What is Church Online Findability?

Findability for the web is a term typically credited to Peter Morville who blogs at www.intertwingled.org.

The simple explanation for findability is “the ease with which information contained on a website can be found”. – Wikipedia

But I like a bigger concept that includes Church Online Findability. I think our goal should be to make our church as EASY TO FIND as possible.

Our Goal is Findability – to make it easy for people in our local community to find our church website, social media, podcast and whatever other online content we put out.

In fact…

I want to make it a challenge for people to live in my community without finding my church.

“Making it a challenge for people who live in my community to not find my church” is the simple explanation for this entire approach to local church marketing and promotion.

I want to make it nearly impossible for someone living in my community to frequently search locally online or on their mobile device and miss my church so I will need to increase my church online fundability to accomplish that.

I guess the only thing I would add to that is that I want at least most of the methods that I use to accomplish this goal to be FREE. Free to use, free to sign up for, and free to find for the local person searching in my area to find.

Besides purchasing ads, almost all of these steps CAN be free.

However, THERE ARE PAID OPTIONS that can help you with some of these steps if you do not have technically minded volunteers or the time to put them into place.

I present those paid options to you as well throughout The Finder Resource so that you can easily access those if that is a better fit for your church.

My ultimate goal is to make it a challenge for someone to search for ANYTHING important in my local area without finding something about my church on the front page.

Notice I did not say that I want to make it challenging for a local person searching only for a CHURCH in my area.

I want to make it hard for them to search for ANYTHING important in my community without finding my church.

That is, of course, a huge goal, and even my church is currently still in the process of reaching it. But, we are working on it.

Maybe the fullest extent of that goal is impossible. And yes, it is more difficult to accomplish if you live in a huge metro area instead of a small town.

But that is the goal of FindingYourChurch.com – to help that become a reality for your church. If you put these steps in place, then at the least you will become more easily findable online than you were before.

“The Findability Basics” is the first place to start to begin to understand how to make that happen. This section is the foundation that your efforts will build on when you work through the actual steps in the future.

The reality is this. If you do not have the steps in “The Finder Resource” in place, you are missing potential visitors to your church.

You may be starting a new Church Plant and may not even have a website yet. That is fine. You can still put these steps in place and become better found in your local community.

You do need a landing page for people who find you. But, if you do not have a church website you can even use a free Facebook page, or even your free Google Business page as your landing page until you get something more permanent in place.

Do not let anything be an excuse for not putting these steps in place and making your church more findable 24 hours a day online and on mobile devices.

What if you need a NEW Church Website?

A website for your church will be better for your church online fundability and visibility than a Facebook Page or Google Business page if you can get it done.

Finding Your Church offers a couple of solutions to help you with a new Church Website.

#1 – Church Website from FindingYourChurch.com

FindingYourChurch.com can help you create a website that works as a tool to both be easily findable online and attract new visitors and guests as well as help people in your church connect more easily with you.

Our website option is created in a One Page Style using WordPress similar to what we have created for Journey Church at www.journeykc.com

We will work with you to create a website that looks and functions great on a Desktop Computer and is Mobile Responsive to work well on a Mobile Device or Phone.

It will also be designed to help your Church get found in local church related search terms and by real people, which we believe is one of the most important parts of the process.

This will involve…

Website Development using WordPress
Setting up your Sermon Podcast using Series Engine similar to journeykc.com/podcast
Creating a page on your website that you send everyone to for nearly ALL church internal church information such as announcements and links to everything important to church involvement that acts like your church hub similar to journeykc.com/the411
Help you set up your church on Google Business and many other local business directories like Bing and ChurchFinder.com to increase your church online visibility.

To receive a CUSTOM QUOTE email Jeremy Phillips at getfound@findingyourchurch.com

#2 – FaithConnector Church Websites

FaithConnector offers an easy to use and affordable church website builder that is easy enough to use that you can train a volunteer to handle website updates. They can even migrate your current site to their system at no additional cost if you choose a package that includes that.

You will probably not want to choose the most basic package. But, the higher level packages will cover most everything you need.

There is an entire list of features that you can check out on their site, but here are a few of the benefits you get with FaithConnector.

Easy to use WYSIWYG Church Website Builder
You will NOT need to purchase or manage Website Hosting
Fully Responsive Design for Mobile and Tablets
Built in Search Engine Optimization
Unlimited Pages
Mobile App
0% Online Giving feature
Free Website Graphics
Integrate Google Maps, Analytics and Sitemap
Web based Email and Spam Filtering
Daily Backups
Free Email and Phone Support
Multi Site Options available

Click our affiliate partner link below to learn more and get started.

>> FaithConnector Church Websites

The Findability Basics – Steps & Training

The Findability Basics Section has three purposes.

First, there are specific preparation steps you need to take to make it easier to complete the process. These are simple, but if you skip them you will be frustrated.

Second, there is some information you need to know that will give you a foundation that makes it easier to understand WHY we are taking certain steps.

If any of the steps seems simplistic or is something you already know or have in place, then move on to the next step or post.

The Finder Resource is designed to help someone start from ZERO, such as a new Church Plant, and get to the point where their church is EASILY FOUND in that community.

There will be steps that most of you already have in place. That is fine.
But, there will also be steps that you have never taken. Focus on those steps and you will improve your Church Findability.

Third, to connect you with additional resources, ideas and information to do what we recommend and offered by other sources outside of FindingYourChurch.com.

Many of The Findability Basics steps have complete sections available to in other areas of The Finder Resource. Many of the ideas can be done completely by you or a volunteer completely free.

However, there are also ideas and steps that would either be much easier or quicker using a product or service to make it happen.

An example would be your website. You can learn and try to figure it out on your own. But, you can also use us to create one for you or a Church Website Builder such as FaithConnector. Our goal is to connect you with those outside resources and make recommendations you can hopefully trust that will work for your church.

So with an overview of online findability out of the way… Let’s get started.