Why Search Engine Optimization Matters for the Adventist Church

Jamie Jean Schneider Domm

Digital Strategist for the North American Division. ​​​​​

Amy Prindle

The 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. 

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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.
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The name “Jesus” is googled 1,500,000 times a month, and “Adventist” 18,100 times a month.

Pulled August 2018 from keyword research tools Keyword Planner (Google Ads), Ubersuggest and Keywords Everywhere.

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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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Currently, however, that’s not the case. Other websites are catching this traffic.

This is a missed opportunity to introduce these seekers to the hope and help that the Adventist message can provide. To quote Forbes, 

Websites without SEO are like brick-and-mortar businesses without doors.

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What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is an ever-evolving set of strategies used in online marketing to help organizations reach more of their target audience. It is the process of utilizing a variety of techniques to positively impact a website’s visibility in unpaid search engine results. The higher a website ranks when a person googles search terms related to it, the more web traffic it receives. Most people do not scroll past the first page of search engine results. With this important fact in mind, I challenge you to google Seventh-day Adventist Church, Jesus, Bible prophecy, or the name of your church, ministry, organization, etc. What do you find? What kind of digital “curb appeal” did your search results reveal? Was it good or bad? Are people being led away by the competition or misinformation?

This resource will dive into what SEO strategies involve and how it relates to each of our ministries, from local to global. By being intentional and strategic, we can improve our digital curb appeal and encourage more people to encounter, and possibly embrace, our message.

Just as Seventh-day Adventists made strides in popular media throughout history—from print to radio to television—it’s now time to leverage the near limitless missionary opportunities the internet and digital technologies provide for us. 

We can’t ignore this vast online audience (“the online mission field”) that already wants what we have to offer—an audience we may never otherwise meet!

SEO is both highly technical and an art form. Professionals in this arena are highly sought-after and highly compensated by many types of businesses that know their true profitability depends on their findability and reputation online. But we can, with some education, invest the time (and sometimes money) ourselves to implement these valuable techniques. This is your chance to learn insider information and use it for the gospel—ultimately aiding the fulfillment of the Great Commission (Matt. 28:16-20).

As with all things digital, the technology and tricks-of-the-trade will continually change, but the underlying philosophy will remain largely the same. With careful, prayerful guidance, let us begin. 

Click here for the SEO series and resource guide.