Amy PrindleThe Center for Online Evangelism is a missionary project devoted to developing online mission stations. You may be wondering, what can we actually do to optimize our web presence? Since optimizing content for search engines primarily means optimizing content for people, many principles of SEO follow fundamental principles of advertising, marketing, psychology, and sociology. Remember, it’s all about people and their behaviors. However, since search engines are the vehicle by which this content is delivered, there are several technical aspects involved as well, such as web development, data gathering and analysis, and research (get your spreadsheets ready!). This why digital marketing agencies and large organizations typically have an entire team to carry out SEO strategies, often comprised of copywriters, content managers, web developers, and SEO specialists. These team members spend considerable amounts of their time just keeping up with this industry, as trends and best practices can change even daily! While this can sound overwhelming, take comfort that much of this research has already been done for you, and each blog post in this series is based on the latest data available. We’ll introduce you to the concepts and processes that are major players in a complete SEO strategy: a checklist overview, writing and optimizing content for online readers, User Experience Engineering (UX/UXE), off-site SEO basics, tracking and analyzing your audience’s activity, and any technical setup or modifications that will be needed throughout. Let’s start with a checklist of major elements involved in SEO. NOTE: Make sure to check the dates of our SEO blogs as you read through—this guide will be updated frequently as trends change or if there’s a major Google algorithm update. The following SEO fundamentals checklist has three categories: roles, onsite work, and offsite work. ROLES refers to the different positions, expertise, and points of view that contribute to successful SEO. Often this means specific job positions that work together as part of an SEO team, but it can also demonstrate the wide range of different facets involved in truly optimizing content for search engines (people). ONSITE refers to adjustments and development done directly on the pages of your website. OFFSITE refers to SEO efforts done on platforms other than your website, such as social media, directories, review sites, external websites, etc. This can create more listings in search results that relate to your website/topic/organization, and they can also catch different audiences and send that traffic back to your website. When done correctly and legitimately, offsite efforts can also boost credibility, relevance, and authority. (Note: Most offsite SEO, especially with external websites, is also referred to a “backlinking,” and it must be managed with care.) These items will be covered in depth in later posts. 1. COMMON ROLES IN A WELL-ROUNDED SEO TEAM
2. ONSITE SEO BASICS
3. OFFSITE SEO BASICS
While this checklist covers several of the fundamental facets of SEO, this is a process of perpetual motion. Your work is never “done.” Google releases updates, websites need to consistently post fresh content, and trends in online behavior can change almost instantaneously.
However, a consistent, concentrated effort can reap big rewards. You can find these checklist concepts expanded in the coming posts. Click here for the SEO series and resource guide.
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Jamie Jean Schneider DommDigital Strategist for the North American Division. Amy PrindleThe Center for Online Evangelism is a missionary project devoted to developing online mission stations. This blog post is part of a SEO series created through a collaborative partnership between the Social Media + Big Data department of the North American Division and the Center for Online Evangelism. Whether you’re a conference, union, church, a school, a regional office, a service organization, or a retailer, you may be asking: What is SEO, and what does it have to do with my ministry?One way to understand SEO is to think of the internet as a traditional library, but bigger. All the world’s content is in this library. To find material on a certain topic, you don’t just wander through each aisle. This is a large, multi-story building with shelves from floor to ceiling. If you want to find what you need, and fast, you ask the librarian: Google. You approach Google: “I need snow leopard information.” With that, Google brings you stacks of books. There are travel magazines about zoos that have snow leopards, kids’ picture books of snow leopards, decor magazines about snow-leopard-print area rugs, reference books on animal facts, a few encyclopedias, some National Geographics, and some support manuals for Apple OS X Snow Leopard. You’re overwhelmed, so you say, “Actually, I just want to know where snow leopards live.” Google whisks the previous stack away and returns with a smaller stack of literature. You pick the first book off top, quickly scan through, and find, “Ah—they live in the mountains of Central Asia.” Done. And you only needed to look at the first few pages of the top book. The goal of Google’s search engine is to give searchers exactly what they’re looking for. If it didn’t do that very well, people wouldn’t use their search engine. Google acts as the Great Virtual Librarian, seeking content that is most relevant to what was typed in the search box. The more specific the search query, the more specific the search results. On the other hand, if an author wants their book to make the librarian’s short list for a certain topic, they must demonstrate to the librarian that, for a certain topic, their book is the best match or contains the most reliable information. An author might do this by designing a catchy cover. They might also make the book title contain words that are often used when people ask questions about this topic. They write a subtitle that further specifies what readers will learn, and they craft the back-cover copy as a teaser to draw the reader in. They also have someone write an author bio that positions that author as an expert in the field. The author will also seek to get on bestseller lists, be quoted in various magazines, and even get recommended by other authors. Maybe this author will write forewords to other books and have other prolific authors write the foreword in theirs. The author will be posting ads, participating in interviews, doing readings, etc. The author creates a credible “buzz” and elevates this book as relevant for its topic. The librarian sees all this and brings this book to all readers asking about this topic. And if the library patrons willingly receive it, or even come back to read it again, all the more reason to keep bringing out this book for queries on this topic. The author catered to the librarian by catering to what the readers were looking for. Keep this analogy in mind as we go through this series. Each of those elements represent an online process involved in search engine optimization and, ultimately, the success of your web presence. SEO is all about helping the right people in the “online mission field” find YOUR ministry. There are people out there that are searching for what is already your specialty—a cooking class, a good private school, a small friendly church, a big friendly church, a health seminar, an online Bible study, information about a perplexing Bible verse, how to deal with peer pressure, or how to find help and support when your friends and family aren’t helpful. You may have heard the term “SEO” or “Search Engine Optimization” if you work with websites, content management, social media, or web development. It’s a catch-all term to describe a collection of efforts to make your web presence more prominent in search results after someone types a related phrase into a search engine (most likely Google, but some use Bing, Yahoo, etc.) Because it’s such a widely-applied and ever-evolving process, SEO does not have a set definition in a dictionary—it has several definitions! The most important thing to keep in mind, however, is that: SEO is all about people—their behaviors and preferences—and not just search engines. It’s about your target audience’s needs, desires, and questions, and learning how you can best make the connection so they realize that, yes, you can provide what they need. You are worth their time. Then they either buy from you, subscribe to your content, follow you on social media, join your cause, or come to your event or location (all possible calls-to-action—which will be studied later in this series!). SEO combines some technical work with creative, strategic content work. Often, a complete SEO project involves an SEO specialist, a content strategist (copywriter), and a web developer. However, there are several SEO best practices you can implement yourself as a content manager, communication director, webmaster, or tech-savvy volunteer. The process of SEO can have a big effect on your ministry’s online presence, whether your audience is local or global. SEO is so big in the business world that there is an overabundance of tools and techniques being pushed by various “authorities” in the industry. It can be an overwhelming field to try to learn and keep up with, and it’s often difficult to know who to trust. Even experienced specialists in this industry still find it challenging. That’s why this guide was created to help you through SEO fundamentals, step-by-step, to make sure our Church’s ministries do not miss out on these potentially far-reaching benefits. Click here for the full SEO series and resource guide. External Articles:
External Resources: Jamie Jean Schneider DommDigital Strategist for the North American Division. Amy PrindleThe Center for Online Evangelism is a missionary project devoted to developing online mission stations. Search Engine Optimization, Online Marketing, Content Strategy, Big Data…why should the Seventh-day Adventist Church prioritize these digital strategies and tools?Most of the world spends hours online each day. Many people have become addicted to research, googling anything they have a question about. They look for maps and location information, check product reviews, read articles, watch videos, post comments, check in with old friends...they’ll even google questions close to their heart—questions they don’t feel comfortable asking close friends or family. Many people may google questions about topics such as spirituality, health, or information to help them through an inner struggle. To be specific, 74,000 people google “Bible study” each month. That’s almost the entire population of Scranton, Pennsylvania. The name “Jesus” is googled 1,500,000 times a month, and “Adventist” 18,100 times a month. This is a huge ministry opportunity—if Adventist websites can rank high in the search results Google displays for these search terms. |
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