My name is Chris Jackson AKA SEO Priest, the founder of ChurchSEO.io. I am a tech-savvy pastor who helps churches get found online.Subscribe now to my newsletter: Church SEO Shapeup.
🚌 School's Out
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Hello Reader, School's on lots of people's minds. Most people - thinking about school being out for summer. 🕶️ Me? I've been thinking a lot about SEO for schools. 🤓 Education is the theme for this broadcast. But, even if your church doesn't operate a school, keep on reading. I have a free backlink and citation opportunity at the end of the email. That will help you no matter if you have a school or not, and I'm certain you'll pick up some sweet info along the way. Here is what we’re going to cover in this broadcast:
But first, your meme: ​ SEO For SchoolsMany Christian churches, especially Catholic and Lutheran churches, operate day schools. And, I’ve served almost as many schools as churches. Schools pose some unique SEO challenges. Here are a few of them:
Despite that, there is a huge amount of SEO opportunity for schools, and schools can usually make faster SEO progress than churches, which usually have stiffer competition. A Case StudyOne of my biggest successes recently has been Trinity Lutheran in Fremont, Nebraska - a pretty big organization consisting of a church, school, and early childhood center. This was one of the funnest clients to work for because the pastor who was my point of contact was himself an eager student and an active participant in the campaign. The best campaigns are cooperative ventures between me and the church. Trinity was not happy with how either their church or their educational institutions were appearing in search results. After surveying their situation, I noticed the following problems:
I’m thrilled with the progress we made through this campaign, especially in the link results. They are at the very top of the link results for nearly every query someone would use to find a church, private school, or day care. Search for a church, or a Christian school, or a daycare in Fremont, Nebraska - Trinity will be at the top of page 1. This project helped me hone my skills in optimizing schools. Here’s some of what I’ve learned: Separate Google Business Profiles for Your School and ChurchYour sign out front may say “Saint John Lutheran Church and School.” Be that as it may, having one Google Business Profile for both school and church means that it will perform well for neither school nor church. Get individual Google Business Profiles for your church and school. If you need to make a new one, make a new one for your school, and use your existing one for your church. Select the Right Primary CategoryThe biggest keyword people will likely use is “private schools.” Because of this, the primary Google Business Profile category that seems to work the best is “Private educational institution.” Don’t Be Shy About Secondary CategoriesGoogle lets you select multiple secondary categories on your Google Business Profile, and you ought to do this for your school. Here are some appropriate secondary categories:
Optimize for Lots of KeywordsUnlike churches, which usually only have one or two keywords to optimize for, schools have many keywords to optimize for. People use lots of keywords to search for schools. These keywords should be worked into the description of your Google Business Profile and also on the homepage of your school’s website. Here are just a few of the keywords you may need to work in:
We were very deliberate about optimizing the Trinity Lutheran School’s homepage for lots of pertinent keywords, and that has had a big payoff for their visibility. Prioritize Directory CitationsBecause Google has phased out reviews for schools, the power of other ranking signals is probably ratcheting up. That includes citations of Name, Address, and Phone Number. Directory citations are critical here. Get a bunch - about 50 is what I like to aim for. Send Reviews to Niche and Great SchoolsGoogle has phased out reviews on Google Business Profiles for schools. That doesn’t mean that reviews aren’t important. Google pulls in information from Niche and Great Schools. Every school should have a review campaign to encourage student families to leave reviews on these sites. This is so important, that I’d even consider offering a small tuition discount to leave a review. (This is probably against the terms of service for these platforms, but I generally don’t believe that following terms of service is a moral issue.) ​Trinity Lutheran Church, Fremont is located at 1546 North Luther Road, Fremont, NE 68025. Their phone number is (402) 721-5536. ​Trinity Lutheran School, Fremont is located at 1546 North Luther Road, Fremont, NE 68025. Their phone number is (402) 721-5959. ​Trinity Lutheran Early Childhood Center, Fremont is located 250 N C St, Fremont, NE 68025. Their phone number is (402) 721-1076. Education - the Core of ChurchSEO.ioI consider education to be the primary work of my agency (ChurchSEO.io). That’s why this free newsletter is the center of what I do. But, I also educate those who purchase my packages. Trinity’s pastor I worked with, Anthony Gerber, mentioned that the most high value thing I gave in the package wasn’t the optimizations themselves - it was the teaching I gave on how to use various features in their CMS, including the SEO features. For most packages I fulfill, I record a screen video to recap my work. Especially for the Orbital Package, that includes showing how to put the CMS to full-effect. Anthony put my SEO principles to work almost immediately, and he got his church’s Easter page to the top of Google the same week he applied the optimizations. Impressive! A Free, Easy Backlink You Can BuildNotion is a powerful all-in-one workspace application. I haven’t gotten into using it much, but some people really love it. In fact, there is a significant market in Notion templates. One feature of Notion that you can use to help your Church’s SEO: You can publish content-rich pages to the open web, making it an opportunity to build a link and add a citation for your church. Notion is perfect for quick announcements, reflections, or even simple landing pages that support your local SEO strategy. Here’s how to do it: ✅ How to Publish a Simple SEO-Boosting Webpage on NotionWant to build a quick webpage that boosts your church’s online visibility—without writing a single line of code? Notion can help. This guide walks you through publishing a webpage with practical, SEO-friendly elements for your church. Perfect for quick announcements, reflections, or even simple landing pages that support your local SEO strategy. Step 1: Create a New Page in Notion
đź’ˇ Pro Tip: Pages like this give Google more context about your church, especially if they include local keywords and consistent contact info. Step 2: Add a Link to Your Church Want to send visitors to your main site or church profile?
Step 3: Add Your Church’s NAP Citation Search engines love NAP consistency—that’s your Name, Address, and Phone number, exactly as it appears on your Google Business Profile. Add a short footer or block on your page like: Your Church ✅ Use the exact formatting and wording from your Google Business Profile to create a local citation. Step 4: Embed Your Google Business Profile Map
Step 5: Publish Your Page
Bonus: Why This Helps Your Church’s SEO By using Notion to publish supplemental pages with:
…you create additional structured content that strengthens your church’s local authority footprint in Google. These micro-pages can:
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Church SEO Shapeup Newsletter by Chris Jackson (SEO Priest)
My name is Chris Jackson AKA SEO Priest, the founder of ChurchSEO.io. I am a tech-savvy pastor who helps churches get found online.Subscribe now to my newsletter: Church SEO Shapeup.
Greetings in Christ! I pray you had a blessed Easter. For the Jackson family, it was different, as it was the first Easter without our son at home. Still, a blessed occasion. I noticed a big change over the last few years - more people in Easter service than I've had in years. Many young people in the pews. I've heard many similar reports from fellow pastors and Christians worldwide on social media. Do you think there is some sort of global vibe shift, even something of a renewal happening?...
Hello Reader, Big news this week from Google for churches that run schools. I'll cover that in this broadcast, share some exciting coverage I've gotten in an SEO publication, and also share a free backlink opportunity. It's a bit of a shorter email blast because, well, Holy Week is coming. And, that's the theme of this week's meme: Google Dropping the Review System for Schools After April 31, Google will be dropping its review system for schools. It turns out they were constantly battling...
Greetings in Christ! I’ve recently had a huge influx of subscribers, so I thought it would be a good idea to reach out with an extra broadcast to cover a few things. Here is what we are going to cover: 1. My comprehensive church SEO checklist. 2. Recent algorithm update 3. Why and how to set up a locale cluster 4. A little about me, why I lean into SEO for church marketing, and how I learned about SEO 5. A recent, impressive client success story 6. A free, easy, and powerful backlink you can...