Possible reason for low poll results:
I wanted to respond with a "No" but not because technology is scary.

First Comment:

I believe the high number of respondents aware of search engine advertising responding to your survey is skewed because of the readers of this site. This site has spoken about it and your readers would be aware of it. If you had specifically asked me if I was aware of "search engine advertising" prior to visiting this site, I would have responded, "no."

I doubt if one of the 20 or so ministers I regularly interact with knows what "search engine advertising" is.

Second comment:

I would love to hear comments from those who have successfully used it. What types of key words are driving people to their site?

Mark, if what you're saying is true than that means Church Marketing Sucks is actually educating the marketplace. We're doing what we meant to do! It's working!

Wooooo!

I can't tell you what a cool thought that is. Thanks.

Now we just need to work on the 20 or so ministers you interact with. ;-)

I love this site, but I think it more likely that the high amount of advertising SPAM is the reason for the awareness.

My undergraduate Statistics Spider-sense is tingling!

I agree with Mark - people who are on the internet reading a blog about church marketing are likely much more informed about good church marketing techniques than the general population. Still, I was one of the "Considering..." responses - once our new site is drilled in where I want it to be, we will seriously consider an online ad budget for keyword marketing.

Well, it goes without saying that these stats aren't scientific (actually, I did say that before). There's any number of ways to cheat, and the sample is only representative of the people who visit this site and decide to take the survey. So it's slanted in 15 different directions.

But they're still fun numbers to think about and the could mean something, just don't go betting the farm on these numbers.

That's why I try to write the questions and answers with some goofiness thrown in. It's not quite scientific, so let's have some fun with it. Hopefully I didn't dissuade people from responding as Drew suggests. That's always the hard part, being entertaining while still providing enough choices so everyone can be happy with an answer (without listing 17 different answers).

Colin, doesn't that assume that spam is effective? I wouldn't think spam is very effective, especially with the crowd that visits this site.

Tip for those who want to try keyword advertising with Google but would like to so on a trial basis: If you register your site in the Google Local (as every church should) then send you a pin via snail mail, on this postcard is a $25 credit to use with their Adwords program.

The problem with JUST keywords is, alone, they will not always render great results. If this was 1998 it might have, but the way search engines handle things like that are different now.

I have found with several sites that its important to use (on the site) different keywords for each page (many of the words will be present in the page content as well).

Keywords (even paid) are still just a small piece of the pie for SEO. Google also checks things like your domain name registration (how long has your domain name been registered?), and also other sites that link TO you (which you can find by typing 'link: www.yourwebsite.com' into google and it shows all sites that link to you - not 100% accurate if someone is tracking links)

The person who stated earlier they were waiting until their site was in place, then start with the keywords - I think thats a very smart idea. Constant change doesnt go over well with Search engines either. So, if you are constantly moving things around, changing things or creating broken links - that can also work against you.

Search Engines are much more touchy these days. You dont want to overdo it for fear of being labeled as spam, but you dont want to 'underdo' it so that you are hard to find by searches.

This is my first post at this site, and I absolutely LOVE what you guys are doing. God Bless!

Ok, im going to sit down now :)

Nate, are you talking about search engine advertising like AdWords on Google, or are you talking about buying keywords on other sites for Search Engine Optimization? It's not clear from what you're saying, though it doesn't sound like AdWords.

We're talking about AdWords and other search engine advertising like Overture. If you're talking about buying keywords elsewhere, that's a whole other topic (and one I don't know much about).

Kevin,
I was initially referring to keywords developed on your actual page (meta). I realized this after the fact and couldnt change it. However, some of the same principles apply to google adWords and overture (as far as finding out what words are being used to generate response). BUT, since it is a paid service some of the other principles I spoke of dont really matter :)

Sorry for the confusion, and thanks for the clarification!

Peace!

Nate's talking about "organic" search engine marketing. That's where you work on the content on your page and the links to your site in order to try and get your site to rank higher in the actual search results. (as opposed to the paid ads.)

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is what the original post was talking about. PPC is where you pay the search engines a fee each time someone clicks on your ad.

While some of the same principles apply to both (i.e. the need to do keyword research) the actual process is very, very different.

We have successfully used AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing for about 4 months now. We have expanded keywords every month, and are reaping very positive results.

Our keywords are primarily geographically targeted (i.e. Denver, Boulder, Westminster, Broomfield church related) and then targeted based on brand promises (Christian, bible-based, contemporary, non-denominational, etc.)

From there, we expand based on complimentary searches that we believe our target audience might be looking for (christian events, concerts, personalities).

Recently, we have expanded to include those people who might be searching for spiritual answers, but not in the Christian arena (LDS, Masonic, Jehovah's Witness, Psychics, etc.)

So far in August, we have pulled 303 click-throughs, average about 80 visits a day, and are seeing about 3-4 families visit the church every week.

This stuff WORKS. Build a great site, position it correctly, deliver on what you promise, follow-up with your church visitors, and you are on the way to cost-effective church growth.

Ryan,

Thanks for the helpful input on using keyword advertising.

Mark

Mark,

Anytime. This is way too effective and way too affordable to keep quiet. I'm happy to help where I can.

Ryan

Ryan,

How many keywords do you have total? What is your click through rate percentage?

Thanks.

Mark