These tips to help your website get found are from the March-April 2008 edition of Seeds for the Parish:

With an estimated billion or more pages now on the Internet, the adage "build it and they will come" simply does not work for Web sites.

Here are tips to help you fine tune your congregation's site for search engine optimization:

• Find out how you come up in the search engines by searching for your site on Google, Yahoo and MSN. If you do not find your site within the first three pages of search results, it isn't optimized.
• List your Web site in the Open Directory Project (DMOZ). This is a free human-edited directory of the Web. Go to www.dmoz.org and submit your site.
• Submit your ELCA Congregation Web pages for inclusion in the elca.org "find a congregation." Go to elca.org/FindaChurch and follow the "Add or Edit Your Congregation's Web Address" link. Search engines take the number of external links pointing to your Web pages as a vote for your site. [Don't forget to share it with the synod too! If it isn't already listed correctly at www.semnsynod.org/webcong.html, send an e-mail to livingood at semnsynod dot org]
• Make sure the keywords you are using are relevant to your congregation. Your keywords may not be the terms people are searching. Use a keyword selection tool such as wordtracker, at www.wordtracker.com for data on search term frequency and search phrases.
• Link your internal pages through text links as well as your menu navigation. Remember that search engines cannot see icons or the text in them.
• Do not use "frames" for navigation. Search engines simply can't index them.
• If you use dropdown boxes for navigation make sure there is another way to navigate to those pages.
• Avoid using a flash animation "splash" page. Search engines consider your homepage the most important page on your site. If you do not have keyword-rich content on your homepage you are missing a great opportunity.
• Do not use the same titles on all your pages. Each page of your site should use one or several unique keyword themes, e.g., "Worship at St. Peter" and "About the St. Peter Lutheran Church soup kitchen."
• Do not use "click here" for your hyperlink text unless you want to rank high for "click here." Search engines associate the link text with the pages you are linking to.
• Remember to delete obsolete links to pages no longer on your Web site. A search result of "Page not found" is not a good recommendation for visiting your site.

If you have any questions about any of these, simply post it in the comments or e-mail me at livingood at semnsynod dot org.