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By Jonathan Howe

When you have a blog or website that gets as much traffic as ThomRainer.com does on a daily basis, a great deal of the website traffic will come from search engines like Google. People search for random terms (or specific ones) and somehow Google leads them to your website. But thanks to analytics software, it’s easy to find out what people are searching for to find your site.

It is helpful to know what drives interest with readers and can help you know what to write more about as a blogger. Some examples you’d expect for this site are:

  • Importance of evangelism
  • Causes of conflict in the church
  • Qualities of a good pastor
  • Causes of disunity in the church
  • Unity in the church
  • Words to appreciate your pastor
  • Ten things church members desire in a pastor
  • Fifteen reasons our churches are less evangelistic today
  • Hindrances to evangelism

Those are all regular topics here at ThomRainer.com. They should be no surprise to those of you who read this site regularly. We have several posts on each topic.

But then there are other searches.

There are some search terms that I see and wonder “How and why?”

Here is a sampling of this “other” category. If one of these is your search, please explain it in the comment section—because I have questions.

  • Dating a pastor
  • Most weird pastors
  • Tucked or untucked polo shirts?
  • Introvert jokes
  • How do I convince an unbeliever the church is not about making money?
  • Cows in my church
  • Why does my husband lose it with stupid & cost us our jobs
  • Falling in love with a married pastor
  • How do you ask a full-time preacher to leave a congregation and go preach somewhere else?

You never know what people will search for and as a result find your site. I didn’t expect these. Especially the cows. Definitely the cows.

Does your blog or website get traffic from abnormal search terms too?


Jonathan Howe serves as Director of Strategic Initiatives at LifeWay Christian Resources as well as the host and producer of Rainer on Leadership and SBC This Week. Jonathan writes weekly at ThomRainer.com on topics ranging from social media to websites and church communications. Connect with Jonathan on Twitter at @Jonathan_Howe.

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