• 4 Pillars of an Effective Church Marketing Campaign

🗞️ Personal and Business News

🚀 To the Moon

I'm taking my own website to the moon.

My agency's website (https://churchseo.io) now ranks number one on Google for the query "Church SEO."

I outrank other huge, longstanding companies like The Church Co and Tithely. I even outrank Yoast . . . one of the biggest SEO companies in the world.

I'm still looking forward to improve on other queries. (I'm coming for you, "SEO for churches.")

But, this in itself is great proof - my methods work.

🎶 Organ Up and Running

We're looking to the future by digging into the past at one of my churches: Saint Peter's Lutheran Church in Door County. One of the ways we're doing that is by rejuvenating a pipe organ that hasn't been in operation for over 20 years. It's still got some work, but it's functional:

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I do think this is a future-oriented project. Here's why:

As should be obvious, I am a tech-oriented pastor. I will put my tech skills (especially in digital marketing) up against any other pastor in my denomination. (I'm arguably better at this stuff than just about every one of the spiky hair and polo shirt on Sunday morning pastors.)

It's precisely because I'm tech and future-oriented that I'm fully behind rejuvenating this pipe organ, especially in the age of AI.

AI is a copy. In many cases, it's a copy of a copy of a copy. What is getting lost in our time is authenticity, the organic, the acoustic, the analog.

I am all for embracing the digital. But in a digital age the thing that has the most value is the authentic.

Our pipe organ is future proofing our worship at Saint Peter's, keeping it unique and different in an age of entropic digital sameness.

Saint Peter's Lutheran Church in Door County
316 W. Main St.
Forestville, WI 54213
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920-856-6420

📄 One-Page Websites Coming Online

I've had a number of one-page websites coming online for churches (and church plants) recently. Here's a few of them:

​LCMS Mission Plant in Spring Hill, KS​

​Christ the King Lutheran Church, Racine, WI​

​Hope Lutheran Church, St. Helen, MI​

​St. John Lutheran Church, Oxford, MI​

I'm pretty excited about this project - these are hyper-low cost and quick to deploy. They aren't the right platform for larger churches or churches in competetive markets. But, they are just right for probably the vast majority of churches in the US!

🌐 Around the Web

Google is experimenting with AI powered local packs. Local SEO expert Joy Hawkins is running an experiment that is showing that the results are rather changeable, hour-to-hour. This shouldn't be a suprise, given that AI powered search is probabalistic, not deterministic.

Google wants you to collect reviews. Barry Schwartz recently posted about how it's trying to make that easier and easier.

Bodhi Gallo points out, however, that in the age of AI Google reviews aren't the only important place to get them. Other places? Yelp, Facebook, and the BBB. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of the BBB, for multiple reasons. I would focus my efforts more on TrustPilot, for example. But I would definitely aim for reviews on Yelp. AI loves Yelp, and Yelp listing for churches are usually page-one on Google results!

Even while Google wants us to reinforce their ecosystem, Brad Brewer uncovered behavior reinforcing Google's continued slide into being a closed ecosystem that is sending less traffic out to websites.

🏛️ 4 Pillars of an Effective Church Marketing Campaign

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Most small churches assume they can’t compete with megachurches in digital marketing.

But a little David-vs-Goliath know-how can outperform a big budget.

This week, I want to show you a real campaign that packed Christmas Eve for a small church in a highly competitive area (Greater San Diego area) — and why it worked.

Pastor Danny Hyde serves a church of roughly 90–100 regular attenders in a transient, competitive region (with Camp Pendleton next door).

Like most churches, Christmas Eve can be a “who knows what’ll happen?” kind of night.

This year? It was packed — roughly double normal attendance.

And here’s what matters: it wasn’t luck, and it wasn’t “we posted more on Facebook.”

It was a simple, repeatable system.

Here are the four pillars, in the order you should think about them:

1. Web
2. Press
3. Ads
4. Social

Most churches start at #4 and stop there.

That’s why most churches feel like marketing “doesn’t work.”

Pillar #1: WEB (Build the hub)

Pastor Hyde created a dedicated Christmas Eve page on the church website.

Everything pointed to that page:

• press mentions
• ads
• QR codes
• invites
• social posts

Why is this the most important step?

Because it does three things at once:

• It captures people actively searching (“Christmas Eve service near me”)
• It converts interest into attendance (clear info, clear expectations)
• It compounds year after year (unlike ads)

Pro tip: Don’t delete that page after Christmas.
Keep it up 365 days a year. Google rewards stable URLs.

And when you build your Easter page, link these pages to each other:

• Christmas → Easter (with “Easter” in the link text)
• Easter → Christmas (with “Christmas” in the link text)

That’s a simple “content hub” that boosts both.

Pillar #2: PRESS (Old school… and insanely effective)

Pastor Hyde used press releases and local outreach.

Local outlets still get read — and they’re hungry for usable content.

His experience was basically:
“You made it easy. We cut and pasted.”

Real-world proof: people showed up saying they found the church through a local publication.

Pillar #3: ADS (Speed and reach)

He ran paid campaigns on Facebook and Instagram.

He also used a local zip-code targeted outlet (including Camp Pendleton). One placement was about $120 and produced massive reach.

Paid ads are especially powerful in short seasonal windows:

• Christmas Eve
• Easter
• VBS
• special sermon series
• community events

Pillar #4: SOCIAL (Support, don’t substitute)

Yes, they posted on social.

But here’s the key detail: nobody showed up saying, “I came because of a Facebook post.”

That’s not a slam on social media.

It’s a reminder: social is often reinforcement, not your primary attendance engine.

Social should support the campaign — it shouldn’t be the campaign.

What You Should Do Next (Simple Checklist)

If you want to run this in your context, here’s your move:

1. Build your Easter page now (earlier is better)
2. Keep your Christmas page live and link it to Easter
3. Add footer links to both pages (optional, but powerful)
4. Send a press release (make it easy: copy/paste ready)
5. Run a small ad budget for a tight window (7–14 days)
6. Post on social… but treat it as support

That’s it. No megachurch budget required.

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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