Google Business Profile for Churches: How People Find a Church

Picture someone who just accepted a new job. New city, new apartment she hasn't moved into yet, new everything... and she's sitting on her couch in her current city making lists of all the things she has to figure out before the move.

One of the things on that list: find a church.

Church is how she makes friends, and it's how she finds her people in a new place. So she opens Google Maps, types in "churches near me" with the location set to her new city, and starts scrolling.

What she finds in the next ten minutes (starting with your church's Google Business Profile) decides whether your church makes her shortlist.

And she's far from the only one. "Churches near me" and its variants get over four thousand searches every month in the US. "Community church near me" gets almost twenty-five hundred. And "small churches near me" gets nearly nineteen hundred, every month. If you've ever wondered whether a small church can matter online, sit with that last number for a second: nineteen hundred people a month are looking specifically for a small church, a congregation where people actually know each other (jumbotron not required). That's your people, looking for you.

So how do people find a church? In two steps. First they meet you on a map, and then they meet you on your website. Here are eight fixes, four for each step, and every one of them is free.

Part one: the map (your Google Business Profile)

When someone searches "churches near me", the first thing that pops up is the Map Pack: a map with little pins, and under it a handful of church listings, each with a name, an address, some photos, a star rating, and sometimes hours.

That's the whole first impression, and it shows up before your website does.

All of it lives on your Google Business Profile, which is completely separate from your website. For a lot of mainline churches, that profile is unclaimed, incomplete, or hasn't been touched since someone set it up years ago. Your Google Business Profile is the front door of your church for anyone doing a local search: it decides whether you appear on the map at all, and what you look like when you do. The good news is that it's fixable, it's free, and it takes a Sunday afternoon to get right.

1. Claim it

Go to business.google.com, search for your church, claim the listing, and verify it. That's it, you're in control of it now.

If nobody has claimed it, Google has put a listing together from whatever it could scrape up, and it may or may not be accurate. Claiming it is how you make sure the information is yours.

2. Fill in everything

And I do mean everything: your name, address and phone number, your service times listed clearly, your website link, your denomination, your accessibility information, your photos. Google rewards completeness, so a profile with full, accurate information ranks better in local search than a half-filled-out one. And when a searcher finds everything she needs right there on your listing, she's much more likely to keep reading.

3. Upload photos of your people

This one is so important and so overlooked! Our searcher is scrolling the map looking at the little thumbnail for each church. The church with a warm photo of real people from the real congregation reads as more alive and welcoming, right away, than the church with a stock photo of clasped hands or (my personal favorite) a wide-angle shot of an empty parking lot.

I have seen so many empty parking lots on church Google profiles. Parking availability? The general concept of asphalt? I truly can't tell.

Upload photos of your people and your space: a Sunday morning that looks like Sunday morning, a coffee hour, a choir rehearsal. Something that lets a stranger picture herself there.

4. Ask for five or six honest reviews

I know, I know... asking for Google reviews feels uncomfortable, a little like you're running a restaurant. But a church with a handful of real reviews from actual members reads as more trustworthy in local search than a church with none at all. You need five or six honest ones that give someone a sense of what it's actually like to be there. Ask your most enthusiastic members, make it easy for them, and send them the link.

Listen to the full episode

I walk through both parts, the map and the website, on this episode of Digital Ministry Made Easy.

Part two: the website

So she found you on the map, your profile looks good, and she clicks through to your website. The map told her you exist, and now your website gets to tell her who you actually are.

She's asking three questions in the first thirty seconds:

• Who is this church?
• When do they meet?
• Would I fit there?

If your website answers all three right away, clearly and warmly, she keeps reading. If it doesn't, she's back on the map clicking the next pin. Here are the four places churches most often lose her.

5. The building photo

So many church websites lead with a photo of the outside of the building: the front door, the parking lot, the steeple from a distance. The person researching a church wants to know what it feels like on the inside, so she's looking for faces, for a room full of people who look glad to be there. A candid shot of your congregation laughing together at coffee hour tells a visitor what she came to find out.

6. Stock photos

The clasped hands against a blurry Bible, the family smiling in perfect lighting in a meadow, the megachurch sanctuary that looks absolutely nothing like your actual multipurpose room... churches keep using these, and it matters more than it seems. If your website shows a bunch of young families and your congregation is mostly older adults, the young family that drives in on Sunday morning because of those photos feels misled. That's a trust problem, and a big one.

Use real photos of real people from your real congregation. Your church has its own look and feel, and it deserves to be shown honestly.

7. Service times on the homepage

I've been on church websites where I had to click through three or four pages to find out when the service is. Three or four clicks! Our searcher is doing this on her phone, probably while doing six other things, and if she can't find your service time in about ten seconds she's off clicking the next pin.

Put your service times on your homepage, in readable text. Text is something Google can read too, which helps your search ranking and helps the person trying to figure out if she can make it on Sunday.

8. Say who you are

She lands on your homepage, reads "a welcoming community of faith," and thinks: okay, but what does that mean? Are you formal or casual? Come-as-you-are, or dressed up? Theologically progressive or traditional? Does this community laugh? Do they ask hard questions?

"A welcoming community of faith" could be literally any church. Say the specific, real, true thing about yours, so the right person can recognize herself in it before she ever walks in.

Frequently Asked Questions About Google Business Profiles for Churches

How do people find a church online?

A lot of them start on Google Maps, typing "churches near me". Before they see a single website, they get the Map Pack: little pins on a map, and a handful of church listings with a name, an address, some photos, a star rating, and sometimes hours. The ones who like what they see click through to your website next.

How do I claim a Google Business Profile for my church?

Go to business.google.com, search for your church, claim the listing, and verify it. Then fill in everything: your name, address and phone number, your service times, your website link, your denomination, your accessibility information and your photos. It's free, and it takes a Sunday afternoon to get right.

Is our Google Business Profile part of our church website?

It's completely separate from your website. If nobody at your church has claimed it, Google has put a listing together from whatever it could scrape up, and it may or may not be accurate.

What photos should a church put on its Google Business Profile?

Photos of your people and your space: a Sunday morning that looks like Sunday morning, a coffee hour, a choir rehearsal. A warm photo of real people from your congregation reads as more alive and welcoming than a stock photo of clasped hands (or that empty parking lot).

How many Google reviews does a church need?

Five or six honest ones from actual members, the kind that give someone a sense of what it's like to be there. Ask your most enthusiastic members, make it easy for them, and send them the link.

What should a church homepage show a first-time visitor?

The answers to three questions: who is this church, when do they meet, and would I fit there? Put your service times on the homepage in readable text, and say the specific, real, true thing about your church.

None of this needs a big budget

Here's what I love about all eight: your Google Business Profile is free to fill in, real photos cost one Sunday morning and somebody's phone, clear service times on your homepage take fifteen minutes, and being specific about who you are is work, but it's free work.

What it does need is attention. Someone looking at your church's online presence through a stranger's eyes and asking, honestly, "if I didn't already know this church, would I know enough to show up on Sunday?"

If you only do one thing this week, make it this: go to business.google.com, find your church, make sure the information is accurate, and upload at least three photos of real humans from your congregation.

Someone in your town is going to search for a church this week. They're already looking, so make sure they can find you.

If you'd like company while you do it, that's exactly what we do in the Growth Pathway inside The Commons: we look at your Google Business Profile together, look at your website through the eyes of that new-in-town searcher, and figure out what's working, what's missing and what to fix first. Find it at studiokons.com/thecommons.