So what have we been doing? Pilot New Media not only manages all the new media accounts of the Archdiocese of Boston, we also provide support for The Good Catholic Life radio program. The host of that show is Scot Landry, the Secretary for Catholic Media, and he is traveling to Rome to report on the events happening there from the personal perspective of a Boston Catholic on pilgrimage to the papal conclave.

Our intent is to cover the historic events using all available new media: blogs, social media, radio, podcasts, videos. This requires our team headed to Rome to be loaded down with all kinds of equipment and we thought we’d share what our colleague George Martell is bringing with him to Rome. You’ll see in the photo below nearly all of the equipment that George will be carrying with him.

And here is a list of what you see:

• Canon 5D Mk III with a 70–200mm lens
• Canon 1D
• 35mm wide angle lens
• 50mm prime lens
• 2  Canon Vixia HF G10
• Zoom H4n digital audio recorder
• Dynamic XLR microphone
• Two sets of lavalier microphones
• Livestream Broadcaster (for live video streaming)
• microphone cables, gaffer tape, battery packs, memory cards, and more.

What you don’t see are George’s MacBook Pro, iPhone 4S, and iPad 3, plus a MiFi mobile hostpost from XCom Global.

All of this equipment will be sending radio broadcasts for The Good Catholic Life, plus twice-daily minute-long updates for the Station of the Cross radio network; YouTube videos with longer updates, interviews, and pilgrim experiences; live video streaming at BostonCatholicLive; photos of all these events for Flickr.com/BostonCatholic; daily blog posts at TheGoodCatholicLife.com; and updates for our Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Of course, there’s also all the great content coming from our colleagues at CatholicTV as well. We got it all covered!

We’ll report back here after George and Scot return from Rome to tell you how it all worked out.

The record-breaking blizzard over the first weekend of February, 2013, showed how far we’ve come in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts since the Blizzard of 1978 in terms of preparedness and response to major snow events. In 1978, people were stranded on highways and roadsand it took weeks to clear them and return to normal. While the 2013 blizzard was significant and caused major disruptions, they were comparatively minor (which is small consolation to the hundreds of thousands who lost power, the hundreds on the coasts who were flooded out, or the handful who died, may they rest in peace.)

Part of the reason for the better result was the improvement in communications in the past 35 years, especially Internet communications through mobile devices that stay connected even in a power outage. Cities and towns had emergency response centers on Twitter and Facebook and the City of Boston even had a website that showed where all their plows were at any given time (until the site was overwhelmed with traffic and shut down.)

Churches, too, can and did take advantage of these communications tools. In fact, these tools–Twitter/Facebook/Google+/email lists/web sites–can be valuable in any kind of emergency or urgent response situation. For example, many parishes canceled their Saturday afternoon anticipatory Masses because of a just-expiring statewide ban on road travel or because the parking lots and walks weren’t plowed or because there was no heat or electricity. Just as many parishes did have their Masses for the few brave souls who ventured. Many also canceled religious education on Sunday or other events over the weekend.

In the past, parishes would have to rely on the scrolling tickers or closing announcements in the news coverage on TV and radio, which didn’t allow for much detail at all. Or they’d have to answer dozens of phone calls to the office or rectory asking if Mass was cancelled.

But this time many parishes were able to post up-to-the-minute information on Facebook or Twitter and put notices on their websites. (Those using Our Sunday Visitor’s Faith in Action websites could use the announcements function.) Parishes with email lists were able to push their notifications to their parishioners who were checking their email. those using a service like Flocknote.com were able to go one step further and send text messages to those who had signed up for them.

We’ve all become more connected than ever and when a major event unites us, we gather together on social media to share information and talk about it. It becomes water cooler, bulletin board, and news ticker all wrapped in one. If we want our pastoral ministries to receive the same amount of attention and if we want our information to get out to as many of our people as possible, we would do well to take advantage of these new and low-cost tools.

First, are your Ash Wednesday mass times updated on your website? Let’s make sure the website we’re responsible for have their mass times updated and make sure you include Ash Wednesday mass times as well. Don’t just put Mass Times for the weekend and then a more generic “Holy Days” or “Week Day Masses”. Ash Wednesday technically isn’t a Holy Day of Obligation and a more general descriptor saves you a little work in updating the site after Ash Wednesday, but it can cause some confusion with your parishioners. Plus, your website will get some added SEO benefits by having the words “Ash Wednesday” on your site depending on what a person searches for.

Second, don’t hide your mass times schedule. They’re the number one reason parishioners go to your website. To see the other reasons, check out this blog post. Put the mass times right on your church’s home page. Don’t hide them down on menu level 4, put them right there on the main page for everyone to see.

You can do more to prepare your website for Lent as well. The Church Mojo website recently had “10 Steps to Prepare your Church Website for Advent” and many of them are obviously applicable to Lent too.

Their first tip is to setup a permanent URL for your Advent or Lent content, something like http://www.stjosephholbrook.org/lent. (This is a page in progress for my parish.) This is where your Lenten content will live every year, which means that people will have a memorable place to come back to when looking next year and the year after. On that page you can collect everything you’ll need to share about Lent: Mass times for Ash Wednesday and Holy Week and perhaps changed daily Mass times for Lent; additional Lenten prayer opportunities like weekly Stations of the Cross or new Bible studies; links to Lent reflections and prayer resources; and so on. This could be information already in other places on your site that you’re also pulling together here as well.

They have other excellent tips as well.

Remember, the parish website is not just a bulletin board, but an excellent tool for communicating with both parishioners and those who might be seeking Christ. Open wide the virtual doors of your parish to Christ this Lent.

This was similar to Google’s product, Google Apps for Business. That program had a version that allowed anyone to use the same suite of apps — email, calendar, word processor, spreadsheet, and many more — at no cost for up to seven users. Many small businesses– and churches — took advantage of this offer, especially since there were fewer hoops to jump through than proving non-profit status for the other program (which really isn’t that bad). Unfortunately, the free Google Apps for Business is no longer an option because Google has discontinued it. If you’re currently using it, don’t worry, you’re grandfathered in, but no new sign-ups will be taken.

If you need help setting up Google Apps for Nonprofits for Archdiocese of Boston parish or ministry, please contact us and Pilot New Media will be happy to assist.

Public domain

One of the thorniest and most confusing topics when it comes to the use of new media by not just parishes and ministries, but everyone on the Internet, is copyright. What is copyright? How do I know what images, music, writing I can use on my website? If I find it on Google, does that make it fair game? If I’m not making money off of it, does that make a difference? The answer to the latter two questions is No, which surprises many people. This post should explain why.

Let us first stipulate that we’re not lawyers nor have we studied law and we are not offering legal advice of any kind. This post does not constitute endorsement by the Archdiocese of Boston or its associated organizations of any of the websites or pages we link or their explanations of copyright law. If you’re not sure what your legal rights are, please consult a lawyer. Parishes and ministries of the Archdiocese of Boston can contact the General Counsel’s office at 617–746–5672.

With that out of the way, let’s discuss some general information about copyright and copyright law. Since we’re most concerned with copyright in relation to websites, we’ll focus on photos, images, and written content.

What is copyright?

The current law governing copyright is in Title 17 of the United States Code, first passed in 1976 and amended many times since. It’s complex and long and suitable for lawyers. We’ll get in how copyright works in a second, but first let’s answer why we have it. Here is the brief explanation for why we have copyrights in the first place from a court ruling:

“the economic philosophy behind … copyrights is the conviction that encouragement of individual effort by personal gain is the best way to advance public welfare through the talents of authors” Mazer v. Stein, 347 U.S. 201 (1954)

Used under a Creative Commons license. Click for original.

The copyright owner has exclusive rights to control his work, even if he chooses not to sell, but that those rights are not all-encompassing. There are exceptions to those exclusive rights as defined by the law.

Fair Use

One of those exceptions to the copyright owner’s exclusive rights is the concept of fair use. While there isn’t a concrete definition of fair use in the law, William T. McGrath provides some guidelines in his article Copyright Issues in Today’s Church:

• “…[T]he statute provides as guidance some illustrative examples of types of use that might be fair (such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, and research)…”
• “… [F]our “factors” that must be considered. These are: 1) the purpose and character of the use (i.e., is it commercial or nonprofit? is it transformative or is it very similar to the intended use of the original?), 2) the nature of the work, 3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used, and 4) the effect of the use on the market for or value of the copyrighted work.”

McGrath tells us that all four aspects must be considered. No single one is determinative, so for example that fact that you’re nonprofit doesn’t trump the other considerations.

Public domain

Public domain isn’t really an exception, but it refers to all the material not under copyright. It could be the copyright expired and wasn’t renewed (or eligible for renewal), there was never a copyright on the material in the first place for whatever reason–such as some materials produced by the U.S. Government–or the material was released by the creator into the public domain and he explicitly refused any copyright.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a relatively new approach to the use of original works online. Creative Commons encompasses all forms of copyright and public domain through various licenses that owners can place on their works. The licenses can be anything from public domain to attribution-only to noncommercial-only and several variants in between[1]. The idea between Creative Commons is that ites into account the reality of the Internet-age and digital copying, allowing creators to make their works available for use but still giving them control and ownership over how the material is used, if they wish.

Ignorance is no defense

It’s also very important point to keep in mind ignorance of the copyright is not a defense according to copyright law and precedent. A plea of “I didn’t know” likely will fall on deaf ears in court. You also shouldn’t assume that no one will notice your use of the item on your website or Facebook page or in the bulletin PDf that you upload each week. Copyright owners have new technology at their disposal that crawl the web relentlessly searching out examples of their work that have are being used without their permission. The first time you’ll hear from them is when you receive a letter in the mail from their lawyer with a demand to take it down and to send them a check for your allegedly infringing use.

How do I know the copyright status?

The short answer is that in the absence of a clear copyright or public domain notice, the safest assumption is that it is under copyright. Otherwise, look for a notice right on the photo, in the caption, or somewhere on the page referring to the copyright. Sometimes the whole website will have a copyright notice on it. Keep in mind that the presence of a copyright notice is not required for someone to maintain or assert ownership.

If you see the symbol © and/or the words, “All Rights Reserved”, you almost certainly need to get permission to use the content. If it says Creative Commons, and the license says attribution, then you will put on your page something like: “Image used with permission under a Creative Commons license” and then add a link back to the page where you got it (or whatever the instructions that are part of the Creative Commons license instructs you to do). If it says Public Domain, then just use it as is. Although you aren’t required to, you could perhaps add “Public domain” as a caption, just so that everyone knows you determined that the photo is in the public domain before using it. That helps spread the word that determining proper permissions is important to you.

Used under a Creative Commons license. Click for original

The rule of thumb is that for anything made before 1900, copyright had probably expired. Between 1900 and 1978, copyright may have expired. After 1978, copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years.[2]

Finally, certain pieces of fine art or even architecture are themselves copyrighted and thus any exact photographs of them cannot be used without the original owners’ permission. An example of that is the famed Flatiron Building in New York City.[3]

Proper credit and attribution

There is no one correct way to provide proper credit and attribution for photos that you have permission to use, although if the owner of the work gives you text to use, you would do well to use that. Sometimes you can put the copyright notice right on the photo itself using an image editing program or you can put in a caption field or someplace on the page that makes a logical connection to the image. If the owner asks for a link to a website or page, then include that. And always provide the proper language for the license, whether it’s “Public domain”, “Used with permission”, “Creative Commons”, etc.

Where can I find images to use on my site?

All that said, there are sources for images on the Internet that won’t cost you an arm and a leg to buy the license for. Some are free and some have a nominal cost.

Pilot New Media

At Pilot New Media, we have an extensive library of thousands of photos, most of them taken by our staff photojournalist George Martell, who has more than 25 years of experience in news and event photography. We have photos of every church exterior in the Archdiocese of Boston, most church interiors, and most schools. We also have photos from many other events in the Archdiocese over the past six years. If you’re a parish or ministry in the Archdiocese looking for particular photos, please contact us and we can provide most photos free of charge.

Wikimedia Commons

Wikimedia Commons is the repository for all media that shows up in Wikipedia articles. According to their own rules, all of the material uploaded must be free to use by anyone for any use, and so you would be free to use any images, audio files, videos, or anything else on your website. Wikimedia is especially useful for images of historical and current figures and events or places, like Pope Benedict XVI or St. Francis de Sales[4] or St. Anne de Beaupré shrine in Québec.

If you click on “Use this file on the web” next to the photo, Wikimedia will give you the HTML code you will need to either embed the photo on your site with proper credit and at a variety of sizes or, if you prefer to download the file and manipulate it and embed it yourself, the proper language (in HTML, optionally) for correct attribution. (Click on the image to see a larger screenshot of the Wikimedia page).

Flickr.com

Flickr is a large community of photographers who post their photos online and includes everyone from parents taking snapshots to the Archdiocese of Boston to the office White House photographer to the Library of Congress archives. Flickr was one of the first major photo sites to incorporate the Creative Commons license into its service. To search for photos that you can use, sign up for a free account then enter your search in the search box and click the button. Now, on the next page, click on “Advanced Search”. (See the image below).

On the subsequent page, scroll down, click on the checkbox for “Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content” and click the “Search” button. The resulting images should all have Creative Commons licenses. You just need to pay attention to licenses to make sure that it gives the proper permissions.

The results of a Flickr seach can be uneven. Some photos are of low-quality. Some are obviously copyrighted works that others have posted in violation of that copyright. Use prudence and good judgment when using these photos, but you should be all right.[5]

Pixabay

Pixabay is another resource for public domain photos and graphics. These tend to be more conceptual images rather than topical, so for instance, you’ll find general clip art when searching for “pope” but nothing when searching for “Pope Benedict”. (You’ll also see offers to for paid images from Shutterstock.com in your search results. We’ll discuss those services in a moment.) If you search for, say, “Advent” and find an image of candles and a wreath, you can then download the image and use it as you wish.

Stock photos

When you just can’t find the right image from all the free sources, sometimes you just need to turn to the professionals and pony up some cash. There are many commercials stock photo services available, some very expensive ones that cater to the professional publishing industry and others intended for those with a much lower budget. Here are a few that we’ve used at Pilot New Media that we’ve found useful:

• iStockphoto
• Dreamstime
• Pond5
• Shutterstock.com

In most cases, the photos you’ll get from these services are professionally shot. Most of these sites also provide stock music, sound effects, and/or video clips to use in various multimedia projects. Prices vary from $1 for a photo and up while a few also offer subscripton services. In general, you’ll only need these for very specific purposes, when you need that perfect image to illustrate a concept, perhaps for an event or a seasonal celebration.

A very specific kind of stock photo house is Art Resource. This company owns the rights to sell images of hundreds of thousands of pieces of fine art, including many famous masterpieces of Christian art, from . If you really must have, say, Caravaggio’s “Calling of St. Matthew”, you can license it, but it will cost you a pretty penny.

Other sources

Finally, you could just hire a professional photographer or find a talented and willing volunteer in your parish to take photos, if what you need is photos from parish events or people in the parish or the like. A professional photographer can be a good choice if you need staff headshots for the website, for example, because they usually know not just how to shoot the photo, but how to make the people being photographed at ease so the shot comes out best. Just before sure to talk to the photographer about copyright and your usage rights. Remember, the photographer usually retains copyright unless you and he explicitly agree otherwise in advance.

What not to do

We’ve covered this a bit, but it bears repeating: Just because you find an image (or poem or other work[6]) in a search engine doesn’t mean that you can just use it. It is likely still under copyright and even if it’s on a dozen different websites, unless you confirm otherwise, those websites either confirmed their right to use them with the owner, determined the photo was available for them to use, or they ignored their obligations under copyright rules.

Likewise, if something is labeled “royalty-free” it’s also not free for the taking. Royalty-free means that once you acquire the license to use the image (whether through purchase or permission), you won’t have to pay for each additional use.

Also “free clip art” doesn’t mean free. The images on clip-art CDs and clip-art websites are the property of their original owners and are often copyrighted, but the owners of the artwork have allowed it to be distributed freely. However, that art often comes with restrictions on use. For example, they may allow you to use the in your parish bulletin but not on your website. Be sure you understand any restrictions before using any image from them.

Bottom line

The Internet has given us access to professional-quality media to improve our websites and other communications like never before and at prices that are often in the reach of the tight budgets that Catholic ministries often work within. Yet, the ability to easily capture and copy digital media opens us up to the potiential to misuse that content like never before. We have not just a legal duty, but also a moral and ethical duty as Catholics involved in ministry to uphold those standards both to protect the Church from liability, but also as examples and role models for others.

There are many options available to us for inexpensive or free digital media that respect copyright. Are there any I’ve missed? Do you have questions about this area that we–as non-lawyers–might be able to answer?

Peter Dwyer of Liturgical Press scrolls through a blog during a discussion between U.S. bishops and Catholics engaged in social media Nov. 11 in Baltimore. The gathering was held prior to the U.S. bishops’ annual fall meeting. (CNS photo/Nancy Phelan Wiechec)

The Center for Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University released a new report this week that should be of interest to every Catholic who works with new media, whether paid or a volunteer. The report, entitled Catholic New Media Use in the United States, 2012, surveyed more than 1,000 self-identified Catholics (which includes those who do not practice or even rejected their faith, but still call themselves Catholic). (Here is the press release from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.)

The bottom line is that while Catholics are pretty much like all other Americans in how and how much they use the Internet, we still have a long way to go in encouraging them to access Catholic content on our websites or on social media. On the other hand, this kind of information is devilish to quantify. It may seem like the number of searches for the word “Catholic” would tell us how often people are looking for Catholic information online, in fact, it doesn’t tell us how often people search for “pope”, “Vatican”, “Mary”, “sacraments”, and any one of a thousand other Catholic words.

Nevertheless, there was some important data, such as:

The Catholic website most often visited regularly by self-identified adult Catholics is their parish website. Currently about one in ten (9 percent) say they visit this once a month or more often. This is equivalent to 5.3 million individuals. By comparison, only 5 percent of self-identified Catholics said they used these sites in the three months prior to when CARA surveyed them in 2005. Of those Catholics who regularly use these sites, 81 percent evaluate these as “good” or “excellent.” Four percent of Catholics indicate regular use of their diocesan website. Two percent regularly use a website associated with one of the Church’s educational institutions (from elementary schools to colleges) and 2 percent also regularly use a Catholic news website.

What this tells us is that very few people visit their parish websites. However, keeping in mind that about 15% of Catholics (at least in the Archdiocese of Boston) attend Mass on a weekly basis, that means we’re reaching a little more than half of them. What it doesn’t tell us is why[1]. And as for 81 percent saying their parish websites are good or excellent, let’s keep in mind that these are the people who continue to use them. If we expanded the pool to those who don’t bother to use their parish websites because they are so bad or don’t exist, I think we’d see very different numbers.

Another interesting tidbit shows us that print is not yet dead:

Consistent with regularity of use, adult Catholics say their parish bulletin is among the most important sources for getting information, news, or other types of content about the Catholic faith (38 percent of respondents indicating this). Of those who regularly use this source, 92 percent said this was either the most important source or second most important source to them for obtaining this content.

Following parish bulletins, the sources most likely to be considered among respondents’ two most important sources are: diocesan newspapers or magazines (12 percent), parish websites (5 percent), Wikipedia (3 percent), secular newspapers or magazines (3 percent), Catholic television stations (3 percent), Catholic radio stations (2 percent), and Facebook accounts associated with Catholics or Catholic institutions (2 percent).

Following parish bulletins, the sources most likely to be considered among the most important to those who use each source are: diocesan newspapers or magazines (75 percent), the website for the U.S. Bishops (71 percent), Wikipedia (62 percent), a secular newspaper or magazine (60 percent), an official Catholic website or blog authorized or sanctioned by a bishop or cardinal (56 percent), and Catholic television stations (51 percent).

While I value my own parish’s bulletin to keep up to date with what’s going on in the parish, as a source of information, news, or other content about the Catholic faith, there’s hardly any of that there. And nearly every parish bulletin I’ve seen is similar. That’s not a knock on parish bulletins or their importance, but it’s not what they’re designed for. Consider that Wikipedia and secular newspapers or magazines outrank Catholic TV, radio, and social media for where people go to get reliable news about the Church and their faith and then think about how uniformly mediocre those secular sources are and you begin to see the problem.

Of course, this isn’t an invitation to retreat or to give up, but to be an encouragement for how much work we have to do. For one thing, it’s a lesson that “Build it and they will come” is only true in “Field of Dreams”. It’s not enough to create websites and social media and pack them full of good content on a regular basis. You also have to be getting the word out about it through, let’s say the most important sources of information, the parish bulletin, or through announcements at Mass or mailings to homes or flyers sent home with religious education kids or whatever works for you.

We can create the best platforms with the most amazing content and if nobody knows about them it’s all pointless. In the near future we’ll continue the conversation about how to spread the word and get more use for your Catholic new media. In the meantime, please share what you do. How do you promote your Catholic new media?

The English-language Italian news agency Rome Reports has a nice video report on Cardinal Seán’s Twitter initiative and our efforts in new media at the Archdiocese of Boston.

The other web sites mentioned in the report are SuicideIsAlwaysATragedy.org and YearofFaithBoston.org

Google has announced on one of its company blogs that it plans to end support for Internet Explorer 8 in its products and websites as of November 15, 2012. (Internet Explorer 7 has already been sidelined.) While Windows users on Vista, 7, and the upcoming 8 are likely using Internet Explorer 9 and, soon, 10, those still on Windows XP aren’t able to run those more modern browsers. And because Google is the bellwether of the Internet, their end of support for those ancient browsers will be the signal for many other website owners to follow suit. Users of IE 7 and 8 will soon find themselves with frustrating web experiences or locked out of some websites all together.

Many parishes and ministries aren’t ready to upgrade to Windows 8, perhaps because they’ll need new hardware or don’t have the time, and so they’ve been sticking with XP. So what can they do? In the short term, their best bet will be to switch to a new web browser that is supported by the vast majority of websites, like Firefox, Chrome or Safari. In the longer term, they’ll want to upgrade their computers, either to the latest Windows operating system or to new computers.

Nothing is forever, especially on the Internet and at some point your old computer and its old operating system will need to be put out to pasture. It would be great if we didn’t have to spend money every few years on new technology, but on the other hand, prices for good hardware and software has never been cheaper and the user experience has never been better. Plus you’ll get access to all kinds of capabilities that you didn’t with XP.

If you’re an Archdiocese of Boston parish or ministry looking for help, let us know and we’ll point you to the right resources for you.

Google Apps for Nonprofits

One of the challenges faced by parishes and Catholic ministries in new media is setting up a good communications infrastructure. Email continues to be the primary means for most organizations to communicate, yet many parishes find themselves stuck using a hodgepodge of addresses from their Internet provider (e.g. Comcast or Verizon), free Internet services (e.g. Gmail or Hotmail) or the personal email addresses of staff members.

Of course, this situation isn’t ideal because it lacks consistency and professionalism. Consistent email addresses (e.g. first_lastname@parish.org) make it easy for someone to recall your email addresses or even to intuit them ifthey know one already. And having a common domain name that is all your own imparts a confidence that your parish or ministry is well-managed and has it all together. As a bonus, if your email address’s domain is the same as your website domain, then you’re providing free advertising for your website with every email you send.

While some website hosting providers include email addresses with your hosting plan, there is another option and for non-profits like parishes and ministries, it’s free. That option is Google Apps for Nonprofits. Now, some of you may recall some time ago that Google announced that religious groups were ineligible for it’s nonprofits program, but they have since changed their mind.

The heart of the program is email services. If you’re familiar with Gmail, which is considered the gold standard of free email services, then you’ll be familiar with the email component of GAN. In fact, they’re exactly the same except that your email address in GAN uses your own domain name. But you also get access to Google Calendar, Google Docs, and a few other minor services, all with small workgroup interactivity included.

When you apply for the program, you will need your tax exempt letter proving your 501(c)3 status and your tax-exempt ID number. After that, the process is straightforward, although it’s not trivial. If you have someone with some computer saavy on your staff or as a volunteer, you might want to ask for their help to ensure you understand all the steps you need to take.

From there, you just follow the steps laid out for you by Google and very soon, you’ll have your new email addresses and calendars and the like. With a little more work you can also be accessing your email through your smartphone and on your computer using software such as Outlook or the Mac’s Mail app.

We have a few hints, tips, and lessons we’ve learned from setting a number of our own domains on Google Apps for Nonprofits and we hope to share them here in the future, but for now this is enough to get you started.

Best-in-class Internet services at no-cost to you or your parish or ministry. What’s left to think about?

© Georgejmclittle | Dreamstime.com

Search engines like Google have pretty much replaced the Yellow Pages and other directories as the way that most people find local businesses and organizations. We’ve talked before in our presentations and on this site about the importance of your website and its content for search engine optimization (SEO), but there’s another way to ensure that people can find you when they’re looking for a Catholic parish in your area: Google Places.

If you’ve ever done a Google search and seen the results begin with a map with red pins and a list of business or organizations, then you’ve seen Google Places in action. And while it’s possible for places–like your church–to show up in the results without you having taken any proactive steps to be listed, why not ensure you show along with all the relevant information by claiming your Google Places listing. After all, we want to make sure that someone looking for a Catholic church in your area can find you, right?

It’s easy to get started. You just go to Google Places and follow the prompts for claiming your “business” listing (from this point assume “business” means “church”) for free. Google even provides a step-by-step guide to walk yout through it. They also offer you a nice article with tips on creating a good listing.

In the end, you’ll be given a nice dashboard that will reveal useful data like how many times your Google Places listing has shown up a a local search result, how many times it was clicked for more info on Maps, driving directions, or to go to your website. You will also see the top search queries by which people found your listing, You can even see a listing of the zip codes from which people are asking for driving directions.

Click to see a larger view

Google also gives the ability to share an update on your place page, perhaps highlighting a speaker or a parish mission or the Christmas or Easter Mass schedule. (The listings expire 30 days after posting, so they’re intended for more topical information). You also get full control over your profile, so you can including your street address, mailing address, business office hours, and even other information like Mass times.

It should only take a few minutes to complete your profile, but by doing so you will make it that much easier for people to find your parish when they are seeking you. When it’s put like that, doesn’t it make sense that every parish should claim their Google Places?