The Nines Leadership Conference

This year I have the great opportunity to speak at The Nines Leadership Conference. I will be speaking on Social Media and “What’s Working” for us at The Potter’s House of Dallas. I have had the great opportunity to see the social media at TPH grow from a few hundred fans to over three million social media fans. Thus, I look forward to sharing about what worked, what didn’t and how your organization can achieve those results. My speaking time is below and as you can see it’s Wednesday, November 13 at 12:19pm EST or 11:19am CST, so make sure you REGISTER TODAY.

http://www.ichurchmethod.com/nines-leadership-conference/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=nines-leadership-conference

How to Quickly Analyze and Optimize Your Website

Here are a few key tips to analyze and optimize your website…

Measure and Compare
How many visitors does your website receive each day? Which pages do they visit? How long do they stay? Web analytics answers these questions. It is like having someone tell you how close your ball is on the green after you have hit it from the fairway. With information from web analytics, you can make adjustments on your site and improve the user’s experience. Web analytics can be obtained for free by using software such as Google Analytics (http://www.google.com/analytics).

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Once you have your website up and running, there are two ways users can find you: knowledge and search. Knowledge happens several ways. The user may come to your church and receive literature with your website on it. Later, they access the site and begin exploring. As I hopefully hammered home above, social media is a big way users find your church. When their friend shares something and links your church, the user now knows about it. Knowledge of your church is great but the best way to reach folks who don’t know you exist or have friends who don’t know you exist is through search. When I type “Nondenominational Church in Dallas” in the Google search bar, The Potters House church pulls up twice. If I was looking for a church, I have a 20% chance of checking out their website. Another example is “divorce recovery in Dallas.” Both Watermark Community Church and Fellowship Church show up in the front page. So how did these churches land there? SEO.

SEO is a strategy that you can implement to bring your site up to the first page of key searches. It uses a combination of key words on your site and in your content and linking of your site to other sites. No one knows the exact mathematical formula for how Google, Bing and Yahoo! rank each site but programmers who specialize in SEO know how to increase the visibility of your website and get it up in rankings. And the higher it goes, the more traffic your website gets.

For more information on this and other topics, get your copy of “The iChurch Method Volume 1: How to Advance Your Ministry Online.” or The iChurch Method Volume 2: Changing the World When You Login or even sign up for the iChurch Method Online School.

http://www.ichurchmethod.com/analyze-and-optimize-your-website/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=analyze-and-optimize-your-website

What’s an Internet Church Campus?

If you go to a mega church, you will likely observe a sprawling sea of buildings. You will also find a huge variety of places to go and things to do. There might be a women’s conference in one building. A group of men will be having a Bible study in another. There may also be a live service in the chapel. Some churches even have bookstores where you can buy the latest Christian books and movies. The fact is, this large physical campus gives you many choices to pursue your faith.

So, what is the Internet Church Campus? It’s the same thing as the campus described above except for one difference: it’s all online. The official definition of an Internet church is as follows: a multimedia-driven church experience that is entirely online. An online user can attend a Bible study, donate, attend live services, watch past services, attend a conference, buy the pastor’s book and do just about everything you can do in a physical church except the laying of hands. And it’s all driven by video, audio, images, chat and documents.

Here’s how far we have come. In the good ole days, you went to church Sunday mornings and then possibly to Bible study or another service on Wednesday evenings. Now, instead of you going to church, the Internet Church Campus brings the church to you. And the church doors are open 24/7 365 wherever you are because your mobile device, tablet or computer allows you to attend. That’s pretty exciting!

Chat Live
One option for your Internet Church Campus is the ability to chat live with your friends. If you were in church, you could lean over and chat to your neighbor about the service or message. With Chatroll.com, the Internet Church Campus can duplicate that. Some users really love that feature especially if they are watching the same program but from different locations.

Groups and Communities
Another great feature of Internet Church Campuses is online groups. Online groups are small groups that meet online to discuss Bible lessons, minister to each other and give the online group a sense of community, very similar to the home-based groups that are in some of the largest mega churches in the United States. Online groups use common group features provided by Facebook Groups or Google+ Communities. These social network group/community features allow a set number of people to interact online, share information and documents and form an online community all within Facebook or Google+.

For more information on this and other topics, get your copy of “The iChurch Method Volume 1: How to Advance Your Ministry Online.” or The iChurch Method Volume 2: Changing the World When You Login or even sign up for the iChurch Method Online School.

http://www.ichurchmethod.com/internet-church-campus/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=internet-church-campus