Make Your Ministry Website More Visible With Meta Tags

What are Meta Tags?

Meta Tags are keywords and phrases hidden in the background of your church website to describe your page to search engines. These tags help them determine if your site is best for a search query. They also appear as the title and description of your site in the results of those search queries.

If you have not added Meta tags to your site, search engines will use the first lines of your page as your description, so you can see why Meta tags are an important tool to ensure that users find you. Meta tags give you control over the first impression you present to searchers.

For example, Calvary Church and Grace Bible are two ministries in suburban Boston. Calvary has added Meta title and description tags to their site. Grace Bible has not, so the search engine has grabbed its menu bar as its description. Below are the search results for “Bible church in Boston suburbs”:

Calvary Church - Welcome
Calvary is a Bible-believing church that has faithfully served the Boston suburbs since 1974. Calvary offers diverse ministry for men, women, children, and students…

Grace Bible – Home – Grace Bible Church
Home – Ministries – Contact Us – FAQ – info@gracebible.net 123 Main St., Suburbs, MA 12345…

You can see how these small tags can make a big impression on search engine users. Calvary Church’s website jumps out as more relevant, simply because they added a brief summary of their ministry as a Meta Tag.

What Content Should I use in a Meta Tag?

Concentrate on creating three types of Meta Tags, using the analogy of a book:

• Title (book title): Summarize your ministry in a few short words. Obviously, you ministry name should come first. But adding two or three words after the ministry…
• Description (back cover summary): In a few short sentences, describe your ministry. This description will be displayed under your site's title in search results (like above) and is often called a "snippet." To read more about how to create more effective snippets, check out this article from Google.
• Keywords (subject, genre, author): List words and phrases that relate to your ministry. Like your location, your senior pastor or founder’s name, and even “church.” Google has decided to help you out with keyword development. Their Keyword Tool allows you to generate suggested keywords by entering in your website's URL.

How can I add Meta Tags to My iMinistries site?

Adding a Meta Tag to your iMinistries site is easy. Just follow these steps:

1. Navigate to your Site Administration.
2. In your Site Controls, select Site Preferences.
3. On the General tab, click [Meta Tag Administration]
4. Click Add Tag
5. Name your tag (ex. “Description”), fill in the Content field, and save.

You can also add Meta Tags to individual pages. When you edit any page, event, news article, or other content, navigate to its SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tag. Add your descriptions and keywords in the fields provided.