While it would be entirely wrong to say that there’s a lot of money in being an internet celebrity, it’s certainly true that people can make a living from it. There are people who run blogs and manage to make a living via Patreon. There are people who make YouTube videos and make money via YouTube ads, sponsored videos, and Patreon. The list goes on.
If you’re a great writer or a clever video director and a good actor, then you might be tempted to try your hand at making money on the internet. If you’re an introvert, the idea of trying to put yourself out in public and ask people to give you money is likely horrifying to you. Is there any way to get around that?
Of course, there is. Search engine optimization is the answer, especially if you are a Church!
SEO, What It Is And What It Isn’t
If you’re considering making money online, then you’ve probably already heard of search engine optimization before. It’s a fairly common term when people want to throw around internet marketing jargon, but most people have no real idea how it works. If they did, they’d know that even people who are experts at SEO can’t promise perfect results every time.
Why would that be? Because search engine optimization isn’t one thing. It’s an umbrella term for a variety of tools which are used to make your website or videos seem relevant to Google on a wider variety of web searches. These tools are all designed to work in conjunction with each other, but each one is at the mercy of the unknowable interest of the internet as a whole.
Since there’s no one perfect SEO tool, there’s no perfect SEO implementation. Even if there was only one SEO tool, the fact is that nothing is perfect every time. Not to mention, SEO can only make people notice your website or your videos. It can’t make people care or want to give you money. So it’s important to understand that SEO has a limited function and isn’t going to do all the work for you.
So what can SEO do for your business or your Church? Quite a bit.
SEO Tools And How They Work
There are several common SEO tools, each one designed to work in a different way. The main one is the use of keywords. Keywords are words or phrases that are commonly used in Google searches. These words and phrases are things like “Chicago plumbers” or “cheap jewelry home delivery” or just about anything that a person might type into Google to find a website.
Proper keyword usage can make your website seem especially relevant to Google. Not only that but ensuring you have the proper keywords at the proper time is incredibly important, as well. This is made especially difficult since it’s not always possible to know popular keyword searches until it’s already become popular.
A good example is from soon after the video game “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim” came out in the United States. There are some keywords that are obvious. Elder Scrolls, Skyrim, Bethesda (the developer name), the list is fairly easy to compile. However, an incredibly popular phrase that was used by people who were searching for video game websites was “Skyrim Lydia Hot.” Lydia is a character in the game, so the phrase does make sense in context. However, being able to predict that those words in that exact order would wind up being a search so prevalent that many video game news websites worked to use it in the title of several articles.
Social Media Marketing Everyone Should be Using, Even Churches
Social media is a great way to boost your Google rank, as well. Each social media site works slightly differently, so each one requires different SEO tools. Facebook is great for building a community, whereas Twitter is great for sending messages to interested people.
All in all, the world of SEO is complicated but incredibly useful. Not only useful but necessary in some cases. If you’re an introvert, you need a professional SEO firm to work with you. Otherwise, you may find that you simply can’t get the attention you need from people who would otherwise be interested in what you have to offer. And don’t forget, other websites will be using SEO tools, as well. So if you don’t, you’ll fall that much further behind.
