One of the most common reasons to visit a church's website is to find the church's address, worship times, or phone number. In fact, it is probably on the home page of your website so that it is easy and quick to find. It should not only be listed on your website but on Bing Local Listings, Google Places and Yahoo! Local as well. Your church is probably already listed on these services, but you can verify the information on the listing, and add more information like worship times, the church's website, and more. This is important if your church has moved before, uses different addresses for correspondence, or has multiple locations. Listing your church will not only increase its presence online but will decrease frustrations of families showing up to old locations or at the wrong time for worship.
Bing Local Listings, Google Places and Yahoo! Local all provide listings for free (Yahoo! sells an Enhanced Listing which a typical church won't need). The process to create a listing is similar for each service:
Enter your church's contact information. This queries the service to check if this listing already exists.
- Next you'll be prompted to enter more detailed information, including hours, links, images, and phone / fax numbers. The more information the better.
- Choose a method to verify your information via snail mail, or phone. This prevents the listing from vandalizing.
This is just one more thing you can do to increase your church's presence online and make it easier for not just members of your church, but visitors looking for a new church home.
This is the third blog post in the Feature Focus series. This series will provide you with quick tips on how to refine your church’s website and online presence. Look for these posts about every other week and visit this Topic for a list of past Feature Focus posts.
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