PPC for Churches: How to Get Started (And Succeed)
Using pay-per-click (PPC) ads can help churches reach more people. With careful keyword research and attractive ads, you can direct more visitors to your website and encourage them to join your congregation.
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insights from 149,000+ hours of nonprofit marketing experience
With so many churches in the United States, it’s difficult for some to find the one that’s perfect.
Though picking a church has a lot to do with personal preference, pay-per-click advertising (PPC) is a great way to grab someone’s attention and encourage them to visit your church.
Ads help your church stay top-of-mind and increase visits to your website. Then, you have the chance to get someone new to attend your church.
On this page, we’ll talk about PPC ads, where you can run them, how they work, and why they can be a huge asset to gaining attendants to your church. Keep reading if you want to learn more, and give us a call at 888-601-5359 (or contact us online) for professional PPC help.
What is PPC?
PPC promotes your church directly to your ideal audience – spiritual individuals searching for a congregation to call home.
PPC ads are based on keywords or demographic information, depending on the platform you use. The most common PPC platforms are search engines (like Google) and social networks (like Facebook).
Each platform allows you to bid for your keywords or demographics and decide how much you’d pay every time someone clicks your ad. With every platform, you can choose to only pay when someone clicks your ad, as opposed to when someone sees your ad.
This saves you money because you’re not wasting your budget on unqualified recipients. You only pay for that ad when you have a chance to bring someone new to your church.
If you bid the most, your ad will show up above your competitors’ ads.
That means you’re more likely to get someone new to your site, so you can encourage them to become a member of your church.
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How to start PPC ads for your church
A PPC campaign takes time to create, but each step brings you closer to your target audience.
Here are a few of the most important steps in the process.
1. Know your audience
The first step of any PPC campaign is researching your audience. If you don’t know your audience, you won’t be able to appeal to them.
If you want to create an ad for your Friday night small group classes for teenagers, you can research their sentiment on topics you’re considering, times you want to meet, and more.
Would they watch an informative movie? Or are they more interested in open conversations?
If you’re creating an ad for senior game night, you can figure out the best games to draw a crowd the next time you meet.
After you have this information, it’s time to research some keywords.
2. Keyword research
Now that you know how to appeal to your audience, you have to find the keywords they use in search engines.
You can use any number of keyword tools to do this.
Free programs like Keywords Everywhere or KeywordsFX will give you information like the search volume, competition, cost-per-click (CPC), questions including your keyword, and keyword modifiers.
The sweet-spot keywords have high search volume, low competition, and low CPC.
Here’s an example of what you might see if you use the tool Keywords Everywhere.
“Sunday morning church,” “contemporary service,” and “Sunday school for kids” all have more than 100 searches per month. That tells you that they would be good keywords to target, since Google users search for them.
Of the three, “contemporary service,” has the lowest CPC at $0.05, but “Sunday school for kids,” might be worth it – even with a higher CPC –if that’s something that your church is known for.
Looking at the other three keywords on the list, “Friday night small group meetup,” “Thursday evening church,” and “teenage small group church meetup” have no information listed. But this isn’t a bad thing.
Sometimes super specific long-tail keywords don’t have many searches or much competition, but that’s all the more reason for you to target that keyword.
It’s a huge opportunity for you to rank well for it without spending a lot on clicks.
3. Create your ads
A good place to start a PPC campaigns Google since it’s the most popular search engine in the world.
Open an Google Ads account and follow through with the user-friendly directions to set up your ad campaign.
Then, you can write ads that appeal to your audience in a few quick sentences.
It’s smart to include a CTA within your ad too. Something short like “Learn more!” or “Buy now!” is a great way to inspire on behalf of the Google user.
4. Create awesome landing pages
Landing pages are the destinations of your ads that are specifically made to discuss that ad’s topic.
There are a few things you should keep in mind when creating the perfect landing page.
Make sure you take the navigation bar off of your landing pages because it gives users an option to navigate away from the page.
You also want the landing page to have one singular goal — for users to fill out a form, share their contact information with you, buy a product, etc.
If there are too many elements on your landing pages, a user will become overwhelmed and leave, which is the last thing you want for your PPC campaign.
Your landing page should also match your ad contextually.
For example, if your ad was for children’s Sunday school, your ad should bring up different Sunday school teachers in your church, what they like to discuss, and how long they’ve worked with children, among other information.
Last, you should test your landing pages to see if they deliver the results you want.
If not, you can easily change your landing page or ad to work better!
Are you ready to start a PPC campaign for your church?
At WebFX, we have a whole team of PPC specialists that can help create the perfect ad campaign for your church.
We’ll make sure that your ads are optimized for your most valuable keywords, that your ad copy is compelling, and that your landing pages convert.
Contact us for more information about our PPC management services!
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