Is there anyone here getting over 1,000 unique views?

Hi jbearnolimits,

You have a ministry site. What is your objective? To reach out, recruit, give guidance?

If you have face to face interactions, you probably know that there are a dozen or two topics that most people have when it comes to their faith.

Write them down.

Answer them in depth.

These become your blog posts. The SEO will happen naturally.

Reach out on social media. A friend of mine is a minister in Pennsylvania. He has a small (under 3,000) but loyal following on Facebook.

An example for a natural blog post where there is definitely going to be SE traffic is:

How do I balance my faith and work?

A lot of people struggle with this, as issues like anger, envy, jealousy, etc come up in workplace situations. And because the average person spends 40 hours or more at work, it is a topic that is going to be on their mind.

If you want to go hardcore SEO; gather up keyword data using the Keyword Planner @ https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner

Make a list of 25 to 50 keywords that are related to your ministry's main message. Use the keyword in your titles, but make them appear naturally.

Write your blog post as you would normally and reach out to other faith based webmasters/bloggers and see if you can get some links.

There are probably local targets that you can partner up with in promoting one another.

Just like with your ministry - the goal with natural SEO is to reach out.

Don't ignore the power of social media. I'm not the most religious person myself, but I do have a lot of friends who are. They constantly share religious memes, blog posts, articles, etc on Facebook and get a LOT of interaction when they do.

If your ministry is involved in charity in any capacity - you can acquire links that way as well. For example, in my area, I have a site that lists all of the Food Banks in my county. I freely link out to many churches who run food banks/pantries. They didn't even have to ask.

Youtube is also another area I would explore if I were you. You don't have to blog with text, you can have a video blog, and have both an active Youtube channel and embed those videos directly on your site.

(I'll be honest: If I had a faith based website, SEO would not be the main tactic. Social Media/Youtube would be.)

Also, another idea you might want to explore is having your own forum on your site. There are a couple of rather large churches that I know of who have forums on their website and while they don't get to the size of this forum, the active participants are VERY active.