What it solves
You told us the site is first a discipleship tool and second a way to be found.
It gets built in that order. Your mission gives us the structure.
Love GodGathering Sunday for worship and teaching that is practical
and relevant to everyday living.Sermons, teaching, and service times, findable in
seconds
Love OthersGetting into a Life Group, where community and close
friendships are built.Life Groups given a real path, not a buried page
Serve the WorldJoining a ministry team and putting what we learn into
practice.Every ministry with a way in, including the deaf ministry
"Technology is a tool, but not a replacement for in-person fellowship."
So every path on this site ends in a room with people in it
A family with adults and kids looking for that is who the site is built for. Here is
what currently stands between them and it. Fourteen things found on lwbc.net this month, not opinions
about design.
What someone outside the church runs into
Invisible in the map boxFor "baptist church near me," Living Word
does not appear in Google's local results, where nearly every visitor search ends.
The map box is only one kind of searchNothing ranks for "what to
expect at a baptist church," "churches with Sunday school Lynchburg," or "interpreted service
near me," which is where a family is still deciding.
Nobody is asking for reviewsMap placement runs partly on review
count, and a church with fewer reviews is outranking you. No one is asking members for one.
Sixty four pages, zero descriptionsWhen you don't write the summary
Google shows, Google guesses. Right now it is guessing on every page.
The deaf ministry has nowhere to send peopleA deaf family searching
for an interpreted service in Lynchburg has no page to land on.
Years of preaching are invisible to searchSermons live on YouTube as
video. Google cannot read what was said in them, so nobody can search for a sermon by its
content, only its title.
Interested visitors have no next stepSomeone reads the site, thinks
about coming, and leaves. No plan-a-visit, no connect card, no way to reach them again.
Community events don't reach the communityVBS, Christmas programs,
anything that could draw a neighbor sits on a calendar nobody outside the church opens.
Home school families can't find youLocal families searching for
co-op and curriculum support don't know Living Word has anything for them.
What the congregation runs into
Years of teaching, scatteredThe lwbcpress material, the sermon
archive, and the podcast live in separate places nobody thinks to look for.
Nowhere to learn between SundaysSomeone who wants to go deeper after
a sermon has nothing to open on Monday.
The teaching is a pile, not a pathFifty resources with no order is a
library with no shelves. Tracks are what turn an archive into discipleship.
Small group leaders start over every weekNo shared study material and
no leader guides, so the same work gets recreated across groups.
Nobody can tell what is workingNo reporting on who is finding the
site, what they searched, or what they read. Decisions get made on guesses.
You have already paid for almost all of this
The building is paid for. The interpreters are funded. The sermons are recorded and the teaching
is written. The website is the only part not carrying its weight, and a family that never finds you
never sees any of the rest.
Funded and workingThe building. The interpreters. The sermon archive.
The podcast. Years of teaching.
Funded and not workingThe front door.
Who does what
You said the simpler the better, and that not everyone is tech savvy. So the line is
drawn in one place: the church owns the words, we own everything else.
Living Word handles
- The wording. What the church wants to say, in the church’s voice
- Two minutes a week on the update form
- Elder approval before anything goes live
- Forwarding the explainer to your Liberty and TRBC contacts
MySEODesk handles
- Every piece of technology. Build, hosting, security, backups, updates
- All SEO, technical and ongoing
- Loading, tagging, and organizing the Learning Center
- Google Business Profile setup and the sermon and podcast feeds
- Training the Worship Leader and leaving a one-page guide
True of every tier
- Every account is created in the church’s name and stays the church’s
- Giving stays on Church Center. We never see donor records or card numbers
- Nothing goes live without Elder approval
- Built on Astro: fastest load times, no plugin risk, we handle security
- Elder rotation changes nothing. Access and approval follow the office, not the person
One ad platform, plus the site, plus extras
The site itself already carries its own SEO; none of this is needed for it to work. If
the church wants paid reach on top of it later, run one ad platform at a time, not both at once, so
budget and results stay easy to read. Extras beyond that are scoped and quoted separately.
Google Ads
Paid placement for the searches
you care most about, running above the organic results while they build.
Meta and Instagram Ads
Reaching Lynchburg
families by area and life stage for a VBS, a Christmas program, or the reopening itself.
Scoped and quoted separately if desired. Ad spend goes to the platform you choose,
not to us, and we would walk the Elders through what it actually costs before anyone commits a
dollar.
How it works
You said this is worth it if, a year from now, people find it convenient to go to
the church website for all things LWBC. Six weeks from a signed start date, and a promise attached
to the outcome.
Found, or we keep working free
If Living Word is not appearing in Google’s local map results for "baptist church near me"
and "church in Lynchburg VA" within 180 days of launch, we keep working on it at no charge until
it does. No new invoice, no time limit on our end.
We have done this before
Not for a church yet, and we would rather say that plainly than dress it up. But to
Google, a church and a local business are the same kind of problem: a place people search for nearby
and choose from a map box. Real numbers from that same problem, solved for other clients: a Google
Business Profile stuck for nineteen months, seventeen services recovered once it was fixed. A local
real estate site invisible in its own market, up ninety nine percent year over year in search
impressions once schema and technical SEO were in place.
The six weeks
Week 0AccessYou send domain, YouTube, and Church Center
access. Nothing else is asked of you yet.
Weeks 1 to 2StructureSitemap, homepage direction, and the
deaf ministry page drafted for Elder review.
Weeks 3 to 4BuildAll pages built. Learning Center
resources loaded and tagged.
Week 5ApprovalPastoral staff reviews, Elders give the final yes.
Worship Leader trained on the submission queue, one-page guide left behind.
Week 6LiveLaunch, SEO submitted, Google Business Profile
claimed.
What it costs
You said under $40k annually, and that the congregation is honed in on being good
stewards. Complete with Essentials comes to $19,500 in year one, under half of that ceiling. The build
is one time and the church owns everything either way.
Complete
The site plus the Learning Center. Twelve pages, fifty resources. What we would
build for a church your size.
$7,500one time
Foundation
$4,500 one time
Eight pages. The new site without the Learning Center. Closes the outreach and
visibility problems above; the scattered teaching stays where it is until the Learning Center
is added.
Ministry Plus
$10,500 one time
Sixteen pages, 120 resources, hands-on podcast setup, deeper home school tools,
more design rounds. Choose this if the podcast is a priority.
Keeping it running, after launch
Essentials
$1,000 /mo
Nothing breaks and nobody has to think about it.
- Hosting, updates, security, backups
- SEO monitoring
- Up to 3 hrs/mo edits
Growth
$2,500 /mo
The site keeps gaining ground without staff writing anything.
- Everything in Essentials
- 1 to 2 posts a month
- Monthly rank report
SEO Campaign
$4,000 /mo
A dedicated push to own local search. Six month minimum.
- Everything in Growth
- Business Profile management
- Podcast ranking
- PR and link outreach
Essentials and Growth are month to month, cancel with thirty days’ notice.
Extra pages beyond a tier are $150 each, extra Learning Center resources $10 each, never a surprise
mid-build. WordPress instead of Astro is available for full self-service control; priced separately
once scoped, added on top of the tier above.
Why the date matters
You said the site should match the grand reopening. Six weeks from a signed start date puts it
live in early November, settled and indexed before the reopening and before the Christmas Eve
service, the day of the year when visitors actually walk in looking.
Reply in writing with the tier you want and we confirm a start date
within one business day of access arriving. Prices hold through October 14, 2026. This proposal
is an estimate for discussion, not a contract.
Greg BentzMySEODesk
