If you’re a blogger, chances are you know a little something about SEO. Creating and curating great content should be your number one goal, but SEO does matter.
But do nonprofits, churches and ministries take SEO serious enough?
Here are a few stats to put this question into perspective:
- 93% of online activity starts with an Internet search.
- 80% of online users skip paid search ads and click on the organic results, but only 66% believe search engines are unbiased.
Almost 60% of web surfers use Internet Explorer.Upon further review, this infographic is clearly wrong about this number. They don’t cite where they get this information, which is really frustrating. According to Outdated Browser, this number should be more like 23%.
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93%.
Let that soak in for a moment.
Can your church, ministry or nonprofit be found with a simple Internet search?
I don’t mean Googleing the organizations name, either. While that is a valid question to ask, you need to widen your SEO net if you expect to catch any more visitors with your Internet search net, and as you can see by the second stat, purchasing search ads isn’t the answer.
Because Blogging
This is where blogging can be a huge key to your church, ministry or nonprofits search-ability. While there are plenty of other reasons why you should start a blog on your church website (nonprofit and ministries, too), I want to focus on the SEO impact.
Before you begin to blog for the sake of blogging, think about what search results you want to be found in.
What does your church, ministry or nonprofit focus on?
This is a great place to start. If your nonprofit focuses on helping orphans in the Ukraine, blogging about orphans and the Ukraine should be your focus. If you’re ministry is about equipping women recovering from abusive relationships, you’ll want to let your expertise shine through major issues — and Internet searches — that battered women face.
I find nonprofits and ministries have an easier time figuring this out than churches. Churches should focus on their community and major ministry arms. If your church has a food pantry, blogging about poverty in general as well as money saving tips might be an area to explore. As for your community, run some Internet searches and subscribe to some news sites in your area to get a feel for what’s going on. Maybe there’s a local event you would want to promote on your blog. Don’t focus on just news, however, as these posts will get stale really fast. Maybe there are some cool museums, places to visit, etc… that you could highlight every week.
I am sure this may be easier for some more than others, but you get the idea. It’s all about crafting and curating blog posts that will get your church, ministry or nonprofit’s website in the right Internet search results.
Have you adopted this kind of strategy for your church, ministry or nonprofit?
[via Web Design Degree Center | Images via Marceau Rouvre – Photographie & Graphisme via Compfight cc & Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com via Compfight cc]
James says
All good stuff on blogging Eric. However, do you know where the stats for the browsers are coming from on the infographic (or how old the data is)?!
60% on IE – REALLY!?!?!?!? The last stats on stat counter show it at 15.5% – quite a big difference!!!! http://gs.statcounter.com/#all-browser-ww-monthly-201403-201405
My Christmas site (which had 36,000 ‘sessions’ in the last month – even in the middle of summer!) has IE at about 20%. So 15%-20% seems more realistic now than 60%!!!
Eric Dye says
I’ve amended the post (see above). This infographic IS wrong about 60%. It should be more like 23%. Stinkin’ infographics!