Notes from the last class
Reaching the World
Churches use their websites to reach their current congregation, or their nearby community. While that is admirable, the world is full of people who need to hear about Jesus.
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Simple changes can bring immense increases in effectiveness.
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Currently if someone is struggling with some life-issue such as suicide, drug use or spousal abuse and they search the internet for help, they will usually not find info that says Jesus can help them. Instead they will find secular advice (and some of it is not very good).
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With the right text we (the christian community) could reach people that ordinarily we would never reach.
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Go to google and type in “How to kill yourself”, you will see what I mean.
Take a look at these Google searches:
Meaning of Life 1 christian site in the first 2 pages
2,861,250 monthly searches
Lonely 0 christian sites in the first 3 pages
5,000,000 monthly searches
Lonely in Marriage 2 christian sites in the first 3 pages
676,220 monthly searches
Abusive Spouse 5 christian sites in the first 2 pages
11,794,930 monthly searches
How to quit smoking weed 0 christian sites on the first 3 pages
177,923 monthly searches.
How to kill yourself without pain 0 christian sites on the first 3 pages
60,171 monthly searches
This is only a small example of the opportunity available to us to reach many people with life-issues. If we can get the Christian answer on the internet, on the first few pages of google, we can reach a lot of people.
Use your website to reach more people with the Word of God
During this class learned how to:
- Use your current resources to spread the Word of God to your city, your state, to the world.
- Attract more people to your website by addressing real human needs.
- Avoid design errors that will drive viewers away.
- Bring Jesus to real people that have real questions.
- And answer the 7 questions every first time visitor wants to know before they come to your church.
In this class we learned how to effectively grow your area of influence beyond the physical walls of your church, further into your community, and literally into the entire world!
Class Notes
Intro
So why do I think I have the authority to speak on church websites?
I have been doing websites for over 10 years and have lost count on how many church websites I have done.
In my 7 years on the mission field I was doing websites and graphic design.
- Ccbce
- Hungary cc churches
- Poland, England
I have a passion for using the internet for reaching people. Through my work with commercial websites is where I have learned SEO, (search engine optimization) which is fascinating to me.
It has been fun combining all that knowledge in to helping churches reach more people.
Why am I doing this class?
7 years ago, when I was doing the CCBCE websites, I was running the stats and found someone from Kenya had typed into google “how do I know the Word of God is true” and found the gospel message I had put on the website.
I have been hooked ever since.
This class isn’t really about websites.
- It is about telling people about Jesus.
- Getting people into heaven.
- Reaching people via the internet.
- That is my vision.
Currently you are not reaching people on the internet. In fact you are losing the person looking for a church home via the internet, and you are ignoring millions of people who are actively seeking answers.
My vision is to reach people,
My vision is to take Jesus to people via the internet,
My vision is to make you successful in reaching people, and consequently get people into heaven. With just a few hours worth of work you can literally reach millions of people via the internet, and YOU don't even have to do it.
You have people attending your church who will do it for you.
I am not fooling around here.
My purpose is NOT to tell you some "tricks" to make your websites better, although I can do that.
My purpose is NOT to help you make a really cool website, although I can do that.
My purpose is NOT to help you understand how google works, although I can do that.
I only have one purpose, introduce people to Jesus and getting them into heaven.
You can use your website to get people into heaven. People you have never considered reaching before. You currently reach your 100-700 church members. With just a few hours work you can reach millions.
You can use your website to get people into heaven. That is what I am going to teach tonight.
We are going to learn three things:
#1. How to make your website "easy to read" – Reaching this culture
#2. How to attract more visitors to your church through your website
#3. How to use your website to reach the world
#1. You must reach this culture on their terms.
Our attention spans have been shortened. You must make your website easy to read:
- short paragraphs,
- captions,
- headings,
- bullet points,
- photos,
- illustrations.
People don’t “read” websites – (we learn lots from Jacob Nielsen usability studies)
- Using eye-tracking Nielsen has discovered that we first look at a website in a Z pattern (which is why you want your logo in the top left)
- Menu on left side (top menu not bad)
- Right side bar is ignored - subconsciously
- Write for non-Christians
- Take out all “Christian” words
- I wouldn’t speak to you in Hungarian
- Why do we speak to the world we are trying to reach in a language they can’t understand?
Good layout, good design, gives readability.
Good layout, good design, gives readability.
Why? Because poorly designed or hard-to-read text gets passed over and drives people away from your website (there are lots of other websites out there to look at). And sends the wrong message about your church.
When you write your text, take out every word that is not essential; don't use different fonts or colors, use bold and italic sparingly.
- Less IS more
- If you can’t tell that using different fonts, font sizes and colors to attract attention is tacky, don’t do it.
- If there is any doubt in your mind about changing fonts and sizes don’t do it.
Do use short headers defining sections,
but make sure the header tells the story alone.
So that when someone skims your website pages they can get the message from the headers alone. Or, more importantly, they can KNOW where to find the info if they need it later.
People who are searching online for a church will judge your church by the quality of your website.
We all do that, judge businesses we haven't been to before, by the quality of their websites.
Clean and simple designs work on a website, and it always works better than bad graphics.
#2. If you want to bring new people into your church through your website, you must answer the 7 questions they want to know:
#1. I am nervous about visiting your church, what is it like there?
#2. Where is the front door?
#3. What is the pastor is like?
#4. What are the pastor's sermons like?
#5. What is the music like?
#6. Is the children's ministry okay?
#7. What are the people attending your church like?
#1. What’s it like at your church?
When you go to a new place, especially a church, you never know what to expect. You think "Will I be bored to tears, will it be too exciting for me and make me uncomfortable?"
#2. Where is the front door?
Have you ever been somewhere that there are people inside who can see you and you can’t find the door? Use a photo to show people where your front door is.
#3. What is the pastor is like?
A photo on the front page, with a video of the pastor welcoming the person to church and a video of the pastor’s sermon, this will answer that question for people. This question can keep people from coming to a new church, therefore the pastor needs to be willing to put his photo on the front page of the website.
#4. What are the pastor's sermons like?
All you need is a brief description and mp3 and video of a sermon.
#5. What is the music like?
(if you refer to it as “Worship” non-Christians won’t know what you are talking about) A brief description and mp3 and video of music. Be sure to include photos during your worship so people know what happens during your worship.
#6. Is the children's ministry okay?
Use a brief description and photos, and if your children's ministry workers need to clear a police background check before working there you should let people know that.
#7. What are the people attending your church like?
All you need is a description and photo showing they are normal people.
I am convinced that this barrier of fear......about visiting a new church is why so many people, when they are looking for a church, go to a church where they know someone, so that person can "walk them in" the first time.
But if you address these issues on your website you will make it a lot easier for a first time visitor to attend your church.
#3. Use your website to reach beyond your city, beyond your state, into the world.
As a Christian you have the answers.
You have the message.
You know Jesus.
You have been through tough things in life. God has bailed you out of some of them. But your faith in Jesus has pulled you through some tough times also. Not that God did anything to intervene in that case, but it was your faith in Jesus alone, that made things more bearable.
You have something to offer,
You have the answers the world needs.
So if some non-Christian kid came to you for some advice, and said "I want to kill myself but I need to know a way to do it that doesn't hurt too much"
You have advice to offer.
You have a message that kid needs to hear.
You know that ultimately it will be Jesus that can help him.
What if I told you there really are 6 kids asking that question and there are no Christians to offer advice? Those kids are getting plenty of advice, but none from Christians.
What if I told you there were 60 kids asking that question with no one to point them to Jesus? You would say "someone needs to do something about that".
What if I told you every month 600 kids search for a way to kill themselves that will cause no pain? You would say that is tragic.
The real number?
With zero Christian responses, with no one pointing them to Jesus, every month, 60,000 people search for a way to kill themselves painlessly.
What can you do? Glad you asked.
60,000 people per month search on google "how to kill yourself without pain". There are no christian websites on the first three pages of google's results.
You can help fix that. All it takes is writing 200-500 words about suicide and put it on your website.
(Note: These articles can be placed on your website, they will draw more viewers to your website. Or they may be placed on a private blog, or you can contact www.allaboutgod.com (contact link at bottom of their website) and they will place your article for you.)
It needs to address the person's real need, but that is easy.
It needs to be "easy to read" like I spoke of earlier, but that is easy.
It needs to lead the person to Jesus, but that is easy.
200-500 words.
It is easy to write, What would you say to a kid thinking of suicide? Write that. Your article needs to be titled correctly to reach a specific search term, it needs to be worded correctly in the first paragraph to include that search term, and you need correct headings and heading sizes to make it onto google's listing. This is the only semi-tricky part.
So, how can you help right now?
All it takes to reach these people is "good content", 200-500 words a life-issue topic. Of course we want empathetic, sound advice that leads the person to Jesus. Writing this article is simple; it is what you would tell a non-Christian that asked you about one of the topics at the top of this page, or any other topic you can think of. There are probably thousands of topics to choose from.
Get Started Today
The simplest way to reach thousands, if not millions of people is to contact the people at All About God. They will ask you a few questions, then send you a list of titles and you can write 600 words on that topic. Be sure you agree with their statement of faith.
The wonderful part about writing your articles for All About God is that they handle placing your article on their websites and getting the linking needed to get your article to show up on google.
They are quite effective. In fact, for most life-issues you search on, that one or two Christian responses you might find will probably be from them. But they need many, many more writers.
So I want to encourage you to do three things:
#1. Be sure your website is easily readable (for this culture)
#2. Encourage online seekers to come to your church
#3. Take the gospel message, beyond your city, beyond your state, into the world by addressing life-issues.
Let's reach the world for Jesus.
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