SEO simply means – Search Engine Optimization.  It’s a bit of science that deals with how search engines view your websites, and more importantly how they rank you in the search results.  Before we begin, let me just say that you create your website for people, not for search engines.  You might have the most optimized site, but is it user-friendly and pleasant to visit?  I’m not a self-proclaimed expert on the subject.  There are quite a few sites devoted to teaching about SEO.  If you want to really get your hands dirty, sign up for a Lynda.com account and watch their four hour training session.

SEO Tips

Meta Tags

• I’ve seen many people create a ton of tags in the header of their website thinking this will generate better search results.  Sadly, they are dead wrong.  Google does not even look at meta tags when ranking search results.  You can read the article here.

Keywords

• Keywords are entity words within your titles and content.  The base unit of data for search engines is a keyword.  This is a word when coupled with other keywords creates a rich definition of the target content.  It’s important that you define a set of keywords for your target market.  There are a lot of keyword generators available on the web, however, my personal approach is that you sit down and do some hard work to find keywords that fit your mission and vision.  If you have a marketing professional in your church, have them give you keyword suggestions that reflect your marketing strategy.

Page/Post Titles

• I have found from research and speaking to SEO geniuses that your page title is the most important part of your page ranking.   Secondary is your content.  It is vitally important that each page of your website has a unique relevant title that identifies that pages content.   The position of keywords within your title also affect your page ranking.  If you want your church to be ranked in a search for “Naperville Pentecostal church”, your homepage title should reflect this.

Meta Descriptions

• Your meta descriptions should be worded with rich keywords that describe the content of the page.  Be careful not to repeat keywords over and over within the content as this flags a potential violation in the searchbot.

Content

• Your content is very important as well.  A search engine looks at the length and the quality of your content.  Your pages/post content should not be too short or too long.  Within your content, it’s important to identify sections using heading tags.  Do not increase the font size and place a bold tag to emphasize heading titles.  The searchbot is trained to see h1, h2, h3, etc. tags as section titles.   Also when presenting content, NEVER use tables.  Tables split data into numerous cells and cannot be read in a linear fashion.  Do your best to keep all content in paragraph tags.

Legitimate Backlinks

• Backlinks are basically other websites that have a link to your websites.  I don’t really care for backlinking ranking because people hire spammers to add links to hundreds of sites in the comment sections of other sites.  Basically, this is fraudulent ranking.  However, since search engines still consider backlinking a relevant ranking metric, do your best to get your members or friends to add a link to your site on their website.  These are legitimate links that help others find you and give you some credibility with search engines.

DO NOT PAY FOR SEO CONSULTANTS!!!!! (Caps used to denote screaming my head off at you)

• Don’t spend resources that God has given to your church on SEO experts.  This is being an unwise manager of God’s money.  You know the most about your operation, get dirty and learn some proper SEO techniques for free and then do some hard work to make your website optimal.  Read this article.

Create Clean Code

• A search engine is trained to look at clean code.  If you have messy code, chances are you are not getting optimal search results.  Check the quality of your code at at the W3C  Validation site.  It’s free.  Clean code is a non-negotiable practice.  I use the transitional document typel.  The strict document type will give you a headache trying to validate your code.  It’s not necessary according to me.

Free SEO Tools

If you’re a Wordpress freak like me, here are a few plugins that can help you with your SEO strategies.

• All-In-One SEO Pack – This awesome plugin places a form below all page/post content in the WP editor to create custom, unique titles and descriptions for all of your content.
• Google XML Sitemaps – One of the most important steps to getting noticed is submitting an XML sitemap file to Google and other search engines.  This is a techie and scary process for those not techie.  This plugin automates the entire process by submitting a dynamically created XML to Google and other search engines.

Other Tools

• Google Webmaster Tools – This is a set of user-friendly and self-explained tools to help webmasters get the most out of search engines.
• Google Analytics – Find out who is visiting your site and what keywords they have used to find you.  This is a great way to get a demographic sampling of who is visiting your site.  This also can give you valuable information to shape your marketing strategy.
• SEO Moz - There are dozens of tools out there like SEO Moz that help you determine proper SEO strategies.  There are eight free tools you can use to optimize your site.

In Conclusion

SEO should not be taken lightly, and should not be taken too seriously for church websites.  We do not sell merchandise on church sites, we give a snapshot of our churches.  Use proper SEO to make site visible to potential guests, but make sure you are spending the majority of your time creating relevant content that will enrich those who visit.  If you just focus on page ranking, chances are, your website will be stale.  I love this quote from the above referenced article:  “they get seduced by the SEO dark side into thinking they need to create content for Google instead of for their readers”.  Go be productive and make your website awesome!

Install Wordpress

• Install Wordpress – I used a subdomain (http://team.mydomain.com)  Most hosting companies have a One-Click application installer so you don’t have to mess with setting up a database or ugly FTP interfaces.   All you have to do is fill out a simple form where you want Wordpress installed, give it a few minutes, and viola, it’s up-and-running.

Install the P2 Theme

• Log in to the admin interface (http://team.mydomain.com/wp-admin/) and go to Appearance->Add New Themes
• Search for “P2″ in the search box and install the theme.
• Activate the theme under Appearance->Themes
• If you have problems, download the theme files to your computer and upload them to your WP directory using an FTP client.

Make your Wordpress Private

• You probably don’t want the world reading your posts, so let’s make your Wordpress private.  Go to Plugins->Add New
• Search for Private Wordpress and install the plugin (Install button is to the right of the search results table)
• Make sure Private Wordpress is activated under Plugins->Installed

Setup Your Preferences

• Go to Settings->General and give your portal a name and description.
• Go to Settings->Reading and enter the number of posts you want to appear on each page under: “Blog pages show at most”
• Go to Settings->Discussion and enable threaded nested comments (Choose how many levels you desire – this is basically how many levels down people can comment on other’s comments)
  • To keep non-users from commenting, check “Users must be registered and logged in to comment”
  • Un-check “An administrator must always approve the comment” and “Comment author must have a previously approved comment

Force Posted Links to Open In New Pages

• Go to Plugins->Add New and search for “Target Blank In Posts And Comments”
• Install and activate this plugin.  The functions will work automatically without any additional settings.

Add Your Team Members

• Go to Users->Add New  Create profiles for your team members.  Assign them the role of author so they can only edit their own posts.  To assign a moderator, give them a role of administrator, or editor.
• Team members can have their own personalized user icon by registering the same email address in their profile at: http://gravatar.com  This is a universally recognized avatar that will work on any site they use the registered email address on.

Install Additional Features

• Try installing other plugins for added functionality.
• Allow users to be notified of additional comments with the plugin “Subscribe To Comments”
• There are dozens of YouTube plugins that allow users to embed videos right in their posts.

• Lessons in a Word document
• PDF Printouts
• PSD Design File
• Media Slide

Thanks to David McGovern for making this available to everyone.

Go To Solid Youth Ministries

Part 1 – Setting up the document – Resolution – Bleed – Safe Area

Click here to go to the original screencast for Part 1

Part 2 – Safe Image and text placement – Saving the file.

Click here to go to the original screencast for Part 2

Go To TokBox

Organizing Your Email

If you aren’t familiar with the native star tool, just click the little star in the upper right hand corner of each email.  If you have superstars enabled in the settings properly, you can click multiple times to iterate through the list of superstars.  You can tag an email with on of the above stars or orbs to identify that email later on.  I have four categories for my star usage:  Urgent, Important, Info, and Reply-To.   By simply adding star I can easily file that email, archive it and retrieve it later with all other emails that need the same action.

Creating Quick Links

Stars are great, but to get a list for a specific superstar you have to enter a cryptic code in the search bar.  Entering “has:green-check” will give you a list of all the starred items with a green check.  But, who wants to do that every time?  Gmail created a great little feature called Quick Links.  It’s basically a quick way to save frequent search results.  I use it for action folders to organize my email and access my action items quickly.

Gmail Superstars Cheatsheet

I created a handy dandy cheatsheet for you to use when searching for each superstar in Gmail.  Download it and make your Gmail experience more fun and productive!

Tranparent PNG’s

You can use these recreated images for your own projects.  Here are the transparent PNG images.

Photoshop is a funny thing in churches.  First of all is the cardiac exercise when pastors and and administrators fall out on the floor twitching when they  see the price tag of $699.00.   Next, it seems to be a craved badge of honor to say you have Photoshop on your computer especially when the bragger has no clue how to use it.  And of course there are those who think a happy cloud will fly over their head and all their design dreams will come try by installing Photoshop.   It’s um funny, hilarious, entertaining to see a person who has never touched the program, ready to conquer the world, take one look of defeat at the interface and immediately quit.  Ok, so I’m just having fun here, but Photoshop really is a quirky subject in churches.

The raging event engines of churches have to have design fuel and we need the latest and greatest version of Photoshop to design, or do we?  This crazy preconception that in order to make great art you have to have a full-blown version of Photoshop is rampant.  I get asked so many times by church workers how to get a copy of Photoshop thinking that it’s the magic tool that will cause creativity to flow.   Driven by this silly notion that you have to have a $700 program to accomplish the task, volunteers and support staff are usually left to their own devices to pirate a copy of Photoshop if the finance ministry says there is no budget.

I am against pirated software.  That’s why I am a firm believer in open source software.  It’s free, you get free upgrades, and there usually is a support community built around a good software.  There is no need to steal Photoshop these days.   You can do everything you need to do using a few cheaper and free alternatives.

• Photoshop Elements - If you are dying to have Photoshop, pick up a copy of PSE. The cost is 10-15% of what the full-fledged version costs.  PSE sports many of the awesome features of Photoshop like layers, filters, masking, and much more.  It is much more user friendly than the full version.  So, if you aren’t familiar with design, this is the product for you.  It has a huge community out there.  You can search for PSE tutorials and a ton will come up.  Grab a copy here: http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopelwin/
• Gimp – This is an open source version of Photoshop.  If you run on a Mac, you probably will be annoyed (like my friend Ryan Loyd who voiced this over lunch last week) at Gimps gimpy window interface.  It’s not so bad on a Windows machine.  There are tons of tutorials out there to learn Gimp, and the best part is it is free. http://gimp.org/
• Pixelator – MAC ONLY – This is a great full-featured photo editing/design program for $59.00.  I checked out their beta version last year and I loved using the program.  Their sleek design will make you feel like a design ninja the moment you click File>New  http://www.pixelmator.com/
• Photoshop Online - This is a simple version of Photoshop that can be accessed online.  It’s completely free to use and has some basic features.  http://photoshop.com
• Piknik – Another free online photo editing application with some awesome effects, fonts, and many more great features.  You can purchase a year’s premium subscription for a mere $25 bucks.  http://www.picnik.com
• Aviary – This is a great suite of online photo editing applications.  The Phoenix image editor is amazing and sports layers, filters, layer blending modes,  and much more.  This is about as close to the basic Photoshop functions as you can get.  The best part is it’s FREE!  http://aviary.com/
• Paint.NET - This is a free Windows based software that sports Photoshop-like features.  I’ve never personally used this, but it appears to be liked on the net.  You can check out screen shots and download a free copy at: http://www.getpaint.net/features.html
• Educational Discounts – If your church has a private school, take advantage of deep discounts provided by Adobe.  You can ask for these discounts at local retailers, however the best way is through the internet.  I personally have used JourneyEd for all my software needs at church.  Since I designed for our school, it fell under the usage agreement.  Check out all the software at: http://www.journeyed.com You can also view Adobe’s educational price list here: http://www.adobe.com/education/purchasing/education_pricing.html
• Ebay – When people upgrade to newer versions, they sell their older versions on eBay.  Do a search for CS3 or CS2 to find a good price for the whole creative suite.  Be careful to only bid on items that have actual photos of the product.  There are unscrupulous sellers that will sell you a pirated copy.  Make sure the deal is legit.  I saw a copy of the entire CS3 suite for $250.00 today.

Well, that about wraps it up for now.  There are great ways to get around dropping $700 buckaroos on PSCS4.  The creativity is in you, not the program.  If you don’t have the budget for a legal copy, let your creativity ooze through these cheaper tools and make some awesome stuff for your church.

I created this production set for churches.  You may use it free-of-charge for any church-related production.  You do not have to give a credit link.  You may not use this artwork for any commercial or personal purposes without contacting me first.  Let me know what you think!

Download Files

• HD Video Collage (Quicktime)
• HD Video Collage (MPEG)
• 4:3 Video Collage  (Quicktime)
• 4:3 Video Collage (MPEG)
• High Resolution Images Set

[Show as slideshow]

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It’s been really great getting people to create profiles, share their testimonies and post photos of church events.   We also use it to mass communicate with our members.   Many members have created their own small groups and have organized some really cool things on the network.  Most churches try to identify small group needs and invent small groups.  This social network is a great place for them to happen organically.  It definitely has been a tool to help people come together and get to know one another.

The tool we used to create our network is Ning.  For premium features like a custom domain and no ads, you need to pay a small monthly fee.  Ning has some cool features for sure, but if you’re looking for a free service, you should try Grou.ps.  I just stumbled across this awesome platform that is totally free.  It’s completely ad-free, and you can even map a custom domain for easy access and ownership.   If you already have a website, you can create a subdomain like:  http://community.mychurch.com and map it for free to your Grou.ps network.  Here are some of the cool features from Grou.ps.

Use your own branding.  Grou.ps doesn’t bug you with their logo.

Unlimited media uploads.

Free domain masking – (Ning charges almost $10.00/month for this feature!)

Integrate popular social sites to bring your members back!

Forum and mailing lists.

Personal blogs.

Real-time chat.

User sub-groups: Members can organize their own small groups!

Crowd Sourcing Wikis: Share documents and collaborate.

Calendaring.

Share files.

Share links.

Map important locations.

Customizable member profiles.

For those more technically inclined, you can even host Grou.ps on your own server because it’s open source!  You can customize it and add your own functionality to it.  Also, Grou.ps comes in over 35 languages, so if your user base needs localization, it’s already built in.

Grou.ps is completely free for the taking.  Start a social network for your church or youth group today!

Here’s a quick look at the admin panel:

Go to Grou.ps

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