At Luthernet, we want folks to find your church. A direct link from the LCMS search site helps, but some people are church shopping in your area on their own, and they might not even be Lutheran, let alone LCMS. How do they find you? The short answer is through content, but having at least a basic website to house that content is important. They will not find you on Facebook or Youtube unless you place an ad or create some kind of viral video. You need good website that shows up on mobile devices and has relevant content. Let's take a look at some fairly basic search results to help you out. The first set of results are for Luthernet.org (this website), downloaded from Google Webmaster Tools, which has simple tools for me to use with websites I build. The "Analysis" column includes my comments and was not in the download.
| Queries | Clicks | Impressions | CTR | Position | Analysis |
| luthernet | 2 | 47 | 4.26% | 2.2 | this is good because people are looking for our site or the "My Luthernet" website, but they will see both in the results. |
| church website builder | 1 | 45 | 2.22% | 240 | Not a great position on Google, but we got a click |
| elca decline | 1 | 1 | 100% | 19 | Not sure why we rank that high, but that's fine. |
| web design church | 0 | 2 | 0% | 310 | We'd love to rank higher |
| church web design company | 0 | 1 | 0% | 420 | We will add this phrase to some content today. |
| trinity milwaukee | 0 | 4 | 0% | 46 | A prebuilt website provides some traffic |
| trinity lutheran church oshkosh | 0 | 1 | 0% | 42 | Another prebuilt site |
| web design for churches | 0 | 3 | 0% | 140 | Better ranking, but we need more power. |
| custom stained glass watseka | 0 | 3 | 0% | 180 | It's great that we got any impressions from this search. |
| chuches pro | 0 | 9 | 0% | 43 | So if you misspell church as chuch, and you are looking for a pro to help with that, we can do it! |
| trinity oshkosh | 0 | 1 | 0% | 17 | Another prebuilt site getting us an impression. |
| website builder for churches | 0 | 1 | 0% | 140 | Again, we want this to be 10 or better. |
| www.lcms.org | 0 | 1 | 0% | 210 | Someone typing in the LCMS homepage will likely never click on us in the search results. |
| website builders | 0 | 1 | 0% | 340 | You know, it's not bad to be in the game with this search phrase, but we'd rather be the best game in town. |
| ninja sites | 0 | 1 | 0% | 35 | This is because we also build websites as Passive Ninja, but the search was likely looking for actual ninja websites or places they hang out. |
| website design for church | 0 | 1 | 0% | 430 | It's odd we rank better for just "website builders" than for a phrase that specifically refers to what we do. |
| historical stained glass restoration watseka | 0 | 10 | 0% | 160 | Again, just kind of odd. |
| bathroom remodeling flint | 0 | 1 | 0% | 200 | Hey, if you have a church in Flint in need of a website remodel, we're the crew for you. |
| cause promotion | 0 | 3 | 0% | 32 | This search comes up because we offer half-price second websites for a non-profit cause. |
| useless websites | 0 | 1 | 0% | 6 | This is great! Our best ranking is for useless websites, even though we want to show churches how useful their websites can be. We've never even called any of the poor designs we've seen useless. |
| best church websites | 0 | 1 | 0% | 300 | We have the best church websites right here, but a user would have to sift through 299 other sites to find them. |
| church websites | 0 | 1 | 0% | 350 | This is understandable, since we technically do not run a church website of our own. |
| church website builders | 0 | 1 | 0% | 93 | Again, top 10 is what we want, but top 100 might get it done if a lot of research is done. |
| stained glass watseka | 0 | 6 | 0% | 170 | Now I'm interested in the stained glass myself. |
| church website design | 0 | 2 | 0% | 420 | Again, we need to break into the top 50 if we can. |
As you can see, Luthernet could do better. Some fellow small business owners have told me it's all about word of mouth, and I have several church and non-church clients who can attest to what we can do, but I also want Anychurch from Anystate to find us, so we'll continue to work on the content that will get those churches finding Luthernet when they search for church website design.
Next, let's look at the search terms for a website I built in late 2015. The owner understands the use of content, but he also has a site that fills a specific niche. He received 160 hits in the past week, whereas we had seven. I am not going to discuss each term, but you'll see what kinds of terms get mwqbcamps.com the hits.
| Queries | Clicks | Impressions | CTR | Position |
| midwest quarterback camps | 12 | 19 | 63.16% | 1 |
| quarterback camps 2016 | 3 | 14 | 21.43% | 18 |
| qb camps | 2 | 19 | 10.53% | 19 |
| quarterback camps | 2 | 62 | 3.23% | 19 |
| midwest qb camps | 2 | 2 | 100% | 1 |
| rob slavens | 1 | 10 | 10% | 2.8 |
| best youth quarterback camps | 1 | 2 | 50% | 19 |
| youth quarterback camps 2016 | 1 | 9 | 11.11% | 15 |
| quarterback camps in illinois | 1 | 2 | 50% | 5 |
| high school quarterback camps | 1 | 6 | 16.67% | 30 |
| quarterback camps for youth | 0 | 4 | 0% | 19 |
| quarterback instruction | 0 | 4 | 0% | 65 |
| glaizer clinic | 0 | 4 | 0% | 27 |
| quarterback camps 2015 | 0 | 2 | 0% | 33 |
| youth football quarterback camps | 0 | 1 | 0% | 35 |
| camp quarterback | 0 | 3 | 0% | 29 |
| football quarterback camps | 0 | 2 | 0% | 41 |
| wisconsin quarterback | 0 | 4 | 0% | 42 |
| quarterback camps in michigan | 0 | 3 | 0% | 58 |
| youth qb camps | 0 | 10 | 0% | 21 |
| glazierclinic | 0 | 2 | 0% | 31 |
| glazier clinics | 0 | 7 | 0% | 44 |
| brian brunner | 0 | 13 | 0% | 2.5 |
| wheaton sat | 0 | 1 | 0% | 40 |
| qb camp | 0 | 6 | 0% | 25 |
| glazier clinics chicago | 0 | 3 | 0% | 22 |
| web design camps | 0 | 1 | 0% | 50 |
| youth quarterback camp | 0 | 1 | 0% | 22 |
| glazier clinic | 0 | 17 | 0% | 30 |
| 2016 qb camps | 0 | 2 | 0% | 25 |
| glazier clnic | 0 | 4 | 0% | 27 |
| ninja web design | 0 | 1 | 0% | 36 |
| best quarterback camps | 0 | 3 | 0% | 27 |
| dan brunner | 0 | 2 | 0% | 1.5 |
| qb camps 2016 | 0 | 5 | 0% | 20 |
| youth quarterback training | 0 | 1 | 0% | 130 |
| jeff trickey quarterback camps | 0 | 1 | 0% | 39 |
| quarterback camp | 0 | 14 | 0% | 27 |
| kevin brockway | 0 | 18 | 0% | 4.3 |
Of course, the terms people will use to find your church will be different that those used to find a quarterback camp, but a lot of the searches that got Midwest Quarterback Camps in the top 50 of Google were not specifically related to its own name or street address. When you discuss activities you do in the community, people who attend your congregation, or events that you host, your church becomes part of the local scene. Those who are seeking a church want to see your church in the search results, just like churches looking for web designers want to see Luthernet right up there with the other services. After only six months using our url, I don't think we're doing too bad. How are the church searches going for you? Can you even find your church if you don't use the exact name of your church in the search? How would you want others to find your church if they were looking? Think about it and then write an article and post it to your website today. And another one next week. Keep it up for a year, and those people will be finding you. Then keep it going for the next decade and you wont have to worry about that "ELCA decline" search finding your church. And you will certainly NOT have one of those "useless websites."