Kurt Steinbrueck published an excellent article titled Google+ Invades Google’s Search Results explaining this on ChristianSEOGuys.com

Google is now using people’s connections via Google+ to influence the results people see in the search results.  You have to be logged into Google and have a Google+  account to see the change.  Any content that has been shared by you, the people in your circles, and the people Google suggests you might want to connect with (depending on how publicly the content was shared) will now show up more prominently in your search results if that content is relevant to your search. 

While you do have to be logged into Google and have a Google+ account to SEE the change, neither is necessary for you to FEEL the change.  That’s because even if you don’t have a Google+ account, where your website is displayed in the search results for those people who do have a G+ account are being affected.

For example, let’s say you run the Apple restaurant and because you’ve optimized your site for search engines it was showing up in the search results ahead of one of your competitors, the Banana restaurant. But the folks at the Banana have a G+ account, they’re sharing articles about it in G+ and their friends are sharing those articles as well.  There’s a good chance Banana’s website is going to be displayed ahead of Apple’s in the search results for the people who are friends with the Banana restaurant on G+.  And to make matters worse, the Banana restaurant will also probably show up ahead of yours when friends of the friends of the Banana restaurant search.  Follow that?

Of course, the opposite is also true.  G+ is still relatively new.  (Individual accounts launched in June, business pages in November.)  So, you can be the one taking advantage of this opportunity and getting a jump on the competition.  Here are the steps to get started…

1. Create a G+ account for yourself
2. Create a G+ page for your organization
3. Invite your friends & contacts on other social networks to connect with you and your organization on G+
4. Listen, ask questions and learn how to engage with others using your personal G+ account.
5. Begin sharing your organization’s content – announcements, blog posts, pictures, videos – on it’s G+ page.

I have not been a big user of Google+ to this point, but I see the writing on the wall and it says that Google finally figured out how to leverage it’s near monopoly in search to make it’s social network impossible to ignore.

Do you feel the need to use G+ because of its impact on search results?

When outspoken Christian quarterback Tim Tebow threw for 316 yards to help Denver upset favored Pittsburgh in the playoffs, millions flocked to the Internet to search for John 3:16 — so much so that the day after the game, that Bible verse was the No. 1 search on Google.

As it turns out, some of those Google searches were of eternal significance.

The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association reports that more than 150 people have made a decision to accept Christ as their Savior as a result of searching for “John 3:16″ in Google and then clicking on an advertisement for the BGEA’s PeacewithGod.net website.

Pretty cool, huh?

You can read the rest of the article here.

(By the way, Tim was not wearing the verse in his eye paint Saturday. The pic is from a game with the University of Florda. Messages are banned from eye paint in the NFL.)

Thoughts?

7 Resolutions for Your Website in 2012

1) Give your site a new look. If it’s been 2-3 years since you’ve changed the look of your site, it’s time. You don’t have to have the coolest, cutting edge website on the planet, but you do want to make sure your site doesn’t look behind the times.

2) Keep your website up to date all the time. Resolve to update your website at least once a week and any time there is news or announcements. You’ll probably be most successful keeping this resolution if you schedule a specific day and time to do it.

3) Optimize for search engines. Getting your site to the first page of the search results for keywords relevant to your site is a great goal for any organization. If you are just hoping for the best when it comes to search engines, you are missing out on so much potential. If your site is for a church, school, or local business, search engine optimization (SEO) services will almost more than pay for themselves with the new customers, members, and students they produce.

4) Email a newsletter. If you don’t send out a regular email newsletter, you are just hoping that people remember to come back to your site. An email newsletter is one of the few opportunities you have to proactively bring people back to your website. Your current members, visitors, or customers are the best target demographic ever, so reconnecting with them on a regular basis is one of the smartest things you could do this year.

5) Engage with social media. Resolve to take the next step with social media. Maybe that’s the first step – setting up accounts and adding links to them on your website. Maybe it’s developing for specific content and posts each day of the week. Maybe it’s time to stop broadcasting on social media and start asking questions and interacting.

6) Add to your communications team. If you are the only one managing your website and social media, you are probably holding back the potential of your website. We’re all limited in the amount of time we have to put into our websites, so one of the best things you can do is train and delegate some of the work to others. Perhaps there’s someone in your organization who would like to just update the photo galleries, do the sermon podcast, or manage the calendar. Plus to engage in social media well, you need additional contributors and people commited to sharing and engaging with you.

7) Upgrade to a Custom Site with Content Management System (CMS). If you built your website with a web builder like NE1 or if you designed it yourself with HTML or software like Dreamweaver, there is a whole ‘nother level to what you could accomplish with a custom, CMS-based website. In fact getting a CMS-based website will actually help you accomplish all 6 of the other suggested resolutions above.

Well, those are my suggestions. I’d love to hear the goals you’ve set for your website for 2012. Post ‘em in the comments.

Top 10 Search Phrases/Keywords from October

1. what is a qr code
2. qr code
3. what is a webinar and how does it work
4. jesus twitter
5. elevator pitch
6. what is a qr code?
7. webinar means
8. church communication
9. amazon gift card
10. what is qr

Top 10 Search Phrases/Keywords

1. what is a qr code
2. qr code
3. what is a webinar and how does it work
4. what is a qr code?
5. what is qr code
6. elevator pitch
7. webinar means
8. mingle
9. facebook for churches
10. what is qr

Observations

• “QR code” -related keywords still continue to dominate 6 months after our two posts about QR codes were published.
• Phrases #3 & #7 are both related to webinars.  We’ve got a 3 1/2 year old post that ranks #4 in Google for “what is a webinar and how does it work” and #1 for “webinar means.”  Unfortunately, the bounce rate for those keywords is 99% and the average time on site is 1 minute. Action step: see if I can modify that page to better engage those visitors.

If you don’t, I understand. Why should you pay for things you virtually can get for free? Here are a few things to think about before you submit your budget for 2012.

1. Validity. This has a lot to do with perception. Even though audiences know ads are bought, they still give them more credibility. Paid channels make products and service look valid. They look for real. They come across more professional. They become the real deal. You can argue all you want on this point, but those that advertise generally do better, especially those with multiple locations. Still don’t believe people actually click them? I can show you daily campaign limits maxed out for weeks that have reached millions of people.
2. Growth. It will grow your social audience. Don’t believe someone knows about your page and just decided not to like it. Most likely, they’ve never come across your page and thus never had the opportunity to like it. And yes, this includes your regular church attenders. Ads give you a great way to tell them and immediately get their like. You can even wind-up paying less than $1 per like. Compare that to direct mail.
3. Excitement. Those that are already a part of your organization will love seeing its name all over the web. And when people are excited, they talk about it. When people talk about it, others learn about it and come.

Remember, you don’t have to do everything. You only need to do those things that will reach your target. OK, if your target is everyone then you might need to do everything. But I’m sure when you really look at what you’re promoting, you can find a core audience that will only show up in a few of your channels. Internet channels allow you to be very discriminating, unlike mass media. It’s also cheaper, and you can see results on a daily basis or hourly if you’re as OCD as me.

Have you bought internet ads? From whom? What were the results? Why haven’t you?

[image by ewanr]

This article is my contribution to the new book Outspoken: Conversations on Church Communication.

It’s estimated that as many as 80% of people looking for a church start their search online.

Typically it looks like this: A person starts by searching Google for churches in their community. They click through to the websites of those churches at the top of the search results. Based on the information and impressions given by those websites, they select which churches to visit in person.

What this means is:

1. If your church’s website doesn’t show up on the first page or two of the search results, people looking for a church will never see your website and thus never visit your church.

2. If people do visit your church’s website but it gives a poor impression of your church, people will also never visit your church.

Don’t misunderstand. This is not about competing with the other churches in your community. It’s not about having the best search rankings or the coolest website.

I’m talking about loving the people in your community enough to make an effort to meet them where they are—searching Google. I’m talking about loving them enough to make them feel welcome once they get to your website. I’m talking about authentically communicating who you are as a church and what God is doing through you.

Here are seven ways your church can do that:

1. Optimize your website for search engines or hire a professional to do it.
2. Give your website a nice design. It doesn’t have to be the coolest site in town, but it should be uncluttered, have a consistent color scheme and be easy to navigate.
3. Prominently feature a “New Visitor” section on your website.
4. Include a welcome message from your senior pastor—either a video or a picture and text welcome message.
5. Include pictures or video of your worship services and children’s activities.
6. Answer all the questions you would want answered before you visit a church: How does one get there? What are the service times? What are services like? How do people dress? What do kids do?
7. Publish video, pictures and stories of what God is doing in your church: Stories from people in your church about how God has changed their lives, stories of how your church is impacting your community, and stories of how your church is changing the world through missions and giving.

When you love the people in your community enough to make them the priority on your website and authentically communicate the stories of what God is doing through you, people will be drawn to God and to your church through your website.

We’re giving away 3 copies for Outspoken today.  Find out how you can win!  Or buy a copy online right on Amazon.

Are you motivated by love for the people in your community to have an well designed website that is well optimized for search engines?

That’s why our team partners with churches to design church website and optimize church website for search engines. It’s all about love – loving God and loving people!

Top 10 Search Phrases/Keywords

1. what is a qr code
2. qr code
3. what is a qr code?
4. what is a webinar and how does it work
5. what is qr code
6. twitter to buzz
7. elevator pitch
8. mingle
9. church website tips
10. webinar means

Observations:

• As you can see, we’re still getting good traffic for phrases related to QR codes because of the blog post written back in March. Our ranking and number of visitors for those phrases was a bit lower in August though, so I’m planning a QR code-related post that will link to the previous posts to give us another boost in rankings.
• Perhaps the most interesting keyword on the list is “mingle” All visitors came from Google and went to Practical Steps to Getting Started in Social Media – Step 3: Mingle When I search Google for “mingle,” that post doesn’t rank in the top 100, but thanks to the personalization of search results, it must rank for some people.
• For the first time in a long time Facebook was not in any of the top 10 phrases.  Interesting.

Top 10 Blog Post

1. What is a QR Code? (and 4 other things you should know about them)
2. QR Codes: 10 Ways Churches Can Use Them
3. Church Mobile App Survey Reveals What Church Members Want in an App
4. Social Media: Don’t Be That Church [Video]
5. 18 Ways Pastors Can Ruin their Reputation on Facebook
6. 5 Solutions to Get your Blogging into High Gear
7. How Willow Creek Has Embraced Social Media for the Global Leadership Summit #wcagls
8. 12 Ways to Promote Your Band and Its Website
9. Josh McDowell: Internet is the greatest threat to Christians
10. 5 Reasons Churches Should Use Social Media

Observations:

• The top 2 posts were again the QR code posts.
• Only 4 of the top 10 posts were published in August. The other 6 were all written more than 5 months ago. The prominence of older posts shows how important good search rankings are for blog traffic.
• Social media continues to be a hot topic with 5 of the top 10 posts on that subject, while mobile (including QR codes) got 3 of the top 10.
• I learned about #4, the social media video, during my participation in the weekly church social media #chsocm Twitter chat. The post about Willow Creek (#7) came from my participation in the Leadership Summit. That shows the value of engaging in events & finding blog post ideas in what others are doing.
• I’m glad to see Shyju Mathew’s guest post, 5 Solutions to Get your Blogging into High Gear, made the top 10. The other guest blog posts were all in the teens.  So, we’re going to continue Monday guest blog posts in September.

Wonky Keywords

• 2 // Yes, someone searched for the number 2 and found us
• 3 year olds crying // That’s our motto… Christian We Trends: we scare children
• 20311-6 // Um, I guess we’re ranking well for numbers?
• 99999999 qeit // OK, now you’re just being ridiculous

Have you checked your blog or website’s analytics from August?  What did you learn?  What wonky keywords did people use to find your site?

Top 10 Search Phases/Keywords

1. what is a qr code
2. qr code
3. what is a qr code?
4. what is qr code
5. twitter to buzz
6. christian web trends
7. what is a webinar and how does it work
8. what is qr
9. twitter to google buzz
10. facebook for churches

Observations

• Keywords with “qr code” in them dominated again in July, because our What is a QR Code? post is #3 in google for the top 4 phrases shown above.
• The #5 phrase “twitter to buzz” and #9 “twitter to google buzz” are about Google’s previous social network Buzz but their surging popularity is probably due to last month’s launch of Google’s latest social network Google+.

• “animated gif” shop // Please, no!
• 25% of 1,000,000 // Does this look like a calculator?
• ai chat that see you // I imagine it would be really hard to find an AI chat you can’t see
• cannot put a dollar value on it // Awe shucks, we’re flattered.

It would be terrible if no one ever found your page!

We need to be able to drive consistent traffic to our sites. How do we do that…?  Here are some places to start…

Content

To put it in simple terms… Good, interesting, entertaining, valuable Content gets shared.  It’s important that you write the kind of content that your readers will want to share.

How will they share it…?

Social Media

Quick! What are the top 7 Social Media Sites right now in the US?

Here they are listed in order of the traffic they drive.  Stumbleupon, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Youtube, Digg, and Myspace.

Stumbleupon (15 Mill) has far fewer Registered users than Facebook (750 Mill) yet has more social sharing.  Stumbleupon is a smart choice for driving traffic to your site.

What’s stumbleupon? It’s a community of Social Bookmarkers who scavenge the digital landscape for great content to share.  Take note that Stumbleupon rewards you for being a part of their community.  If you only “stumble” your own content those rewards will dry up!  So make sure to stumble other sites and note just your own.

Stay on top of the Social Media trends.  They change often!  (See me in a few weeks when Google+ really gets going)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Choose and Use keywords wisely! This is really important when getting search engines to play nice with your site.

To go deeper you can always think about turning to help.  …Now let’s see… who do we know that helps with this area… Oh Yeah…. 

Keep an eye on Traffic Trends

Not All traffic is equal!  Your page-view counter doesn’t distinguish between the person that stops by for 3 seconds before bouncing out and the return visitor that spends 6 minutes on your site, reading all your latest posts. It would be wise to set up Google Analytics on your site to track these important stats.

Place a High value on Return Visitors!  These people are your real audience.

Backlink

Make sure that all your social media interactions lead back to your site. This can be as simple as making sure your facebook profile provides a link to your blog or including the url in your email signature.

When commenting on other blogs always make sure that your replies will lead back to your website.  This doesn’t mean you spam! It means you are signed into some sort of Comment Identification like Intensedebate or disquis and are leaving great and helpful comments on other sites in your niche.

1. What tips do you have for generating Traffic to your site or Blog?
2. Take time to leave a properly Backlinked comment!