The Summer Games is fast approaching and are you still looking for a sermon series to preach on this occasion? Every preacher knows that there is a need to be relevant in his preaching and to make the message hit home, it must be abreast with the current events. You don't need to be an expert in Christian marketing to know this and for this reason; we have made available the Go for the Goal: Becoming a Spiritual Champion Sermon Series CD. Here are some of the advantages of preaching this sermon series:

1. Impeccable timing with the Summer Games - The Go for the Goal: Becoming a Spiritual Champion Sermon Series CD is can be preached in tandem with the Sumer Games which will start on July 27 and end on August 12. You will be preaching the most relevant and most up to date sermon series and for sure, this will have a great impact to your church outreach and congregation because they can absolutely relate to what you are talking about.

2. Leverage the media attention with your preaching - Preachers are always on the lookout for outreach ideas. The Sumer Games is expected to have great media coverage and to be able to ride on this wave will be a great advantage to your out reaches efforts. While your hearers watch the games on TV, they will remember your preaching on the topic. And do you know what this will amount to? Impact!

3. Solid Scriptural base - This sermon series is based on Hebrews 12:1-13, which is a very solid springboard to preach a series of messages on becoming spiritual champions. From July 27 to August 12, you will have a ready message that will encourage your congregation like a huge athletic team.

If you will order this sermon series, you will have in your repertoire a toolset that will inspire your hearer to have that champion mind-set. They will have that enthusiasm that will mobilize them to win the world for the Kingdom. So what are you waiting for? Order your copy of the Go for the Goal: Becoming a Spiritual Champion Sermon Series CD or contact Pathmaker Marketing for more information. 

          Floyder - - I don't even know what a bloghead is!

          Jim looked pretty pathetic, to say the very least. Somewhat loud, though never obnoxious!, Jim is truly a sensitive soul and that is why the comment that had been leveled at him had been so devastating. It seems that last Sunday, in front of a whole group of people, his pastor slapped him on the back and exclaimed, “Well, Jim, why don’t you head up the committee for Internet presence. After all, you’re the biggest Bloghead in the congregation.”

            “Floyder, will you call Pastor and ask him why he would say something like that about me?”

            His puppy-dog brown eyes made it impossible to say “no,” so I gave Pastor a call. I surmised, and verified, that all Pastor meant was that Jim used Blogging as an Internet Marketing Tool for his business more than anyone else. The fact that “Bloghead” sounds suspiciously like “Blockhead” had made Jim feel like he was being ridiculed, which, of course, was not the case. Finishing up with the call, I explained it to Jim.

            A visual sigh of relief crept across Jim’s face, making it as placid as a crystal clear lake. As I watched, however, the metamorphosis continued, and the placidity was replaced with a look of total confusion. I waited, as I knew another question/ request would be forthcoming.

            “Floyder, is there such a thing as a Church Blog?” indicating by the question that he was accepting Pastor’s offer to head the committee.

            “Certainly, Jim,” I assured him.

            “Well, what does a church Blog about?”

            “Oh,” I explained easily, “there are several ways a church can use a Blog as an outreach tool. They might want to simply employ Christian Blogging to post content that is relevant to members of their congregation. Or they might want to develop their blog into an outreach tool, so that in that case it actually becomes a Ministry Blog.”

            “How would that work?”

            “Well, it could actually take several forms. For example, they might use the Blog as a discussion forum to facilitate small groups discussions on the pastor's weekend sermons.

            “They might also use the blog to feature and highlight the special ministries a church offers their community, such as children's activities, helping the homeless or their outreach to military families.”

            "Or they could use the blog as a vehicle for outreach, discussing subjects that matter the public at large, with a biblical point of view.

            Jim cogitated on what I had said for a while, and then asked,

            “Floyder, should I seek Pathmaker’s help?

            Jim was referring to Pathmaker Marketing, which promotes a Premier Blogging Service for churches (LEARN MORE >>). Jim and I have discussed numerous aspects of Internet Marketing, and, on several occasions, he retained Randall to help him with suggestions.

            “Well, it wouldn’t hurt.”

            Jim smiled and went to a world of his own where he was contemplating his course of action. Me, I was just glad he no longer looked pathetic!

Search Engine Optimization is a specialized field that helps your website get higher rankings in search engines. Your goal in search engine optimization is to capture as much of the page 1 real estate in searches relevant to your business. Whether you’re developing a new website or updating an existing site, you should keep the following guidelines in mind as new content is developed and coded.

1. Structure your site appropriately to be found by search engines.
Google webmaster guidelines say that your site should have a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.

2. Make navigation easy and clear.
Google recommends a site map with links that point to the important parts of your site.

3. Remember that “content is king.”
It’s easy to get bogged down in attempt to make the site look great and forget that search engines are looking for content, not looks. Google recommends that you create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.

4. Think Through and Liberally Use Appropriate Keywords.
Google recommends that you think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it. Pathmaker Marketing can help you carefully research keywords; we regularly uncover keywords for our clients that they may not have thought of and that have a higher likelihood of being found in search engines. Call us at 623-322-3334 to see if we can help you do a more thorough job of researching appropriate keywords for your business.

Designers love to create headlines in fonts that aren’t available in HTML. They do it by making your headlines images, and this is one sure way to harm yourself when it comes to search engine rankings. Google recommends that you use text instead or at least use the <ALT> tag to include a few descriptive words of the image.

5. Make sure <TITLE> and <META> tags are used appropriately.
These are HTML codes that search engines look for when ranking sites. The <TITLE> tag should not be the same for every page of your site (for example, merely the name of your company). It should contain keywords that have been carefully researched. <META> tags contain specific information that search engines look for when deciding what each page of your site is all about. There is a <META> tag for description, and you should supply your coder with a short paragraph to describe why someone would want to visit this page of your site – it may not be used in ranking, but it could be displayed under the title of the page to help potential visitors decide if they want to click on your listing. These should contain words that actually describe the page content to avoid being penalized by search engines.

6. Check for broken links and correct HTML.
Your will severely hurt your rankings in search engines if you have broken links in your site or if your HTML cannot be read by search engines. Your coders need to be sure to check all code and clean up any extraneous codes left by edits or inserted by HTML generators. Several people should click on every single link in the site to make sure there are no broken links, and it should be re-done every time the site is edited. Also, Google recommends keeping down the number of links on any given page to fewer than 100.

7. Keep parameters short on dynamically-generated pages.
These are pages that are automatically generated from a database. The URL of this type of page will have a “?” in it. Google warns that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages as well as static pages and recommends that the parameters be short and few.

8. Be straightforward in your site structure.
Some sites create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content thinking they’ll trick search engines into believing there is more content on the site than there is. You’ll get found out of you do this – so the best advice is to avoid it. Google recommends that you avoid “doorway” pages created just for search engines or other “cookie cutter” approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content. If you site participates in an affiliate program, you need to develop your own content that adds value and gives potential users a reason to visit your site rather than the hundreds of others who also participate in the same affiliate program.

9. Make your photo captions text rather than embedding inside an image.
Search engines can’t read text that is part of an image. There rarely is a case when you need to make a photo caption part of the photo, and you’ll benefit in search engine rankings if you keep the captions to HTML text.

10. Use <ALT> tags and descriptive names for all photos and images.
This was briefly discussed with the tip about headlines. All images should have an <ALT> description so search engines will consider the images when ranking your site. These tags need to contain useful information about the subject matter of the image. You also need to use photo names that describe the content. Google states, “my-new-black-kitten.jpg is a lot more informative than IMG00023.JPG.”

Pathmaker Marketing offers a full range of website design, search engine optimization services, fundraising services, Internet business marketing promotion, Christian marketing, non profit fundraising and more. We would be happy to discuss with you how we might be able to help you get the highest rankings in search engines or any other topic about your fundraising needs. Give us a call at 623-322-3334.

Why Use an Outside Marketing Firm for your Christian Marketing?--Part Two
As a small business owner or ministry leader, you may have considered how best to handle your Christian marketing efforts.  Should you hire a person in house?  Contract with an agency?  Or try to find time to spearhead your Christian marketing efforts on your own? 

As you consider how best to address your Christian marketing concerns, you can ask yourself if you have the ability to create strategy, collaborating with a variety of players in your plan?  Are you able to move swiftly with your marketing efforts, sometimes setting aside all the other issues of your business in order to develop strategy and pull it off?

If you answered “No” to any of those questions, you may want to check out a Christian Marketing team like Pathmaker Marketing LLC to help you reach the valued customers and donors you seek to attract.

Collaboration—In House and Out
Collaboration and innovative partnership are among the freshest buzzwords in the business world today.  Our team of seasoned veterans brings a strong background of collaboration and willingness to partner in any way that will benefit our client.  We’ll listen to your concerns, research the issues that are impacting your online presence and we’ll work with you to devise strategies that are fresh and effective. 

Speed of Delivery—We Can Get It Done
We understand the difficulty in trying to launch a project or campaign using your own in-house creative and I.T. teams—if you have them!  They can be overloaded with the daily concerns of the company and getting in the queue to be serviced by them could mean a wait of several months to a year or more.  Or, if you are a start-up or a new ministry, you are probably scrambling just to design stationery and build a website. 

Pathmaker Marketing has an internal team that is poised and ready to move quickly to provide you with research, web presence, email marketing, social networking, back links, Search Engine Optimization and much more.  Your needs are our team’s highest concern, so we are able to produce exactly what you need when you need it.  We’ll do our best not to make you wait! 

Cost Effectiveness—Our Specialty Brings Relief!
Companies that seek to do their own Christian marketing in highly specialized areas like social networking risk losing valuable productivity as employees struggle to understand all the ins and outs of the new world of social media. 

Pathmaker Marketing has social networking specialists on the team.  We employ them at reasonable rates and keep them focused in this key area.  Using our specialists will relieve your staff and save you time and money. 

The New Marketing—Our Specialty
The Internet has changed virtually every aspect of Christian marketing.  Compended blogging, social media, back linking, search engine optimization and text messaging have all been used to market successfully.  When we found that Christian publishing giant Tyndale House Publishers did not have a significant footprint on the Internet, Pathmaker Marketing used state-of-the-art online tools to find a solution to the problem, creating a compended blog and filling it with content that will help strengthen Tyndale products’ search engine rankings.  Our approach is holistic and comprehensive and we view the concerns with an outsider’s objectivity. 

Our staff can “work” social networking accounts, inviting people to be followers, friends, etc., and following up.  We also invite them to your online events and auto-flow your blog content to your social networking accounts, further broadening the reach of your social networking efforts. 

We will research your online presence and give you the good news and the bad regarding your search engine rankings.  We are experts in being able to help you build your Internet assets. Our compended blogs will help drive up your rankings with Google, Bing, Yahoo and others. 

Pathmaker Marketing LLC is grateful for the opportunity to help so many ministries and small businesses with their Christian Marketing, applying our expertise to the needs of our clients.  If you are uncertain about your ability to tackle Christian Marketing on your own, give us a call at 623-322-3334 or visit our website to learn more.  You can sign up for our free Christian Marketing eNewsletter HERE. 
 

Christian Marketing Help--Can You Hit the Target on Your Own?
Part One--Breadth of Experience
Whether you run a small business or lead a Christian ministry, you may wonder if there is value in using an outside firm for your Christian Marketing.   This is not only a personal decision—it’s an important one-–for no matter what the nature of your work is, you have a responsibility to let others know about it so they can take advantage of your services or goods. Your business or ministry can provide tremendous help to your potential customers--but what is the best way to let people know about you? 

As you lead your organization the demands on your time and energy may cause you to feel that Christian marketing is not be among your highest priorities.  You may wonder if you will lose control over the image or appearance of your business or organization if you utilize an outside agency. But you must ask yourself if you are able to hit your marketing target on your own.  If not, you may want to consider Christian marketing as a way to get help for your organization.    

Breadth—Diverse Clients, Multiple Industries in Christian Marketing
When you choose to employ an agency to help you with your Christian marketing, you benefit greatly from the breadth of the agency’s client list.  In serving a broad clientele from many industries, it’s likely that your agency has already faced and solved a number of key problems that will need to be tackled in any given campaign or strategy.   Your company can take advantage of the agency’s extensive experience in solving these problems.

The people at Pathmaker Marketing, LLC are experts in their fields.  We’ve worked with a wide range of small business, ministries and Internet-based efforts.  The diversity of our client list has pushed us squarely into the areas of Social Networking and Search Engine Optimization.  We’ve learned how to effectively use several essential tools to help our clients achieve optimal results from our efforts on their behalf.  Simply put, we can help you hit the bullseye with targeted marketing and messaging that will bring potential clients or donors to your door. If you aren't absolutely convinced that your Christian marketing efforts will be as successful, we encourage you to consider using an outside agency like Pathmaker Marketing. 

Marketing is an intensely diverse field.  As a small business owner or ministry leader, you undoubtedly have exceptional skills in many fields--one of which may or may not be the field of marketing.  Choosing to use professionals for your Christian marketing efforts may be the the best choice you make--and the one that helps you hit your target dead center. 

Can You Hit the Target on Your Own?
Coming in Part Two:  Collaboration and Speed
 

If you’re a non profit or church who raises funds, then you need to include online fundraising in your marketing tool kit. And when you start doing that, you’ll want to consider the advantages of working with various fundraising companies. Just because you work with someone who has been managing your direct mail for the last several years doesn’t mean they’re the right choice for your email fundraising or search engine marketing efforts. You’ll want to look for Internet savvy fundraising companies for that.

When interviewing fundraising companies, here are some helpful questions you’ll want to ask.

What is your experience raising funds online? You’ll want to make sure they have several years of experience, but also be sure that they deliver good return on investment for their clients. Ask them for specific examples, and look for at least a 4:1 ROI for their current or past clients (not just a promise that they can do that for you).

What is your strategy for raising funds online? While strategies for individual tactics may vary, there is a general philosophy for fundraising that need to understand before choosing from your list of fundraising companies. How do they come up with each eAppeal strategy? How will you be involved? What is their eAppeal blasting schedule and strategy? How will they avoid colliding with direct mail strategies? How they make sure you’ll be able to see results from all online strategies? Make sure their strategies agree with your philosophies.

What is your experience in my industry? People surely can learn your industry, but it helps if they already offer experience specific to your industry. If you’re a Christian organization, it helps a lot for them to understand Christianity and the way Christians communicate.

What is your billing schedule and terms? Be sure you can afford their services and thoroughly understand the services you’ll get.

How do you resolve conflicts and disagreements? You don’t plan it, but disagreements occur. Go into it knowing how you’ll deal with them.

These basic questions may launch you into other discussions, but these will help you springboard into a thorough understanding of how various fundraising companies stack up against one another.

Pathmaker Marketing LLC is ready to help you raise funds online and would love to talk to you about how our strategies and experience fit with your organization. Visit our website or call us at 623-322-3334.

The professionals at Pathmaker Marketing live to assist our clients with their email fundraising.   We understand the delicate relationship between ministries and their donors, and we've learned the importance of selecting just the right words in every part of an email fundraising strategy.  We recommend that your words align not only with the brand identity of your organization, they must also communicate clearly to your constituents that you understand them.  Words and messaging can go a long way to show donors that you and they are on the same page. 

In his newest book, Axiom, Bill Hybels’ opening parry focuses on the importance of words.  He describes the angst he experiences as he seeks just the right word, phrase or tagline for a point in a sermon, conversation or campaign.  He goes into great detail to explain that when it comes to words, you have to get it right! 

The truth is, leaders rise and fall by the language they use.  Sometimes whole visions live or die on the basis of the words the leader chooses for articulating that vision.
--Bill Hybels, Founding Pastor, Willow Creek Community Church in Axiom:  Powerful Leadership Proverbs

Good email fundraising will show understanding and sensitivity to the values, priorities and lifestyle of donors--and you demonstrate this by the choice of words you use.  If you fail in this, you let down the very people whose support you are seeking to engender.  Answering the following questions will help you choose well in your messages to donors.

Reflect Your Donors' Values in Your Email Fundraising:  What are the key values of your constituents?  Do you know which things they hold dearest?  And why they are drawn to your organization?  Is there a values niche that you serve that is unique?  Do your messages communicate these values clearly?  Most Christian ministries work hard to show they are morally clean and untainted.  What other dearly-held values do your constituents have?  Patriotism? Social activism?  When it comes to your email fundraising, don’t waste words on things that are not valued by your donors. 

Reflect Your Donors' Priorities in Your Email Fundraising:  What are the highest priorities of your constituents?  Are they family-oriented?  Prayer warriors?  Ardent for missions?  Whatever their priorities, your words must communicate that you understand the priorities that guide their lives.

Show You Understand Your Donors' Lifestyles in Your Email Fundraising:  Do your donors tend to have active lifestyles?  Are they Internet savvy?  Tuned in to contemporary Christian music?  Are they pinching every penny, or do they have a little financial breathing room?  As you consider ways to use email for your fundraising efforts, you can reflect the lifestyle choices of your backers as you communicate with them, choosing words wisely.

The extra effort you put into choosing just the right words for every part of your email fundraising strategy will go a long way to show them that you understand them and their concerns.  This connection will strengthen their willingness to give.

 

As professional fundraisers, we seek to connect donors with ministries that satisfy their need to give to people, causes and organizations.

Nine years ago, I stumbled in to the arena of Christian marketing and fundraising for nonprofits when I took a job with a Christian marketing and fundraising agency.  Active in ministry my entire adult life, I was looking to supplement our income as my firstborn launched to private Christian college.  This new job presented me with a steep learning curve, new vocabulary and challenging tasks.  I quickly found, however, that the things we were doing for our clients as a fundraising company were not that different from what I’d been doing for years throughout church and para-church involvement. 
 
 I began my career as a professional fundraiser decades ago when I joined the staff of Youth for Christ and was immediately responsible for raising 100% of my salary, expenses and benefits.  The need for a regular paycheck will make a willing professional fundraiser out of the most reluctant letter writer!  

I quickly learned what any good fundraising company will teach—that folks love to give to people, causes and organizations that are important to them.  In my case, the person, Meagan Gillan, was the appeal for one segment of donors.  These people would probably have supported me if I was hand-raising panda bear cubs in the Chinese rainforest.  They were behind me and wanted to let me know as much with their gifts and support.  

For another group, the gifts and donations were targeted at a cause—ministry to a cottage of juvenile delinquent girls in a locked state institution.  For a variety of reasons, their heartstrings were pulled when they learned of the plight of these girls who, though guilty of bad choices, were victims of bad family situations, bad economics and other circumstances beyond their control.  These donors wanted to help girls know Jesus and gain skills that would help them when they were released from the institution.  

A third group gave because they believed in and wanted to be associated with the organization.  Youth for Christ had already piled up decades of relevant, Gospel-focused ministry to millions of youth.  These givers were glad that I was serving a particular group of girls in a specific institution, but they were particularly pleased (and willing to give) because they knew and loved the organization with which I served.  Trust was a given.  

That innocuous beginning has led to a lifetime of helping people live in to their God-ordained need to give.  I’ve had up-close experience with several fundraising companies, and remain in awe, with many fundraising professionals, of the extraordinary faithfulness of the family of God as they pump billions of dollars of charitable giving into the human efforts that advance God’s Kingdom on earth.  It never ceases to amaze me.  

What you really want out of a premier blogging service is to see it deliver results, right?

Well, consider this.  With four posts to this compended, Keyword Blog system, I've already gotten to a Top 10 position on Google for this Keyword phrase: Premier Blogging Service. And I intend to stay there by talking about all the merits of this keyword marketing, compended, premier blogging tool.

For one, it flows my blog posts automatically onto the appropriate keyword blog categories. That saves me a ton of time and effort that I get to spend in other areas of my life. This unique feature is called compending. Said in another way, it auotmatically "populates" each appropriate keyword blog every time I post to my main blog.

Secondly, it search engine optimizes all my blog posts, guiding me to create content that makes the search engines, like Google, Yahoo and Bing, very happy. Plus the content is targeting keywords on the internet.

Thirdly, I can have unlimited users on my system so other friends, staffers or colleagues can help me in the blogging process. That doesn't cost me anything extra. And I like the extra help. It gives my blog the edge in developing ongoing, relevant content.

Fourthly, it allows me to generate content that gets flowed all across the internet. In doing so, it finds me new friends, who like what I have to say, and want to consider further the services I have to offer.

Fifthly (is that a word?), I can autoflow all my blog posts from this system onto my other "free" blog accounts.

Finally, it's so easy to use, I just love it. And it comes with complete tech support so that if anything ever goes wrong (which it never does), I'm covered.

If you'd like a Free Demo on this exceptional internet marketing tool, (which can easily become your church blog, ministry blog, church outreach, christian blogging tool, christian marketing tool, non profit marketing tool, or small business blog service), please call me today at 1-623-322-3334. Ask for Randall Mains, and I'll be glad to share my enthusiasm with you about this fine product that you can take advantage of too.

Installing an effective ministry blog or church blog can be a simple decision.  Do you want to go the free route, using a service like Wordpress or Blogger, or do you want to go with a premium service like Compendium which costs something but is a real marketing tool for your ministry?

I would argue to go with the premier blogging service first.  Then add your free blog services later.  Let me explain why I feel that way. 

The compended blog tool that I use is a superior outreach and promotional vehicle for my company and could be for your ministry, church or small business as well.  It gives me the following advantages in effective internet marketing:

1. It allows me to establish multiple Keyword blogs. (See my Category list down the right sidebar of this column). Each of these Keyword blog terms has been carefully researched, then run through 2-3 serious evaluation layers, giving me a high degree of confidence that my Keyword Blogs can bust into a Top 10 listing on Google, Yahoo or Bing.  As long as I stay committed to developing relevant content for my keywords, this tool assures me a fighting chance for a Top 10 listing on my terms. It could do the same for you.

2. It populates all my Keyword blogs automatically as I create my primary blog posts.  This saves me a hige amount of time and energy.  It effectively leverages my writing effort dozens of times over.  For example, once I finish writing this blog post, the system will automatically "compend" it to these other relevant Keyword Blogs (Blog Services, Ministry Blogs, Church Blog, Premier Blogging Service, Ministry Blog, Christian Blogging, etc). Do you get that incredible advantage?

3. Each Keyword Blog is also fully Search Engine Optimized on that term for Google, Yahoo and Bing.  That begins with each blog having a unique URL. It also includes a nifty color bar tool that enables me to create each post in a way that my copy is fully optimized for my terms.  I would have to do these steps manually otherwise, a time-draining process at best, even for a marketing firm like ours.  For those who don't understand the SEO process at all, this advantage would be out of reach. If you paid someone to Search Engine Optimize your blog, it would cost you hundreds, maybe even thousands of dollars of income.  It might even be money well spent, if it gets you a top listing for your blog, but the point is, I don't have to spend any money on SEO with this tool, because my blogs are already optimized for every keyword in our system.  Yours would be too.

4. It allows me to have unlimited blogger accounts. I can open up the blogging process to as many staffers or writers as I 'd like, at no additional cost to me.  This gives me the advantage of getting content from multiple sources rather than just relying on myself or a few dedicated writers. If you're a church, for example, you could have your Senior Pastor, Associate Pastor, Youth Pastor, Worship Leader, C.E. Director, even Deacons and Elders all blogging ont eh same system, under one account.

5. It notifies the search engines each time we update our blog.  This process, called pinging, keeps Google informed that there is new content available for evaluation. It does this step so you don't have to.

6. It is actively fighting to get me visibilty on my keywords -- it's a true marketing tool.  The compending and optimization process, by intent and design, is looking to establish a presence for each keyword in my blog in the Top 10 results of a Google search. This primary goal recognizes that if I get presence on my terms, I will get qualified traffic from those terms to my blog. Qualified traffic to my blog means qualified names added to my email lists, new leads to my church, new sales for my business and/or gifts to my ministry.  This system is prospecting for new customers for me even as it establishes me as an authority in my areas of expertise.  It would accomplish the same strategic objective for your company.

7. It allows me to autoflow my content to the free blog services.  Once my premier blogging service is installed, then I also have the option to begin flowing my blog content automatically into numerous other free blog services like Wordpress, Blogger, Xanga, LiveJournal, Vox, etc.  This way I get all the advantages of my superior marketing tool and maintain a presence in the other blog services, without any additional effort on my part.
You would establish a substantial presence across the internet with this tool in your marketing lineup.

8. It allows me to control the posting process.  Each post that gets submitted from my bloggers goes into a qeueu waiting for my approval. This allows me to oversee the posts, perform quality control if necessary, and approve them before they go live. You would ahve the same measure of content control.

9. It comes with a superior team of tech support professionals. Although it's really a turn-key process, if you need help in getting to success using this superior tool, the Pathmaker Marketing team and Compendium are both available to help you.


For a Free Demo of these online marketing tools, call me today at 623-322-3334, and I'd be more than happy to discuss in more detail how this resource could be implemented for your church ministry, non profit organization or small business.

So many people are talking about blogging these days … bloggers … the ever-powerful blogosphere …  that you may be wondering if Christian blogging can help you reach your church or other ministry goals. No doubt, Christian blogging is a powerful outreach tool! But you may want to start at the beginning, in case you're now too embarrassed to ask the question you should have asked five years ago: What’s a blog?

According to the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, a blog is a contraction of the term “web log.” The “web” part of the contraction indicates that your Christian blogging is done online - it’s a website. The “log” part of the contraction refers to the fact that a blog is basically just a log of entries – related or not. You could opine about your trip to Jamaica one day and then evaluate all 31 flavors of your neighborhood Baskin Robbins the next, and all your friends and family could keep up with your musings without you having to write to each one separately. And they can comment on your entries.

And that’s not a bad strategy if your blog is meant only for friends and family. But for church or ministry outreach purposes, you might want to take a more strategic approach to your Christian blogging.

1. Invest in a good blogging tool. There are several free blogging tools available, but I recommend a tool that will turn your Christian blogging into an outreach power tool for your church or ministry. People have to see your Christian blogging efforts for that to happen. Getting seen by people looking for a church or ministry like yours requires getting your blog listed on the first page of search results on search engines like Google and Yahoo. And that requires being strategic in your use of keywords that relate to what your church or ministry does. To do that, you need a “compended blog.” Pathmaker Marketing LLC blog uses an unique and powerful blogging tool. For a free demo on how this tool can help you in your Christian blogging, call for a free demo at 623-322-3334.
   
   Those free tools might seem like a good deal, but they don’t compile each of your blogs into multiple blogs and then optimize them to secure page one listings on search results. You have to do that yourself (and, believe me, it’s a lot of work!). This will make your Christian blogging easier, faster and more effective.
    
2. Invest in keyword research. When Pathmaker set up our blog, we gave Compendium a list of strategic keywords that people would search when looking for a service like ours. The Compendium tool automatically compiles our posts into multiple blogs under all appropriate keywords, not just the one into which we posted it. This work-leveraging feature also optimizes the posts to tell the search engines to, “Come find me.”
   
   Pathmaker helps clients select keywords that not only are used by people searching for their services but also (a) get a lot of searches and (b) don’t have too much competition for you to break into. We also help clients evaluate where they currently stand in search results for those keywords and then develop strategies to improve those standings.
    
3. Develop ministry-oriented content that uses keywords. Not only do you want people to find your blog entries, you want them to find the information useful enough to convince them to visit or contact your church or ministry and get the benefits you offer them. Christian blogging should be ministerial in nature, and you should provide contact information so people who need the ministries you offer can easily find you.

When you use the right kind of blogging tool, put adequate time into choosing keywords and develop concise but helpful content using those keywords, your Christian blogging can become an effective online extension of your church or ministry outreach efforts.

Choosing a Premier Blogging Service makes all the difference in the world.

The blog post that you are reading right now is part of a 50 Keyword, Compended Blogging system.  It's a high -powered outreach tool and ministry marketing machine rolled into one.  It could easily be adapted as your church blog, ministry blog or christian blogging system.  To see how this superior blogging tool works, review the posts on my page, notice the categories that are targeting keywords in the right sidebar, click on my calls to action, and enjoy the overall professionalism of this incredible ministry tool.

Consider this as an upgrade to your church outreach online. See it as a major player in your non profit marketing lineup.  Consider it thoroughly as one of your key outreach ideas.  Add it to your core set of small business marketing strategies. Use it as an outlet for preaching or teaching from your pastors, elders, deacons or lay leaders.

Here's how the blog services work:

1. I do strategic keyword research to find those golden search terms that I want my blog to appear in the top 10 results on Google, Yahoo or MSN.
2. I faithfully and thoughtfully blog about internet marketing ideas three times a week or more on my keyword categories (I add other users as I want at to help push up my weekly postings).
3. The compending system takes my posts and appropriately distributes them (compends and re-allocates) onto my 50 keyword blogs in a search engine optimized fashion, notifying Google about my new content, and saving me tons of time and effort.
4. After about 50 posts Google starts to notice me and display by blogs in my keyword results.
5. After 200 posts I'm getting seen as an authority on my subject(s) so I begin to get significant traffic on my target search terms. This goes on forever if I keep on blogging.
6. I work to convert the qualified traffic that visits my blog into lists, leads or sales through calls to action like Whitepaper Downloads, Case Studies, Webinars, Email Signups, etc.
7. I watch my business grow because my blog establishes me as an authority in my field and brings me qualified search traffic every single day.
8. I buy groceries and clothes and other stuff for the wife and kids.
9. I go to sleep happy as my business grows and I become more successful online.

Any Questions?

Call me at 1-623-322-3334. Ask for Randall Mains at Pathmaker Marketing. Ask about my Premier Blogging Service that is keyword marketing my business all across the internet. If I can do it, so can you. Call today.

A couple more tips and some examples of Principle #4: Develop a hard-working site to avoid the problems of a non profit design that’s all looks and no brains.

Practical Tip #3: Have your critical info appear above the fold so readers don’t have to scroll down to find it.  This is a key feature of good non profit website design.

Practical Tip #4: Have a good database for holding names and critical information about visitors – typically called “the back end.” One of the most important and overlooked aspects of generating leads is having a way for people to tell others about your site, so: Add “tell a friend” functionality to improve your non profit marketing.

If the object of your site is to sell products, is your ecommerce easy to use and fully functional? Make sure all products have a photo and one sentence description. Make sure you have a good shopping cart system, with a straighforward checkout process (no nine-step checkout routines) and test it often to ensure that nothing has broken down, so you lower your shopping cart abandonment rates.

If your site is designed to generate memberships, does it accomplish that purpose well? It’s similar to name generation in terms of convincing people to fill out a form, but if you want people to become members, your site also needs to have a feeling of community. Even though it would be nice if Christians will automatically want to interact with you because of your wonderful outreach, they won’t. They need to know what’s in it for them, and visiting your site has to be easy and fun if you want them to come back.

Practical Tip #5: Install a Prayer Wall onto your site that members can update the wall with prayer requests for general issues or items specific to your ministry. Let the content be uploaded automatically, but monitor it in case you need to remove anything inappropriate.
Prayer Walls can be great non profit marketing and ministry tools.

Good examples of a Prayer Wall:
Presidential Prayer Team
Gregory Dickow Ministries
National Prayer Campaign

If you need help to pull this off contact Pathmaker for more details.

Here are some examples of hard-working websites:
Presidential Prayer Team
(Good effort at offering member benefits in exchange for name and email data. Thank You page offers a Welcome Kit in exchange for full address, phone)
Grand Canyon University
(Gets leads by convincing you to sign up and providing the means all on one screen)
eHarmony
(Excellent job of using the right images and simple text to get people to use a form and register)
The Villages at Country Club
(Real Estate site design to generate visitor leads into the showroom0

Pathmaker Marketing can help ensure that your web site is working as hard as possible. Contact us anytime for an evaluation of your non profit website design, email fundraising, or non profit marketing.

Like the television commercial where the married couple had to take showers in public water fountains, not having a home is a major headache. Can you imagine the headaches resulting from this crazy scenario?

“What’s your name, sir?” “I don’t know.”
“Where do you live, sir?” “I don’t know.”

This leads us to the next principle of good website design:

Good Non Profit website Design Principle #2: To avoid wandering around nameless and homeless on the Internet, resolve the essentials of selecting your name and address.

To accomplish Principle #2, every non profit website design needs answers to two critical questions: “What’s your address?” and “Who’s your host?”

1. What’s your address? Otherwise known as your domain name or URL, your website name is an essential ingredient. Examples of world-renowned domain names include google.com, wikipedia.com, flickr.com, and yahoo.com.

Practical Tip #1: Choose a domain name that is your company name or brand, or default to the closest derivation, and get all the extensions (.com, .org, .net, .info).

First Choice: Pick your company name or brand name as your domain, if possible, e.g., generalmills.com or cheerios.com. Or select both, but promote the one you go by publicly. People will attempt to search the name by which they remember you the most.

Second Choice: A derivation of your company or brand name. Pick short domains over long ones, and memorable/pronounceable names over acronyms, unless you go primarily by your acronym. For example, firstchristianchurch.com is preferable to fcc.com, but if you’re widely known as FCC, then get fcc.com. Better yet, get both.

Consider hyphens as a backup option, e.g., first-christian-church.com.

Avoid plurals unless you can’t obtain the singular derivation. If you select a derivation like Mysite.com or TheSite.com, be sure to advertise your site as such.

Ideally, try to find a domain where you can get all priority extensions. If you’re in charge of non profit marketing, you may want to promote your organization using .org, and then choose .com and .net as your backups.

Alternatively, if you select .com first, then use .org and .net as backups. (These choices may vary in different countries.) Picking up all domain extensions will give people the widest access to your site—in other words, they can type any of the extensions and still get to your site because you have them all. It also serves to stop your competitors from snapping up the closest variation.

Here’s a good online reference for picking domain names:

2. Who’s your host? Your website host will be the entity that stores the files (text, graphics, photos, videos, etc.) that make up your site. When someone views your site on the Internet, the host computer “serves up” your pages, based on the computer code written by whomever programs your website. Because they “serve up” the pages of your website for people to view, your host computer is often called a server.

Here are some online reference sources for finding a good hosting company:

best-webhosting-2008.com/  tophosts.com/

Before deciding on a host, it’s critical to determine the kinds of attributes you want your website to contain. For example, do you need ecommerce, databases, or email fundraising features?

Here’s a good article on the top 9 things to look for in a web host:
tophosts.com/articles/000488.html

Here’s a good article on the most commonly asked questions:
http://www.tophosts.com/faq.html

For more help on this subject contact Pathmaker Marketing.