Howdy from Tennessee!

[zephness]

I just stumbled on this forum today and was extremely happy to find it!

I've been my church's webmaster for about 10 months now, and I have to say it's the most wonderful... and frustrating... job I've ever had!

I look forward to being a part of this group.

-Tra

[flutem3]

Hi, Traci,

Welcome to the forum. I think it is a neat one as well. I took a look at your website. Where did you learn to do all of that stuff? I do have one question though. Where is your church other that Powell, TN? I could not find an address or phone number or email address other than to the webmaster. Now, I have overlooked them before when they were staring me in the face. But I generally see them.

I have the name of the church, address, phone number, contact us on each page because I have discovered that people can sometimes entire a website from all over the place.

I get great joy out of doing our website as well. I have much to learn, but I keep reading here and learn bit by bit.

Welcome!!

Carol

[GuruGreg]

Welcome aboard!

This is a great place to bounce ideas off one another, and there's plenty of technical know-how to spare as well!

[Faithhb_lutheran]

Welcome to the forum. I hope you will find this community as beneficial as I have.

[zephness]

Thanks for the warm welcome. :)

I come from a programming background, so that's helped a lot in developing my webmastering skills.

As far as the address to our church, it's on the "contact us" page, and there's a link to "contact us" on top of most every page. I tend not to put the address because Powell is a very small community ... VERY small... and if you know where Powell is, then you know pretty much know where the church is. LOL However; I have been thinking of adding the address to the footer of the pages as well, so maybe I'll just go ahead and do that.

[JackWolfgang]

Welcome aboard!

[flutem3]

Hi, Traci,

I understand about small communities. However, if I am thinking of moving to your town and want to find the church, I need to be able to find it. Everyone in your town knows where it is, but we don't. Putting the information in the footer would be good if it isn't too tiny to read. :)

From the beginning I put address, phone number, etc. on every page. I guess I was thinking in terms of a business letter which always has that information. One of the things I run into frequently when I go website hopping for fun and education is to notice the lack of address or any other kind of contact information...anywhere. It is remarkable. David, the forum administrator, knows way more about that than I do. He has review 1000's of church websites for his list of good websites.

In the meantime, anything you want to know, ask. I probably won't know the answer, but somebody on here will. There are some very experienced people on here. In fact, there are times I don't know what they are talking about, but I keep reading...and learning bit by bit.

Carol

[David Gillaspey]

Hi Traci,

Nice looking site. I see that you have listed the city and state at the bottom of the home page, and the services times at the top. Both are important to have on the home page.

Writing to all now (and to future readers of this thread):

There's a crucial difference between, say, a church ad in the yellow pages or phone directory, and a church website. The former is seen only by the residents of a community. The latter potentially may seen by people from around the world. A church webmaster must think globally, therefore. (Carol herself has written before about having had visitors to her site from around the world.) It's imperative, therefore, that the church location (city and state, at least) be right there on the home page. I myself advocate a full address and phone number on the home page.

Several months ago, my wife and I decided to visit a large church nearby that enjoys some renown nationally for having developed small groups long before they became popular. Churches are like movies in one respect — you have to know when the church service or movie starts, otherwise, you might as well wait for the next service or movie showing. Thus I wanted/needed to visit the church's website to find out when the services started. I didn't know the church's web address, so I typed in a likely URL based on the church name. A church website — some church's website — loaded into browser as I expected. To my dismay, however, I had to hunt around the site to find out where the church whose site I had found was located. Was it the large church nearby? Well, no, it turned out to be the website of a similarly named church on the other side of the country. I should have seen the church location immediately upon landing on the site. I shouldn't have had to hunt around for the church location.

By the way, don't miss the critical point embedded in the above: because so many churches have similar names — there must be 100s of Cornerstone Churches and First Baptist Churches and Crossroads Churches around the country — it's critical that a visitor immediately see upon arriving at a site where the church is located. That way they know right away: 1) is this the church I was looking for (that I heard about)?, or 2) is this church located in my city (I might visit) or in another state (I won't be visiting), or 3) is this church located in the city to which I am traveling?; etc.

Sincerely,

David Gillaspey
President.
Great Church Websites
(and forum administrator)

[flutem3]

David wrote:

" (Carol herself has written before about having had visitors to her site from around the world.)"

Hi Traci,

David is right. For some reason when our website began not quite 2 1/2 years ago, I started keeping track of where some people came from including countries other than the USA as well as colleges and universities. It is just amazing to me. I have no idea how some of them ended up there. Sometimes, I can tell.

As of today 32 different countries have landed there. In the last couple of weeks Finland, Iran, Israel, and Russia were added. I am not counting countries twice, but there have been several different visits from Canada, the UK, the Philippines, Australia, Brazil, Spain, Switzerland, and Belgium. A couple that really surprised me were Taiwan and South Korea. Oh, and Afghanistan too.

The institution with the greatest number of visits is Johns Hopkins as well as Notre Dame, I.U., Purdue, Duke, Georgia Tech, Temple, Garret Theological Seminary, Texas Tech, U. of Missiouri, Michigan, Kentucky, Kennesaw State etc.

It is a fascinating place out there.

Carol

[Faithhb_lutheran]

Carol,

most of those foreign hits are most likely from spammers, either they're trying to harvest emails. clog traffic or hack the site.

All,

Just my opinion but this all sounds a little harsh, in today's world of tech savvy( mostly) persons, and local functions on all the major search engines, all that information isn't needed (just beneficial).

That being said David brings up a good point. How do we do the next step. That is "how do we make site visitors into church visitors?" I think what David and Carol have been trying to get at is that to be effective in ministry you need to have some way of easily letting web visitors find your church, that could be address info posted everywhere, or map pages linked off of a homepage, or whatever else. The main point to think about is how do we go the next step. Websites are completely useless if they don't improve the kingdom.

[flutem3]

Carol,

most of those foreign hits are most likely from spammers, either they're trying to harvest emails. clog traffic or hack the site.


Hi,

You may be right in some instances, but I know some of the people. My cousin is in Spain, I know forum members from other countries who have visited, I know one of the people from Australia, as well as the pastor in the Philippines who asked me to write a welcome for his district site which I did. It linked back to ours. For example, our Mr. Belfry from the UK has been to our site.

The other thing is that we have service men all over the world. There is no reason not to believe that some of them have not visited. In fact, that is who visited from Afghanistan. And I know that because they did "contact us."

I am not going to think that it is hackers because I know of many of the people who came to the website. And who would have hacked a church website anyway? There is nothing to be gained, and I am certain it is no challenge to anyone.

Why not, instead of attributing the visits to a hacker, attribute them to the Lord working in mysterious ways. Seems more fruitful to me. And some of the people actually stayed awhile.

Carol

[Faithhb_lutheran]

Carol,

I was referring to those strange locales like the UAE and kenya that appear regularly on almost every site I have hosted. It is great to see the church's web presence reaching so far (we had a service woman in Iraq that checked the site the 6th of every month), but I don't want to get people that don't have those kind of hits discouraged, while we do great to interconnect the world together, that should be our main goal, and I would hate for any novices to get that impression from us. Sorry if you thought I was trying to be negative, I think I'm just in one of those moods lately.

[flutem3]

Hi, Kyle,

I get into moods myself sometimes. Don't worry about it. I am just as surprised as anyone else that people from other countries have found our site. It is just fun to watch what happens....because we don't ever know what it will be. :D

However, it would be nice if our congregation would discover that site even more. I have discovered that one group of people who frequent the site are members who have moved and retirees especially in Florida. They are having a good time keeping up with the remodeling project. Soon, I will be able to get some updated pictures of the inside as well.

Anyway, wherever they come from, everyone is welcome...and that is the truth!! I still wish I knew what people really want on a website. I just keep trying. I know that there are a variety of things, but I have not hit upon whatever it is that will really make our website "sticky." I hope to find out before I am 90.

Carol

[mrbelfry]

You may be right in some instances, but I know some of the people. My cousin is in Spain, I know forum members from other countries who have visited, I know one of the people from Australia, as well as the pastor in the Philippines who asked me to write a welcome for his district site which I did. It linked back to ours. For example, our Mr. Belfry from the UK has been to our site.

That's right I have and I had a good time whilst there. My stats package Webalizer stopped telling me where visitors come from a long time ago and just lists everyone has unresolved. This is a shame because my pastor was always impressed when I told him we had visitors from Japan and Finland so it made me look good. What I'm more interested in is what terms people search for when they find our site. A few times a month we get someone searching for someone specific in our congregation. I often wonder if it is people googling their own name (own up! we've all done it)

mrbelfry (typing my name in google now!)

[flutem3]

Hi, Mr. Belfry,

Where have you been? I hope you have been well. I see you continue to read.

Try Google Analytics for your statistics. They are free and cover all kinds of information. I agree with you that page per visit is a more valuable way to view the statistics.

I keep track of the other for fun...however they end up there. I have statistics with Homestead, but my computer refuses to let me in. It just stopped. I wrote to Homestead, and they gave me a multitude of things to try like removing popup starters on that page, etc. But something keeps me out. I actually like those better than the Google statistics, but Google was next best to what I had.

Anyway, it is fun. I enjoy watching universities show up as well. We are all puzzled by who from Johns Hopkins checks in from time to time. I had the first person from Finland as well a week ago as well as three visits from someone from the Ivory Coast. That person spent some time on the website each visit.

Well, I have just reminded myself that I need to do something I told a friend I would do "first thing in the morning." Instead, I am here so I better get at it.

Take care.

Carol

[srmcatee]

Welcome Tra,

I missed it. What was the url to your churches website?

[mrbelfry]

Hi, Mr. Belfry,

Where have you been? I hope you have been well. I see you continue to read.

Try Google Analytics for your statistics. They are free and cover all kinds of information. I agree with you that page per visit is a more valuable way to view the statistics.

Sorry to hijack this thread. I read every day and have been very well but don't have as much time to contribute anymore (plus I'm becoming more and more convinced of my ignorance!). I became a dad 6 months ago so my life has changed big time!

I'm glad you agree with me that page per visit is valuable however this is not what I meant;-) My stats tell me what people have put into a search engine when they find our site. For example if someone put 'Church Manchester' into google and then visited my site then the stats package records 'Church Manchester' as a search term. I often find that someone has searched for a specific person and I wonder if they've been looking themselves up on the internet.

Oh and hello from me Traci