April 8, 2008

Free Wordpress Blog Installs for Church Leaders

56% of you pastors out there haven't started blogging yet, according to a super scientific poll done by the Church Marketing Sucks Polling & Research Department. Now, a lot of you might be interested, but you have no idea where to start.

Scott Magdalein has something interesting to offer you. Here's what he has to say:

God impressed on me something much more simple and less spiritual than I expected that I should do for church leaders around the globe.

It's simple really. I know how to install Wordpress. Most church leaders don’t know how to install Wordpress and don't have the time to learn or the money to hire someone to do it for them. Everyone knows that a hosted Wordpress blog is more powerful, flexible, and freeing than any free blogging account (Wordpress.com, Blogger, even Typepad though it's not free). So, here it is.

I'm offering to do free Wordpress installs for church leaders that want to use blogging as a tool in their ministry.

Continue reading "Free Wordpress Blog Installs for Church Leaders"

Posted by Joshua Cody at 7:21 AM
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February 11, 2008

Microsites, Through the Launch Lens

You've probably heard of it, seen it or even participated in it. Many churches launch microsites these days to go with new ventures. Some folks have never even considered a microsite or why it might be of any help. Well, that's why we're here. We heard of a church who had particular success with a microsite to promote a new campaign, and we have their story for you.

Scott Morris, creative pastor of NORTHchurch.tv, sent us an e-mail regarding the marketing push they recently made. Check out the campaign and what he had to say:

"Our church is NORTHchurch. It started five and a half years ago with three people and no church or organization sponsoring us. Up until September of '07, we had grown to about 650 people. In September, we decided to add two new Saturday night services. We came up with the idea of LAUNCH (and his roomies) to help us promote it. It started with a video introducing the four characters, then a couple of odds and ends videos (all with volunteers--even the video guy). Our last video was with the Mayor of Oklahoma City. It’s really cool! Anyways, it was totally a viral campaign (our first)--we had a Flickr, MySpace, Wiffiti, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, on and on. We used Google Analytics to track it and ended up with over 8,200 hits from 70 countries. So on the first weekend of our new Saturday services, we added about 250 new people. Now it's been a month, and we averaged 840 people in January.

Continue reading "Microsites, Through the Launch Lens"

Posted by Joshua Cody at 1:41 PM
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February 5, 2008

21 Factors to Consider Before a Redesign

If your church is thinking about a redesign (and who isn't?), you might want to check out 21 factors to consider before a redesign. It's exactly what it sounds like and covers a lot of the important bases when considering a redesign, from content to tech to design. It's a good way to make sure you ask the questions you need to ask.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 7:27 AM
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November 2, 2007

Lessons In Not Sucking: Communication Online

This is part one in a series on Lessons In Not Sucking. Today we discuss communication online.

1. Lower the draw bridge
Whether it be your web site, blog, My Space or Facebook page, your presence online is a draw bridge to bring people in to your "world." Your online presence is not your world, it's the bridge between the person and your world.

2. The call to action: what and where
Always ask yourself what is it that you want people to do as a result of reading, watching or participating in your online presence. Do you want them to come to an event? Request more info? Call somebody? Smile? Tell a friend? Pray? If you don't know what you want people doing, how will you ever know how to get them to do it?

3. RSS is your friend
The more you can deliver your information via RSS the more helpful you become in getting people the information they want when the want it. From event announcements to volunteer assignments, if you haven't met already, RSS is just waiting to be your friend.

Continue reading "Lessons In Not Sucking: Communication Online"

Posted by Brad Abare at 7:29 AM
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September 10, 2007

Free Site Giveaway

Calling all church plants, upstarts and new ministries. We wanted to let you know that HotPress Web a Denver, Colo. based web marketing company is donating a custom web site to a nonprofit on September 31st.

With the free site, you'll get up to 25 pages, content entry assistance and management, site architecture, e-mail and a year of free hosting.

They do this every quarter. Last quarter's winner was The Cunningham Foundation.

So if you have a need for a new web site, go ahead and apply here.

Posted by Joshua Cody at 5:20 AM
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July 12, 2007

Why Your Fancy Web Site Sucks

by Tim Wall, Guest Blogger

Your web site really sucks when you try to be fancy. Yes, I'm talking to you, Mr. Front-Page-Guy with your blinking animations and scrolling text. But I'm also talking to you, Mr. High-End-Web-Guy with all that stunningly beautiful functionality few people care about or use.

No matter our skill set, we all fall victim to the insatiable desire for fanciness. I know I did. I had lots of resources. I was working in a big ol' church with a big ol' budget spending lots of time and money creating new features that, once implemented, were rarely used by more than 5% of our congregation. That's right. I wanted to innovate. I wanted to be different. I wanted to be fancy. Too bad I didn't actually create something useful.

Continue reading "Why Your Fancy Web Site Sucks"

Posted by Guest Blogger at 6:20 AM
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May 18, 2007

TagCrowd

I received an e-mail today about a new web service called TagCrowd. Many of you know that Flickr and numerous other sites use tag clouds to generate frequent topics within metadata, especially in the web 2.0 world. Some of you have no idea what at least three of the words in the last sentence mean. That's OK, too.

The reason this service is different is that it takes user-generated text and creates a tag cloud for you. While the different sizes in the midst of a tag cloud usually triggers an outbreak of obsessive compulsive disorder for me, it's still a really interesting tool. If nothing else, you can at least see a visual depiction of what you're communicating.

Continue reading "TagCrowd"

Posted by Joshua Cody at 6:50 AM
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May 1, 2007

What Makes a Church Grow?

Wanting your church to grow isn't enough. You have to take intentional action to make it happen. (Disclaimer: Yes, God makes it grow, not us. But God uses us to make it grow--by inviting our neighbors, living out our faith, etc. OK? Put the stones down.) And now we have stats to back that up. The Facts on Growth report from Hartford Seminary explores key factors in making a church grow. And it comes down to planning for growth. Among the common factors for churches that have grown:

• Multiple services.
• Launching or maintaining a web site in the past year.
• Racial diversity.
• Involving children in worship.
• Avoiding major conflict.

It's important to note that none of these are clear paths to bringing more people into your church to hear about Jesus. They're all indicators that these are mission-minded churches doing what it takes to draw people in. And as we all know, the number of butts in pews means nothing if you're not also seeing Christ in hearts. (link via Turtle Interactive, which also shares some best practices for church web sites)

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 6:11 AM
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November 21, 2006

Church Loses Domain to a Porn Site

Here's some bad news for your marketing efforts: You lost your domain and a porn site snatched it up. Too bad you just handed out fliers at the local Apple Harvest Day with the old site--now sending lots of unexpecting potential visitors to a porn site. Doh.

True story. It happened to Hope Community Church in Dover, N.H. The mix-up happened when the church was switching Internet service providers and the ISP that sold the url admitted fault. But it's still a good lesson for any church--especially if your annual domain renewal could easily get overlooked by a non-techie staff member or volunteer who hasn't had the time lately. (link via Cory Miller)

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 8:22 AM
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October 26, 2006

9 Lists for Web Designers

Some of these lists and resources are older, but they age like fine wine and can still offer some help and hope to church web designers.

• 8 Web Design Cliches of 2006 - Odd names and misplaced dots and gradients, excessive use thereof are my favorites.

• 9 Ways to Misunderstand Web Standards - This one's pretty techie in nature, but if you're a designer you've got to understand (and not misunderstand) your web standards.

• 5 Techniques for Picking a Domain Name - Some great ideas and tips for how to pick that pesky but all important url.

• The Worst Web Design Techniques Featured on Web Pages That Suck in 2005 - Don't do what they do.

• 5 Steps to Building Better Web Sites - A few basic ideas for starting a site right.

• 75 Helpful Web Design Resources - More resources than you can handle.

• 8 Web Design Warm Fuzzy Feelings - You didn't think techies were warm and fuzzy, but this is what makes them smile.

• 50 Redesigns from Scratch - Soon to be a series of 50--you guessed it--redesigns. So far it's only two, but the new designs and detailed explanations are insightful.

• The Next 35 Sexiest Designed Web Sites You've Forgotten - Ignore the tongue-tripping copywriting (and what was that about gradients?), and check out some web design that doesn't make your eyes bleed. You can also check out the first 35.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 6:19 AM
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October 18, 2005

Top 10 Blog Design Mistakes

Recently we looked at the Top 10 Web Design Mistakes from Jakob Nielsen, and now he presents the Top 10 Blog Design Mistakes. You can certainly take what Nielsen says with a grain of salt (not everybody likes him), but he usually has some good basic points.

When it comes to blogs the top 10 mistakes are:

1. No Author Biographies
2. No Author Photo
3. Nondescript Posting Titles
4. Links Don't Say Where They Go
5. Classic Hits are Buried
6. The Calendar is the Only Navigation
7. Irregular Publishing Frequency
8. Mixing Topics
9. Forgetting That You Write for Your Future Boss
10. Having a Domain Name Owned by a Weblog Service

Continue reading "Top 10 Blog Design Mistakes"

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 8:37 AM
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October 5, 2005

Top 10 Web Design Mistakes

Usability guru Jakob Nielsen revealed his Top 10 Web Design Mistakes of 2005 earlier this week, and church web sites could learn a thing or two. For the most part it's the basics:

1. Legibility Problems
2. Non-Standard Links
3. Flash
4. Content That's Not Written for the Web
5. Bad Search
6. Browser Incompatibility
7. Cumbersome Forms
8. No Contact Information or Other Company Info
9. Frozen Layouts with Fixed Page Widths
10. Inadequate Photo Enlargement

Here at Church Marketing Sucks we're guilty of a few of these (especially 2 with our non-underlined links and 9 with our fixed page layout), though sometimes these are debatable (i.e., not everyone agrees). But what's really important is understanding the basic idea and trying to make your site as usable as possible.

Just look at Nielsen's entry for how to do web sites right. The text is scannable and chunked, he uses bold text for emphasis, and he links to his own content when appropriate, which is not only incredibly helpful for the user, but it encourages people to spend a lot of time on his site. (link via eministry notes)

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 8:24 AM
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