First Presbyterian Church of Vero Beach, 520 Royal Palm Blvd. A response to Ted Fuller's July 16, 2026 discussion draft, with the measured baseline behind it.
Ted's draft names the right goal: the new sanctuary is the biggest story this church has had in a generation, and it should be the front door for the next 300 members rather than a one day announcement. We agree with the direction, so this proposal does not restate it. It adds the part a plan needs before money is spent: what the church's online presence actually looks like today, measured, and what has to change between now and the January 2027 opening.
We ran a full competitive audit of firstpresvero.org against three other Vero Beach churches on July 16, 2026. The finding is unusually clear, and it is good news. First Pres is not invisible. It is invisible to the people who do not already know its name.
All figures below are from our July 16, 2026 audit of www.firstpresvero.org compared to www.ccovb.org, pccvero.org, and christchurchvero.org. Nothing here is estimated. The full report is available at the link in the next step section.
| What someone searches | First Pres | Community Church | Pillar Community | Christ Church |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| presbyterian church vero beach | #1 and in the map pack | #31 | #36 | #34 |
| churches in vero beach | #3 | #10 | #24 | #12 |
| church (local) | not ranked | #4 | not ranked | #3 |
| church near me | not ranked | #7 | #14 | #9 |
| sunday service vero beach | not ranked | #8 | #10 | #3 |
Google organic positions pinned to the Vero Beach market, measured July 16, 2026. "Not ranked" means the site did not appear anywhere in the top 100 results.
The audit graded the site D on 37 on page checks, with 23 passing. Two competitors also graded D and one graded C, so this is a whole category that is underbuilt, not a First Pres failure. The items that matter most for a church:
| Issue | Priority | What we found | Why it costs the church |
|---|---|---|---|
| No click to call links | critical | No tel: links anywhere on the site | The office number 772.562.9088 is on the page but a phone visitor cannot tap it to call. Older members and first time visitors call rather than fill a form. |
| Three H1 headings | critical | 3 H1 tags, should be 1 | Google cannot tell what the page is about, which suppresses the exact "church near me" style rankings the church is missing. |
| Index gap | important | 374 URLs in the sitemap, 168 indexed by Google | Over half the site is not in Google at all. Ministry, event, and program pages that do not exist in Google cannot be found by anyone new. |
| No sharing image | important | Missing og:image | When a member shares a service, concert, or event link on Facebook, it posts as a bare grey link with no picture. This alone suppresses clicks sharply. |
| No event or FAQ structured data | important | No Event, FAQPage, or BreadcrumbList markup | Service times, concerts, and Christmas and Easter services cannot appear as rich results, and AI answer tools have nothing structured to quote. |
| Missing image alt text | important | 3 of 8 images on the audited page | An accessibility gap for members using screen readers, and those photos never surface in Google Images. |
| No paid search presence | opportunity | 0 visible Google ads. One competitor is bidding | See the Google Ad Grants section. For a qualifying church this traffic can be free. |
The site is built on Wix. That is workable, and page speed is genuinely good at 83 out of 100, but several of the fixes above are constrained by what the Wix editor exposes. Platform is a decision for the working meeting, not a foregone conclusion.
Mapped one to one against the seven items in Ted's draft, so nothing in that document is dropped and each item has a concrete deliverable.
| From Ted's draft | What we actually do |
|---|---|
| Redesign the website | Rebuild the site around the three audiences it serves: current members who need the calendar, giving, and Realm; newcomers who need service times, what to expect, and childcare answered in one screen; and the community who come for the preschool, Quest Kids Club, concerts, and The Galleries. Every critical and important item in the audit table is closed as part of the build, and we re-run the same audit afterward to prove it. |
| Expand online reach and search visibility | Target the newcomer searches First Pres does not currently rank for. That means real pages, not keywords sprinkled on the homepage: a first visit page, a worship times page, a childcare and nursery page, one page per ministry and program, and one page per concert and event. |
| Clarify mission and vision | Write the church's story once, properly, and use it consistently: the Five Talent framing, the preschool, the A+ Sunday school program, the mission trips, and the roughly 30 community programs Ted cites. Today that story is not on the site in a form a stranger can read in 30 seconds. |
| Strengthen Google presence | Own the Google Business Profile: service times, photos of the new sanctuary as it is completed, events posted weekly, and a standing, ethical review request to members. The rating of 4.8 is already the best in town. The volume of 52 is the number that needs to move. |
| Grow the mailing list | Signup on every page, a real welcome sequence for newcomers, and a monthly newsletter built from what is already happening rather than written from scratch. Delivery, open rates, and list growth reported monthly. |
| Publicize programs, events, and concerts | One publishing calendar that pushes each event to the website, the Google Business Profile, email, and social from a single entry, with Event structured data so service and concert times can appear directly in search. |
| Pastor's Corner | Yes. We recommend it, monthly rather than weekly so it is sustainable, and we do the production: interview or recording, transcript, edit, publish, email, and social. Pastoral leadership provides the thinking and gives final approval on every word. This is the single best piece of content a church can publish for both search and AI answer engines. |
Captured here so it is on the record and nothing gets lost while Ted is in Maine.
| What Ted asked for | How we will handle it |
|---|---|
| The opening page should show the interior of the new church with people in it, though Ted was not sure doing what | Our answer to "doing what" is: greeting each other after a service. Not a posed congregation shot and not an empty architectural photo. A newcomer deciding whether to visit is asking whether they will be welcomed, and people mid conversation answers that faster than any headline. See the timing note directly below, because this photo cannot exist until the building opens. |
| When we cover the five missions, show committee members in action | Agreed, and it is the right instinct. One page for each of Worship, Discipleship, Mission, Fellowship, and Hospitality, each led by a photo of the actual committee doing the actual work, with the names of the people to contact. We will need a shoot day per committee, or existing photos if the church already has them. |
| Feature Jacob Craig in the music section | Yes. Jacob gets a named feature, not a line in a list: what he has built, what the music program looks like across the year, and the concert calendar as structured events so the concerts appear in Google. Music that already draws people from around town is one of the few things this church can rank for that no other church can copy. |
| MissionInsite, with Anne able to help us use it | Useful and we want it. Its demographic and mapping data tells us which neighborhoods to aim the content and the Ad Grants campaigns at, rather than guessing. We will need Anne to get us access, and we will use it in Phase 1 when we define the audience. |
| "We Have Everything for You," the differentiators list | We do not have this yet. It did not arrive with the August 2 email, and there has been no attachment on any message so far. It is the one file still missing, and it matters because the differentiators drive the whole story. |
Google gives qualifying 501(c)(3) nonprofits up to 10,000 US dollars per month in free search advertising. Churches with their own 501(c)(3) registration are generally eligible, subject to Google's non discrimination and content rules and a website quality standard. We manage Google Ad Grants accounts for other nonprofits on the Treasure Coast, so this is routine work for us rather than a new experiment.
We do not charge Indian River County nonprofits to get this set up. The eligibility check, the application, and the account build run about six hours and we donate them, whichever option the church picks. Free money for a local nonprofit should not have a bill attached to it.
We will not promise this until it is confirmed. Eligibility depends on the church's specific registration and on the site meeting Google's requirements, which the current site would likely fail on at least the click to call and heading items. Confirming eligibility with Google is a task in Phase 1, and if it clears, the grant covers exactly the newcomer searches the ranking table shows First Pres missing, at no media cost to the church.
This is the schedule for the full program in Option 2 below. On the hourly Option 1, Phases 1, 3, and 4 all still happen on the current website, at whatever pace the church funds. Only the Phase 2 rebuild is specific to Option 2.
Every baseline below is a measured number from the July 16, 2026 audit. The targets are targets, not guarantees. Google controls search rankings, not us, and we will report honestly whether a number moved or did not.
| Measure | Baseline, July 16 2026 | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Ranking for newcomer searches (church near me, sunday service vero beach, church) | Not ranked on any of the three | Ranked on all three |
| Ranking for presbyterian church vero beach | #1, in the map pack | Hold it |
| Pages indexed by Google | 168 of 374 sitemap URLs | Close the gap on every page worth indexing |
| Google reviews | 52 reviews at 4.8 stars | Pass the competitor average of 62 without losing the 4.8 |
| On page audit grade | D, 23 of 37 checks passing | Both critical items closed in Phase 1, then every remaining failing check the platform allows. Re-audited on the identical 37 checks and reported |
| Email list | To be supplied by the church at kickoff | Set once we have the starting number |
| Website visits and first visit page views | To be supplied from the church's analytics at kickoff | Set once we have the starting number |
We have deliberately priced a way in that does not require a budget decision at all. Option 1, which is what we recommend, is simple hourly work on the site the church already has, starting as small as two hours. Option 2 is the full program at a fixed price, there for whenever the church wants it. Both are laid out below so the church can compare them honestly rather than being asked to approve a single number.
We work on the existing Wix site and the church's existing Google presence. The church asks for a piece of work, we quote the hours before we start, we never exceed that without approval, and we bill only for hours actually worked. There is nothing to sign and nothing that renews.
The website hour estimates below are not guesses. They come from the effort rating our audit assigned to each individual item on July 16, 2026. The Google Business Profile and Ad Grants estimates are ours, based on doing that same work for other nonprofits. Note the Ad Grants row: we do not charge Indian River County nonprofits for that one.
| Work package | Estimated hours | Estimated cost | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter fix pack | about 2 hours | about 300 dollars | Closes both critical audit items: click to call on the office number, and a single correct H1 per page. The smallest useful piece of work we can do. |
| Full audit close out | about 20 hours | about 3,000 dollars | Every remaining item in the audit on the current site: the index gap, sharing images, alt text, Event and FAQ and breadcrumb structured data, meta descriptions, email links. We close every failing check the Wix platform allows us to reach, then re-run the identical audit and show the church the before and after side by side. |
| Google Business Profile setup | about 2 hours | about 300 dollars | Service times, photos, weekly event posts, and a review request process for members. This is what moves the 52 review count toward the competitor average of 62. |
| Google Ad Grants application | about 6 hours | No charge | Eligibility check, application, and account build. If it clears, up to 10,000 dollars a month in free search advertising. We do not bill Indian River County nonprofits for this work. It is roughly six hours of ours and we donate it, on the hourly option and the fixed option alike. |
There is no monthly package here and no tier to pick. Work is requested when the church wants it and billed at 150 dollars an hour. If the church later wants ongoing help with content, events, the newsletter, and Pastor's Corner, that is the same hourly rate arranged a month at a time, and we would rather set that up once the church has seen how we work than ask for it now.
What Option 1 does not include: a new website. Hourly work improves the current Wix site, which is a real improvement, but the newcomer pages that do not exist today still would not exist. Rebuilding the site hourly would cost more than the 3,000 dollar fixed price in Option 2, which is why we do not recommend doing it that way.
Everything in this proposal, at a price fixed in advance so there is no hourly meter and no surprise invoice. The 3,000 dollars is the same website figure we gave Ted on July 16 and it has not moved. It covers the complete rebuild delivered in Phase 2. The 1,250 dollars a month covers all of the rest: the Phase 1 fixes, Google Business Profile, content, events, email and newsletter, Pastor's Corner production, Ad Grants application and management, quarterly re-audits, and monthly reporting.
Twelve month term, and the monthly can be paused for a month with 30 days notice if the church needs to. First year total is 18,000 dollars, which is 1,500 dollars a month averaged across the year.
| Option 1, hourly | Option 2, fixed | |
|---|---|---|
| To get started | 300 dollars | 3,000 dollars |
| Commitment | None at all. No contract, no monthly, no minimum. Ask for work when you want it | Twelve months |
| New website | No | Yes, delivered by December 2026 |
| What the church actually spends | Only the hours it asks for. Every package above added together, meaning the entire audit fixed and the Google Business Profile built, is about 3,300 dollars, and nothing recurs after that | 18,000 dollars across the first year. That is 3,000 for the website plus 1,250 a month for twelve months, or 1,500 a month averaged |
| Budget certainty | The church decides item by item, and can stop after the first 300 dollars | Fixed in advance, no meter |
| Best for | Proving the work first, or if the sanctuary campaign already has the church's attention this year | Being genuinely ready for the January 2027 opening |
Billed at cost with written approval first, never marked up: domain registration and hosting if the church moves off Wix, any paid advertising above the Google Ad Grants allocation, professional photography and video of the new sanctuary, and any third party software the church chooses to add. We do not spend the church's money without approval on the amount first.
No guarantees on rankings. Google decides what ranks. We commit to the work and to honest reporting, not to a position or a date.
Ted's draft also asks for a working meeting to confirm priorities, define the audience, and agree a timeline. We agree, and this document is meant to make that meeting short. Bring the current email list size and website analytics, and we can leave the meeting with a fixed Phase 1 start date. Ted leaves for Maine on August 4 and is reachable by phone from there, so if the meeting cannot happen before he goes, a call works and Phase 1 does not have to wait until October.
Before the meeting, the full audit behind every number in this proposal is here: verobeach.marketing/clients/first-presbyterian/audit/