Month: April 2019

You’ve worked hard to come up with the perfect church name, logo, and website that reflects who you are and how you can be a light in your community. That should be enough for a solid online presence, right? Possibly not.

It may not even be on your radar, but consider this: if people don’t see your site listed prominently online when they search Google for, say, “churches in your area,” they might never find you at all. The term for improving this situation, called your online “ranking,” is known as Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

What do we mean by SEO? To illustrate, try this simple exercise: what listing appears when you search for churches in your area? Is your church’s name near the top (or even the top 3) of the search results?

If not, you might be missing important traffic (viewers) to your site – and in turn, an opportunity for them to check out your church. If that’s the case, you’ll want to improve your visibility as much as possible. Here’s 3 things that can help – and note, all 3 are really about connecting with people:

• Improve your Page Loading Speed (My what?)Page loading is about how fast your web content loads – all the text, images, etc.n What’s the link to people here? It may be an indicator of a shortening attention span, or lack of confidence in your website – but studies have shown that if your site takes more than 3 seconds to load, 40% of perspective visitors will simply give up, and look elsewhere. What’s more, 80% of those visitors won’t return to your website again in the future. Which means, you’ve lost them – maybe for good.

  Not sure how fast your site loads? There are online services, such as Pingdom, which you can use to test your site’s loading speed – for free. You can also gain helpful insights as to what may be slowing things down, and then proceed to make improvements. Remember, it’s worth taking the extra step to remove these issues – not only for first-time visitors, but for repeat viewers as well.

  Note: Some of the factors which will influence website loading speed include your web hosting company’s server (how fast it is), large files that increase loading time, too many “plug-ins” on your site (such as WordPress plug-ins for greater functionality), etc.

• Increase Dwell Time  What draws people to your site? Hopefully, it’s more than just to check for directions or service times. While those things matter, of course, there’s other reasons to have people hang around your site – the primary one being to give them relevant, helpful content. Dwell time is a key metric that influences SEO, and it’s simply the length of time a person spends looking at your web page after clicking on it from a list of search engine results. It’s based on the idea that more time a viewer spends taking in or “consuming” the content of a particular page, the higher the probability is that their needs were met by the content contained there.

  While exact dwell time is not an easily accessed metric for most people, you should know that your chances of increasing it are better if you simply add interesting, fresh, and relevant content. For example, adding video content is one excellent way to do this. Studies show that videos can actually help dwell time increase by a factor of 6, as viewers become engaged with real people and their stories. Which leads us to our 3rd point…

• Consider Adding Regular Blogging to your Site Blogging is another great way to increase traffic to your site, while improving SEO at the same time. If someone can find the relevant content they need, chances are they may come back. But what are people searching for? What kinds of questions are they asking? It’s worthwhile to step back and ask yourself these things, and not assume that you’re automatically connecting with people in your approach. If you really want to meet people where they’re at – struggling, often confused, desiring love and relationships – take note of the people in your community, and learn to ask good questions.

  Here’s where your blog can shine, as it provides a welcoming place for people to visit and feel safe; to grapple with practical questions and explore how your church interacts with someone like them – before they show up in person. A regular blog is also a great opportunity to show how gospel grace can transform all of us, in the midst of our everyday struggles (an excellent resource on this is Paul Tripp’s Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands).

• SummaryOur point about SEO is that Google has algorithms designed to detect your website’s popularity. As you increase things like load and dwell time, and continue to add fresh and attractive content to your site, your rankings should improve accordingly, and your visibility as well – all in the name of connecting with real people.

  In this way, improving your online presence can become a key part of striving to, “in every way… make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.” Titus 2:10

We’ve all been there…

you fire up the computer and proceed to log in to an important account, and your mind goes blank. You try 5 different combinations of your password, and before you know it, you’re locked out.

You proceed to call down curses on your computer (you know you do) and all forms of technology and walk away. You repent and calm your little heart, but you still can’t remember!

But what if you could avoid “falling into temptation” on account of forgetfulness? May the following suggestions for maintaining and recalling your passwords be of some help.

First, be sure to choose a strong password. If you haven’t read our article on this, give it a quick read here. Then consider using:

• a simple memory aid.

No, we’re not talking about fish oil or Ginkgo Biloba here. We’re talking about helpful phrases and associations. As mentioned in the above article, you can choose a strong password that works as a memorable phrase, such as I<3ourSav1our&RChurch. Let’s face it, that’s far easier to remember than a randomly generated string of characters, and you’ve still met the strong password criteria of using “one lowercase, one uppercase, one number, and one special character.

In addition, you’ve also made a helpful association – your church – so you’ve actually doubled your chances of remembering. Best of all, it’s not an easy password to crack, such as an obvious bible verse (John 3:16), a popular biblical name, or just the name of your church. Or, you might consider part of a jingle or an altered song lyric with added characters. This may also help since we tend to remember things when they’re set to music – another memory aid.

• a password keeper.

We mentioned this in the previous article as well, but it bears repeating. A password manager has a lot going for it, helping to maintain your passwords in a secure place. Many versions will even generate strong passwords for you – usually a random string. The good thing is, you won’t have to remember them – the tool does it for you.

This may be especially helpful for your most important accounts, such as banking for example, or similar accounts containing any sensitive, personal data. You can access a password manager from your smartphone as well, and most versions will allow you to copy/paste directly into your log-in screen.

• a written hint.

As a last resort, if you absolutely can’t get yourself some password manager software, you can always write down a hint. A hint should be something only you will know the reference to, in order to jog your memory. This is far safer than writing down the actual password itself.

Also, don’t label it or keep it in an obvious place (think post-it notes on your screen here). You’ll want to make your hint hard to find, and even harder to interpret if it is found!

Finally, take a moment to think about your log-in habits, It’s always wise to remember general workstation security, such as how open your monitor is to snooping, and taking an extra second to lock your system when you step away. Following one or more of these practical hints can save a lot of time & grief – not to mention some unwelcome grumbling and complaining.