A Church Near You received more than 77 million page views nationally last year and 81 per cent were first-time visitors. Many of these people will have been looking to visit a local church over Christmas – make sure they can find out what your church is doing.
Add your Advent and Christmas events to A Church Near You as early as possible so people can start to find them. Make sure you also tag your services and events with 'Christmas’, ‘Advent’ and ‘Christmas carols’ and any of the other related tags as appropriate. This will ensure that visitors will find the services and events they are looking for. Watch this video to show you how to tag events and services.
There is also a ‘At the Heart of Christmas’ tag which ties in with the national Church of England Christmas theme this year. You'll also be able to use the national branding to give your page a festive flavour. Find out how you will be able to do that here.
Remember, if you're offering online services, use the tags to promote this, such as 'live stream' or 'prerecorded service'. If you're streaming your live service through YouTube, visitors are able to watch this on A Church Near You. Find out more on how to do this here.
The Resource Hub in A Church Near You is a one-stop shop for free images, videos, music and Church of England logos and resources. There is Advent and Christmas content including songs, images, social media graphics and videos. There are also easy to use customisable graphics and videos.
To find out more about resources for Christmas this year, read more on the Church of England website.
If you have any questions or need any help editing your A Church Near You page, search on the ACNY help page.