Get your church and benefice sites ready for Lent and Easter

26/01/2024

Now is a great time to add your Lent and Easter services and events to your church or benefice site on AChurchNearYou.com.

Traffic on AChurchNearYou.com peaks annually (second only to Christmas) in the period Maundy Thursday to Easter Sunday. As part of last year’s campaign, Dust and Glory, we saw more than 18,000 Lent and Easter services added to AChurchNearYou.com. As a result, there were more than 600,000 page views on AChurchNearYou.com across Lent and Holy Week. 

By adding your events and services to AChurchNearYou.com, you will benefit from national advertising on social media and search engines, so here are our top three tips for making the most of this. 

1. Feature your Easter Service on your homepage 

Many people who only come to church occasionally may look to attend an Easter Sunday service. So we recommend making your Easter Service the event that is featured on your homepage.  

How to choose what event is featured on your homepage. 

image of a listed event on A Church Near You

2. Add and tag your events 

Event tags help visitors find the kind of services and events they are looking for on AChurchNearYou.com and can be included in a search on the site. For example, a new family in your area may look for a 'Good Friday' service close to their home. If a Good Friday event tag has been used by the church, it will appear in the search results. 

Add all tags that are relevant to the event, such as 'Lent', 'Easter' or 'Shrove Tuesday'. You can also use the 'livestream' tag if you are offering online services. 

 

We have moved the Lent and Easter tags to the top of the list that you can choose from, so that they are easy to find when you are adding your events. These are: 

  • Ash Wednesday 
  • Easter 
  • Easter Day 
  • Good Friday 
  • Lent 
  • Hot Cross Buns 
  • Holy Saturday 
  • Holy Week 
  • Maundy Thursday 
  • Mothering Sunday 
  • Palm Sunday 
  • Shrove Tuesday 
  • Stations of the Cross 
  • Tenebrae  

Tip: Remember to add the ‘Lent’ or ‘Easter’ tag so your service or event appears under the ‘Lent & Easter’ tab on your church’s services and events page.  

 Find out how to tag your Lent and Easter services and events.
image of an events page on AChurchNearYou.com

3. Use the Lent templates and tools in the Resource Hub  

In the AChurchNearYou.com Resource Hub, we have already added Watch and Pray logo graphics which you may find useful for putting together print and digital materials about your services.  

There are social media templates for those of you who use design software, and we'll also shortly be updating the social media graphic and video generator in the Resource Hub so you can easily make your own social media post to encourage people to celebrate Easter with you - no design skills or design software required. You can use this on your AChurchNearYou.com page, social media accounts and even for church screens!  

watch and pray feature image for digital labs

Remember to use the hashtag #WatchAndPray if you're sharing on social media. We'd love to see your personalised videos and graphics. 

If you want to learn more about how to edit your site on AChurchNearYou.com, Digital Labs provides free live training each month. Register for an up-coming date here.  

- Digital Labs Team