Greetings in Christ, Reader,

I changed my church’s website because of the response to Charlie Kirk’s slaying. You should too. Read on to know why and how.

And welcome back to the marketing newsletter for expert potluck goers:

Here's what we'll cover in this edition of the Church SEO Shapeup:

• I'm out of recovery and other personal/business news
• Emoji mastery and other points of interest across the web
• Reformation platitudes
• How I changed my church website on account of the slaying of Charlie Kirk, and you should, too

🗞️ Personal and Business News

I’m Out of Recovery 🍷

Don’t worry - no substance abuse issues here. However, a few weeks ago, I DID do something that I wish I could blame on something other than sheer stupidity. But, no, it wasn’t a drunken stupor that caused me to delete my main Workout Sequence - It was just carelessness born from my general “full steam ahead” approach to life and work. When that approach works, it works. When it doesn’t, it doesn’t. This time it didn’t. 🙃🔫

At this point, I have fully recovered from that mistake - all of my subscribers are now back on track to where they should be with the workouts. If you aren’t getting them as you would expect, please email me back and let me know.

One advantage to that mistake: I went through every single subscriber’s profile - all 500+ of them. In the process, I enriched the data with names where I could determine them. I also discovered that I had about 40 subscribers who hadn’t been getting the workouts at all. That has been fixed.

Finally, my apologies to any of you who got emails in error while I was recovering. Thanks for sticking with me, despite the inbox assault some of you got. I appreciate you.

I’m Making Full-fledged Websites Now 💻

I wanted to stay out of the web development game. I’m not an artist. I’m not a coder.

But people kept asking me if I could help them build a new website. I started helping small churches by making a one-page website for them. But, I had more and more people asking me if I could build them a traditional, multi-page site.

I just rolled out my first one for a client, and I’m happy with the product. Even more important - they are happy with the product.

Need a new site? Reach out, and let’s see if we can work together. You can just hit that reply button.

Flood Fundraiser Results 🌊

In September, I ran a sale of Your Church and AI Search, with all of the proceeds going to help churches affected by flooding in Milwaukee. Here are the results:

32 copies were sold
$160 (32*$5) of revenue was generated
$100 was donated on top of sales, for a total of
$260 of funds raised for flood relief

I will be sending about 2/3 of that money to the South Wisconsin District of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and 1/3 of the money to the Southeast Wisconsin District of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod to disbribute to churches as they see need.

I've Been Hitting the Gym 💪

And emphasizing shoulder dumbbell presses. You see, a few weeks ago my son sent me a video of him doing these presses at a weight I've never attempted. I couldn't let him beat me out (yet - it will come.) So, I got to work. Yesterday I was able to press 95 pound dumbbells. Which isn't super useful as a pastor but at least I can tell my Catechism Class students that I can lift them over my head with one hand, and that counts for something!

🌐 Around the Web

Lately, there has been much talk about GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) and AISEO (AI Search Engine Optimization). GEO and AISEO are just forms of regular SEO.

Video shorts are hot, and they are a format that Google tends to feature in its search results. YouTube is making it easier to make shorts. Churches might think about transforming sermon videos into shorts.

I would never have believed you ten years ago if you told me that emojis would be a critical part of my ministry and side business. Master emojis, friends.

As many as 94% of Google AI Mode searches are zero-click. That means that they don’t end up sending a user out to a website. You need to get your church to show up well in AI Mode.

✝️ God Stuff

Reformation Day is coming up. With it, no doubt, will come all the platitudes about the Reformation, including people who try to pin down an organizing principle for Luther’s theology - a question of interest to not just Lutherans but also Catholics and Reformed.

There are many propositions for such an organizing principle: The Theology of the Cross / Theology of Glory distinction (which doesn’t exist, by the way), the Simul Justus et Peccator paradigm (an overhyped and solitary rhetorical flourish), or daddy issues (actual position of some Roman Catholics who believe that Luther took the religious teaching of the day too seriously.)

The proposed ‘organizing principle’ I like best was articulated best by Pope Benedict XVI:

I like this proposal, both because I think it's right, but also because it carries over so well to the Lutheran Confessions, in which I believe we can see a similar paradigm at play: “What must we believe about justification if Christ is who we say He is? If Christ truly is the Son of God, what did He accomplish on the Cross? What does this mean for our works?”

The Doctrine of Justification is founded upon the Lordship of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. If He is who we say He is, all was accomplished in His work, and no work remains for us.

Why and How Charlie Kirk’s Slaying 😔 Led Me to Change My Church’s Website

One month ago, Charlie Kirk was assassinated during one of his famous open-air debates. The event caused me to change my church’s website, and it’s a change that you should consider making, as well.

Why? There were a number of social media posts circulating by people who were pledging to go to church for the first time in their lives. And, they didn’t have the first idea how it worked. They didn’t even know that you could just show up and didn’t have to make reservations:

Those sorts of questions made me realize: Huge numbers of people in the USA are now completely unfamiliar with Christian church life on a multi-generational basis. And, they don’t have the first clue on something as simple as showing up for church.

That led me to make some changes to my church’s “Plan Your Visit Page.”

The Plan Your Visit Page

Before I get to the changes I made to the “Plan Your Visit Page,” let’s talk about why most churches should have such a page.

The most important role that your church website plays is to get new people to visit your church. Yes, the website can have other roles as well - a central place for information, a gateway to your other online profiles, etc.

But the most important role is to get people one step closer to affiliating with your congregation. It ought to be optimized for that end.

Most church websites fail at this - they don’t often have a clearly defined “user journey” they want website visitors to take.

Those who do often choose the wrong user journey. A few church websites I see have a “New Here?” button or call-to-action, but that is the wrong choice for many churches. First, that is a weak call-to-action. Second, the “New Here?” call-to-action might work for churches that have a strong new media presence and emphasize that (even over their in-person ministry.) But that’s probably not your church.

Don’t imitate the vast majority of churches that don’t even have a user journey. Don’t imitate the big-box, streaming-first churches for whom “New Here?” might be the right call-to-action.

Your church probably wants, above all, for new people to visit you in person. You understand that the best way to integrate them into the congregation is by making in-person, flesh-to-flesh connections. Optimize your website for that with a user journey that guides and empowers people to do just that.

Have a “Plan Your Visit Page,” and optimize your site to get people to land on it.

You can see how I’ve optimized my church’s website to get people to land on the “Plan Your Visit” page by checking out the hero on the homepage:

If you want to see this hero itself, you can do so here: https://doorcounty.church​

It looks simple, but there is actually quite a bit of thought and optimization in that screenshot. I’ll leave aside the search engine optimization (SEO) details for now and focus solely on the conversion rate optimization (CRO) details. (Conversion rate optimization means making it easier for visitors to do the thing you want them to do.)

In this screen, there is a button in the upper right-hand corner: “Plan your visit.” There is another “Plan your visit” button in the hero itself. Finally, there is a call-to-action to worship at Saint Peter’s. Everything is focused on getting a visitor one step closer to paying a visit to one of our worship services.

Once a visitor clicks into the “Plan Your Visit Page,” this is the hero that they see:

If you want to see this page live, here it is: https://doorcounty.church/visit/​

Once again, this hero has been optimized to get website visitors to become in-the-flesh visitors. How?

First, the call-to-action button links out (through a little URL trickery) to a Google Maps page pre-filled to help people get directions to our church. The furthest right navigation card also links out to that:

Finally, the bottom area of that page also reiterates the call-to-action to get directions to the church:

The other navigation cards in the page hero link to different sections on the page.

The Changes I Made

The changes I made to the church website were to the frequently-asked-questions portion of the “What to Expect” section on the “Plan Your Visit” page.

The first FAQ I added was: “I’ve never been to church before. How does this work? Do I make a reservation? Do I just show up?

I added another FAQ answering the question “Where do I sit?”

To those of us long-familiar with church life, answers to questions like, “Do I just show up?” or “Where do I sit?” seem incredibly obvious. They might even seem like dumb questions. But, put yourself in the mind of someone who has never stepped foot in a church before. They probably think of a church as something similar to a restaurant or a concert venue, places where you don’t just show up and you don’t just sit where you want.

Build your church website for exactly this sort of person.

✅ Surveys

Does Your Church Have a ‘Plan Your Visit Page?’

How Did I Do?

How would you rate this newsletter edition? Besides the survey, I welcome both praise and criticism - hit that reply button and let me know your thoughts!

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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