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?
15 Comments
I just checked my own blog and these random searches led people to my site:
Famous beards in history
Pampered chef catalog
What to do if Clinton is elected
Farmers perspective on bummer sheep
Nothing says Christmas like Tim Allen silk boxers
Silk boxers????
Guessing the cows might refer to sacred cows.
Possibly…
Interesting and humorous list. The “cows” of course, refers to the unfortunate anecdote (which I’ll not copy and paste here) relating to the difference between hymns and praise choruses. Of course, you can google it if you want, but you may end up back here.
True. It would be a circular search.
I believe this will answer the Cows search. Good book by the way. https://www.amazon.com/Change-Your-Church-Good-Tipping/dp/0849918758
Ahhh
Who is “stupid”? And, how did he manage to get himself and his wife fired? He must be very talented.
I don’t want to name names, but I can think of a few. 😉
I love your daily blogs Thom and those of your readers.
Concerned reader from Victoria Australia who wonders about the lack of reachout and influence we command in our community.
Thanks for reading
Some classic searches particularly at the bottom. Some probably thought humourous also have a serious side.
They likely all are very serious. Good point.
Umm, well, I did once look out the Parsonage window and see a Black Angus heifer on the Church playground. It was a first.