The Easiest Church Website SEO Tips You Wish You Knew Earlier

Have you ever been left scratching your head after hearing the term “SEO” when people talk about the websites they’ve built or the blogs they’ve written? You’re not alone! In this article, we’ll cover what SEO is, why it’s important to consider SEO in your online parish communications (like your website), and some easy steps you can take right away to improve your SEO. Let’s dive in!

What is SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving how easily your website appears in search engines like Google. Incorporating SEO best practices into your parish communications workflow means your parish’s website will be easier for people to find when they search relevant topics online. Whether someone is searching for Mass times, looking to join a new parish, seeking a place to learn about Catholicism, or just trying to remember when your youth group is meeting, following a few SEO best practices ensures your parish is visible to those looking.

How to Improve SEO for Churches

The good news is that SEO improvements don’t have to be complicated! Small updates on your website and elsewhere can make a big difference in how people find your parish online. The following four steps are a great way to start your SEO updates and improve your church’s online visibility when people search for it.

Looking for a more comprehensive guide to building parish websites before diving into SEO improvements? You can find that here. Otherwise, let’s get your SEO improvements underway!

1. Make Sure Your Google Business Profile is Updated and Accurate

Your Google Business Profile is often going to be the first thing people see when searching for your church online, so it’s pivotal to your SEO efforts to keep it up to date. This means you should ensure that your parish’s name, address, and Mass times are accurate and consistent across your Google Business Profile and your website. Making sure your Google Business Profile is properly filled out and current will make it possible for Google to accurately read this information and make it more likely for your parish to appear on Google Maps.

2. Write the Way Real People Search for Churches Online

When someone is looking for a parish online through Google or another search engine, they probably aren’t typing in your parish’s mission statement or exact ministry names. They’re more likely searching for something simple and direct, like “Best parish for young families in (Hometown)” or “Where can I go to Sunday Mass near me?” This is where understanding SEO will significantly help your parish website become discoverable to these types of searches.

To leverage best SEO practices and make sure your parish is discoverable to people searching for you in these ways, use search-friendly phrases in your website content. This way, Google connects your website with people actively using search terms (like the examples above) to find your parish.

For example, include phrases in your parish website copy like:

• "Catholic Church in [City Name]" — Make sure to use this in your copy alongside the name of your parish. These words better match common local searches. So, instead of just saying “Welcome to St. John,” on your website, write “Welcome to St. John, a Catholic church in Toledo, Ohio.”
  
  
• "Mass times near me" — This is a top search query for people traveling or exploring new parishes. Consider adding this phrase to your website: “If you’ve been searching for ‘Mass times near me’ and you live in Toledo, we’ve got what you’re looking for!” This sentence includes the search term above, but weaves it into your story. Don’t forget to actually share your Mass times!
  
  
• "Daily Mass in [City]" — This sentence is great for visibility among weekday attendees and is also a common Google search term. Somewhere on your home page, you could say, “St. John is a great place to go to daily Mass in Toledo!”
  
  
• "Confession schedule, [City]" — Make sure seekers and returning Catholics can find you fast by including this phrase somewhere near where your schedule is.

Try to avoid “insider language” or acronyms that might not be known by the general Sunday crowd. Instead, think like the person sitting behind their computer searching for your parish online — someone who may be just starting their journey back to church or visiting.

What might someone like that type into that search bar to land on your homepage? Visualize that search and incorporate those exact words into the text on your homepage. This is one of the foundational aspects of SEO!

(H3) 3. Invite Parishioners to Leave Good Google Reviews

Think Google reviews are just for restaurants? Think again! Reviews are one of the LARGEST factors in how high your parish shows up in local search results. “How high?” The answer may surprise you.  

When someone searches for “parishes in Toledo, OH,” Google will show many results. So many, in fact, that some parishes won’t even make it onto the first page and may even get buried under many other results that Google deems more important or relevant to the search. One way to help your parish be more likely to be featured on the first page or results and “ranked higher” than other results for the search is to have more reviews than other places. Best of all, if those reviews are positive!

Don’t think of this as competing with your neighboring churches, but instead as doing your due diligence to make sure your parish is as visible as possible online. Having many positive reviews also helps newcomers feel confident and even excited about visiting for the first time.

Remember, most people won’t think to leave a review of your parish unless you ask, so don’t be shy about inviting parishioners to share their experiences. Let’s be honest — some businesses will practically roll out the red carpet if you so much as mention a good Google review. Imagine the power of that kind of praise for your parish!

Here’s why it matters:

• Google reviews directly influence how your parish ranks in local searches.
• Reading reviews helps potential visitors feel welcomed before they even step inside.
• When your parish responds to reviews — especially the kind ones — it shows you're present, caring, engaged, and able to navigate this now very normal part of online communication.

Before we move on, if your parish receives a negative review, we have two articles that might help:

• From Criticism to Connection: How One Negative Google Review Became a Parish Success Story
• How to Handle Negative Comments on Your Parish’s Social Media Posts

4. Pay Attention to Your Website’s Headings!!!

Yes, we used three exclamation points, but only because the way you use headings in your website and blog REALLY matters! Your website’s titles and subheadings are pivotal in helping Google understand what your site is about and read it correctly. You want Google to understand your website as much as possible so it ranks it highly enough to show up when people search for you! Think of headings like road signs: if they’re clear, people know exactly where they’re going. If they’re vague or missing, folks (and search engines) get lost fast!

Here’s how to make your headings work for your SEO:

• Use descriptive titles for your pages, like “Mass Times” or “Upcoming Events” instead of generic ones like “Welcome” or “Page 1.”
  
  
• Choose words people actually search for, not just internal parish lingo. We talked about this in step 2 above if you need a refresher. Clear headings improve readability for visitors and boost how well Google indexes your content.
  
  
• Don’t just bold text to create a heading. Actually use your website builder’s “H1, H2, and H3” settings. These are specifically designed to help guide search engines like Google to understand what your website is about.
  
  
• Only use ONE “H1” title per page. This will be that page’s title or, if you are working on a blog, your blog post’s title. Every other headline on that same page should be either an H2 or an H3, depending on whether or not you need subheadings. Often, H2s and H3s will be different sizes but still clearly headlines based on how they differ from the paragraph text on your website. Take this article as an example: in the title, we used the “H1” setting. For the larger headlines within the article, we used the “H2” setting. In this numbered list, each number uses the “H3” setting.

WeConnect Helps You Build Your Website with SEO in Mind

Great SEO for your Catholic church starts, first and foremost, with a great website. Great parish websites are what LPi’s parish website builder WeConnect delivers! Designed specifically for Catholic parishes, WeConnect sites are clean, mobile-friendly, and built to support all the SEO best practices we’ve covered here.

Even better? LPi helps cover the cost of your church’s website by finding a local business sponsor for your site. That means your parish gets a beautiful, high-performing website without straining your budget. If you're ready to improve your online presence and welcome more people into your community, WeConnect is the perfect place to start!

To see some beautiful examples of parish websites that use SEO strategy well, check out our article, Church Websites Our Design Team Loves.

Ready to learn more about WeConnect? We frequently provide free online demos for anyone interested!

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For more parish website inspiration, we’ve got you covered over on the “Web and Social Media” section of our blog.