This might not seem like an important topic when it comes to church marketing but I assure you it is.
If you have the chance to really think about your name before you start your branding, buy a domain name, start your non-profit registration and lock down your Instagram handle you will want to read on.
What’s in a Name?
I will start this with a preface and an understanding that I think everyone will understand, and that is if God has given you a name then you have to stick with it.
If you have a partial name from God, like a word or something that is fine, lets talk about the rest. If the road is wide open and you can pick whatever you want then you have some options that will definitely help you.
What is your Vision? – Aim Small Miss Small
There is a scene in the movie The Patriot where Mel Gibson tells his kids to aim small miss small. Not an overly pleasant scene but the phrase has stuck with me. Shooting was a part of my upbringing in Alberta and learning about guns was a thing. The idea of this holds true, the more you focus on a small part of the target the more likely you will actually hit it.
The opposite is also true, if you just swing for the fences, and shoot in the general direction you will likely miss.
The struggle that all church-planting pastors have is holding a vision for what God has shown them while not seeing it yet. You ask 10 church planters how big their church will be and 11 of them will tell you thousands. It just seems to be the way of it.
The real idea here is to know your vision, but to also know what stage of that vision you are at. David was anointed at 15 but didn’t get the crown till he was in his 30’s. As a church planter or church leader your main job right now is to do the step you are at right now the best you can with everything you have. If your current church is 30 people you better know everyone’s name and birthday. If it’s 300 you should have a system so people can connect and do life together. If it’s 3000 you have some other challenges that you need to manage.
When choosing the name of your church here are some questions you need to answer.
Church Naming Questions
- What is our primary audience? Is this a community church, a city-wide church, a multi-location church or an online-only church
- How is expansion going to go? More campuses and satellites or one big building
- What is the size of my city or town? More on this when it comes to SEO but do you know the population of your area? This might also be your neighbourhood instead of your city.
- What is our marketing budget? The bigger your vision the more marketing budget you will need. To properly rank in Google in a city over 1 million people will require significantly more SEO money than a city of 50000. This will also be true when it comes to Instagram reach, radio, door to door brochures, paid advertising on Google or Facebook and of course opportunities to be engaged with local community events and activities.
- SEO Keyword Research. Keywords in Google that bring up churches are important for you to know. SEO keywords for churches are things like church near me, church in (area), Christian church in (area). Find out what they are for you and what your competition looks like. This will help you understand what you are up against.
Church Naming Words
Ok so let’s get into the specifics.
1 – You definitely want the word church in your name. I can’t really think of a good reason not to have it as a part of your full branded name. Unless there is a vision for something different and you call yourself the gathering or the Christian together people or something like that you want to be known as a church. This becomes increasingly more important when you buy a domain name, get your Instagram handle and register for community events and gatherings.
2 – Location. It is a great idea to have your location in the name of your church. This will be decided by your vision and what you are about but having your city or location in the name will help you significantly.
3 – Moniker or Brand – The third thing to think about is to have another word as a branded thing or extra word in the name. Usually people will shorten your name anyway (because we are lazy…ha…think Christian City Church is now C3 Church (yes C4…)) so having another word may lead to a nice branding opportunity. BUT, your main name will still have location and church in it.
If you are in a bigger city then you really want to consider are you a community church or are you a city church? A community church would be something like Spring Bank Christian Church or Spring Bank Church where as a city church would be Calgary Christian Church or Calgary Church. Then you can brand it with another word like Calgary Family Church or something more branded like Calgary Something Church or The Calgary Church of ………..
If you don’t want Calgary in the name then you can get even more branded like Experience Church, or First Assembly Church or Centre Street Chruch. However, these kinds of names will require more location signals to Google because the word Calgary or the neighbourhood isn’t in your name.
Pick Something that Means Something
If you are going to go down the road of more branded and less location you need to pick something that means something and that you can inspire people with. I am definitely ok with that, but you need to know that you will need more marketing budget to deal with that. It is something that you need to be aware of.
Marketing a church is relatively easy in smaller areas where your competition is low and your name is an exact match like Christian Church Okotoks. However, that does work for everyone and that is ok.
You just need to know you will have to be intentional about the location signals you give Google with your on-page SEO and the anchor text in your backlinks and internal links. The more you can deal with this the better. We have a whole guide on internal links for local SEO and that will help you make sure your site is set up properly for this kind of stuff. I would do it even if your name is location rich.
The primary thing you are trying to do is be in front of people when a new family moves to your area and searches for church near me, or a Christian Church + neighbourhood. Stay true to your vision and to what God has told you, but have wisdom as well…think carefully about your name.
