Church websites are getting less traffic, and AI is a big reason why. In this episode of E-Coffee with Experts, Jason Hamrock, Partner at Missional Marketing, explains what zero-click search means for churches and what to do about it. Jason spent 11 years building an in-house communications team at a multi-campus church before joining an agency that now works with more than 500 churches.
Jason walks through his three rings model: your own people, people looking for a church, and people searching for help with a felt need like marriage, parenting, or stress. He explains why felt-need blog posts lost clicks almost overnight, why “looking for a church” searches still lead people to a website, and how to check whether ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude describe your church accurately (one church found AI still naming a pastor who left five years ago).
You’ll also hear his case for adding at least 52 pages a year by turning each sermon into one focused page, the one topic, one page, one answer approach, how multi-campus churches should treat every location as its own business, how to use YouTube’s 5,000-character description and short pastor videos, and why new churches should start with digital ads before backlinks.
Takeaways:
- Felt-need blog posts lose clicks because AI answers them directly.
- People looking for a church still visit your website before showing up.
- Ask ChatGPT and Claude about your church and check what they say.
- Turn every Sunday sermon into at least one new web page.
- One topic, one page, one answer gives you a better shot in AI results.
- Use Google's People Also Ask box to find questions worth answering.
- Treat each church campus as its own business with its own profile.
- Use the full YouTube description so your sermon video can be found.
- A close-up two-minute pastor video feels more personal than a stage clip.
- Starting from zero? Run digital ads first, then fix your website.