Affordable, Manageable Joomla! Websites for your church or non-profit.

It's only fair to give Twitter a little press since I talked about Facebook last week.  I'm fairly new to Twitter, but my wife's been talking about it for a year, so I've heard some and read some.  It seems to be more topical than social.  On Facebook you post your "status" how you're doing or what you are up to.  On Twitter the "tweets" are more questions, quotes, and information on certain topics.  Of course there is a lot of overlap between the two, but there are differences.

Pastors and church leaders will more likely use Twitter as individuals rather than specifically representing their church.  It is expected that they would be strongly interested in their church, so it would be brought up in various tweets, but, in general, their tweets would focus on their own areas of interest and skill.

Twitter lends itself to the promotion of Non-Profit organizations much more readily, however.  Non-Profit organizations are focused on a particular topic or cause, and Twitter is great way to enter into conversations on that cause.  And it is a great way to direct people to your website of Facebook page for more discussion and interaction.

One of the interesting benefits of Twitter is that every tweet that has your website in it, adds another separted link that search engines will count toward your site.

Many of us older than 35, and many younger than 35 as well, hesitate to make the time investment for Facebook and other Social Networking sites.  While we may be a little interested in what all our highschool friends are doing, we have enough going on in our lives that we just don't feel we need to add another layer of community.  And, maybe more to the point, we've gotten along without Facebook so far in life and we're comfortable enough.  We don't really want to learn the rules and how to get along in this new social networking subculture.

But, whether we want to or not, it's time to dive in and learn something new.  Of course, many pastors and churches will stay away from Facebook and do just fine, but those that do learn and work at it will find a new way for communicating to church members.  Not all church members, but many church members are on Facebook, building farms in Farmville, joining groups, making it a regluar part of their day.  It has become a great way to network people, to quickly let them know what is going on.  It's like a coffee shop that people visit everyday, if you put your news there many people will find it, both people inside your church and outside your church.

It would be nice if technology always made life easier and simpler.  Often it does, but just as often it adds complexity, forces us to learn new things if we are to keep up.  But, if we learn them, we find new opportunities and advantages.

Getting found on Search Engines like Google and Bing continues to be one of the main concerns of pastors, churches, and non-profits as they seek to use their websites most effectively.

I've been reading a book called Inbount Marketing by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah.  One of the key things they talk about is continuing to update your site with remarkable content.  That is content that others will read and remark upon. Your Search Engine Rank increases dramatically when other sites refer to yours because of your content.  One of the best ways to produce good quality content is with a blog, and it's a good idea to put the blog on your front page, not hidden back in the site.   With a blog written by your Pastor, church leader, or Non-Profit chairman or leader, search engines will notice that your page is not just static, and so will people.  They will come back again and again, especially as they find it's worth coming back.

Yes it is difficult for pastors, church leaders, and others to find time to write a blog.  But everyone is busy these days, and it is increasingly important to meet people on the internet, because that is where they are at a lot of the time.

For any website interested in making people do something such as buy a product or donate money to a cause one of the most important things to work into your home pages is action links. Actions links are clearly labeled and explained links that link someone directly to a website where they can go about making that action.

For instance if you wanted someone to Donate money to cause you should have at least one link if not two on your main site that will direct someone to a page where they can fill in the information required for the donation.

Creating actions that are readily available and easy to understand encourages people to take them and increases that chance they will do so. Actions links do not half to be large things but they should be simple and logically with regards to everything else on your homepage.

Remember people are lazy they are unlikely to look around for a way to do something on your website so if you want it done you had better make it easy for them.

Because this my blog I feel that I am entitled to voice some of my own personal opinions and peeves about website design. Most of the time I do try to say things that are generally true, however there are some popular website designs that particularly bug me even if they do apparently work.

One of the things that bugs me the most when I open a website is instantly playing an audio file without asking the viewer for permission. Especially if it is a background audio file that can't be turned off. Doing the same thing with a video file can be even worse, especially if it is an add. This almost always irritates me even if it is something like because I was not expecting to listen to it and as I usually have music on anyway it clashes with my music. This attribute is of course understandable on a band or movie website and consequently less irritating there, but I can't understand why any other website would have it.

Another thing that I often find irritating is white backgrounds, it makes the page look like a word document no mater what color the font. In my Opinion even an off white background is better than a white one.

These are of course as I said before my personal pet peeves with websites and if you disagree with them you are welcome to try them out. Just don't expect me to like your site.