Power of the Niche for a Ministry Website
I was reading Paul Steinbrueck over at Christian Web Trends who was writing about the “9 Search Engine Marketing Questions Every Organization Should Be Able to Answer.” He noted 9 questions that you need to ask regarding search engine marketing.
Questions 2 and 3 are at the heart of what I want to talk about today. They center around keywords to target. I think that this is an important thing, but I have not done it as much as I have wished. However, I have kind of backed into this kind of keyword work by specializing in a niche.
Over at my SoulPreaching.Com blog, I have emphasized African American Preaching. I have specialized in it. And thus I have naturally chosen the correct keywords to target just by specializing in the niche. I have found that when I have gone astray from that niche, my traffic has fallen. So I think that keyword research will help me to provide more rigor to my word choice, but at the very least you must find a niche that you can fulfill and work in that niche.
One of the problems about using niches in ministry is that you are targeting a certain segment of the population. Some will argue, correctly, that the Gospel is for everyone. While that is true, we also must recognize that you individually cannot reach everyone. Your experiences are needed and necessary and relevant for a segment of the population but not all. And as you target that segment you will more effectively reach them (in the search engines and through other forms of internet marketing).
Paradoxically, as you target your niche you will continue to grow even outside of the niche. Again, going back to my SoulPreaching.Com example, as I have targeted celebrating the African American Preaching Tradition, my site grew to be one of the top blogs in “preaching,” but when I attempted to target the keyword “preaching” directly, I began falling in the rankings. So, in this case, targeting a segment of the population (those of all ethnicities who wish to learn preaching from the African American preaching tradition), I was able to address the larger community (those of all ethnicities who wish to learn preaching from any tradition).
You must specialize and become known for something to get traffic either from others or from the search engines.
