Help
for Church Webmasters
Issue
8
12/10/01
Traffic
I am not talking about the rush
hour commute when I say Traffic. I am referring to the number of people (or
lack thereof) who visit your website. When you get right down to it the reason
you started a website was to get people to visit it – wasn’t it? It certainly
wasn’t just to practice HTML, Java, ASP or some other technology – at least I
hope that wasn’t why you started a church website.
Anyway, there are thousands of
experts each with their own way to generate more traffic to your site. So I
guess it’s a thousand and one now… The difference is I am going to make this so
simple even the newbie webmaster will be able to do this AND most of these
suggestions won’t cost you a red cent.
Obviously, these methods of
advertising will work much better if you have a good website with some unique
content that is up-to-date. But that’s
for a different newsletter.
Offline
This may sound counter-intuitive at
first, but one of the best places to advertise is offline. Think about. We live
offline, most of us work offline, we spend more time offline than online. So
why wouldn’t offline be a good place to advertise your website? I can hear the
chorus of “We are a small church, we don’t have an advertising budget. How are
we going to advertise offline?” It
doesn’t take a lot of money to advertise offline. In fact most of these
suggestions are free. Now I should have your attention…
1) The church bulletin. This might
sound obvious, but you need to advertise your website every single week in your
church bulletin.
2) Flyers for events. Every single
flyer for every single event that your church puts out should have your website
address on it. This is especially true
if you intend on your flyers being handed out to non-church members (Christmas
program invites, Easter, etc…).
3) Church newsletter. Make sure
your website is listed in every single church newsletter. Just like you include
a phone number and street address. You should include an email and website.
4) Church letterhead. See #3.
5) Pastor’s and/or Church business
cards. Ok, this pretty much wraps up the church communications. But you would
be surprised at how many churches miss these prime FREE advertising locations. These church communications have a
surprising life to them. They get passed around and shared and there is no
telling who will see them and visit your site.
6) The local paper. Run some
articles in your local paper. They can be about almost anything. An up coming
seminar at the church, an evangelistic series, a unique ministry, a blood drive
at the church or the community service ladies who make lap blankets for the
local nursing homes. Remember to include your website in the article with an
invitation to find more information. Be sure you have a page the follows up on
the story! Most local newspapers are anxious to have information like this and
it won’t cost you a dime.
7) Advertising in the local paper.
Many churches will advertise certain big events (like the Christmas service-
hint hint) in the paper. Sometimes this is even a free to all the local churches!
But regardless of whether you get a free ad or you pay a small fee, make sure
your website is listed. I can honestly tell you that I notice a spike in
website traffic every time our church website is listed in the local paper in
this manner.
8) Don’t ignore radio and TV. If
you run a radio or TV ad (again this can be done for little or no cost on some
public access stations), be sure to include your website.
9) Talk about your website. Invite
friends, church members and other people to your website. Sometimes I ask
friends if I can see the church website on their computer. This kills two birds
with one stone. It introduces my friends to the website and I can see how the
website looks on other computers. This works exceptionally well with friends at
work (in my particular instance, these people are largely unchurched).
Online
Sure, you can advertise online
too. There are so many ways to do this I can’t begin to list them all. Here are
some easy and free ones.
11) Guestbooks. Take the time to
visit other Christian sites and sign the guestbook. Be sure to leave an
invitation to your website and the URL.
12) Church directories. List your
church in every single church directory you can find. There are literally
hundreds of these listings. Sign up for all of them. Many of these sites do not
get tons of traffic, but they get your site name out there to someone. Many denominations
have at least one denomination specific listing – make sure you are listed in
yours.
13) Search engines. This is
obvious, but try to get listed into the major search engines. Yahoo, Lycos,
Alta Vista, Google and DMOZ are a must! Follow the rules to the letter. There
are entire books written on this subject, so I won’t say more than “get listed”
here.
14) Trade links. Most online
directories are counting the number of sites linking to you to determine if you
have a good site or not. Spend some time each week trading links with other RELATED
sites. It doesn’t do any good to trade links with some unrelated business. Be
willing to list them on your site. I have had a large number of sites asking me
to link to them, but they won’t list me on their site – I don’t think so…
15) Webrings. Join at least one
webring of related sites.
There you have it. 15 ways to
advertise your website for little or no cash!
That’s a pretty cool Christmas present.
See ya,
Bill
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the fine print…
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Send me an email (baumack@pacbell.net)
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It would be way cool if you could
mention this resource somewhere on your webpage! You can link to “Help for
Church Webmasters” at http://www.downeychurch.com/HelpForChurchWebmasters.html