Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s web spam team, was recently interviewed by Jefferson Graham of USA Today regarding solid search engine optimization (SEO) principles.

The article, while fairly basic, provides a good start. If churches and ministries just followed these simple principles, I believe they would see some good improvement in their search engine rankings. In the ecommerce world, I like to say that the buying cycle begins at Google (because that’s where people search for your products). The same can increasingly be said in the Christian world - the “searching for a community of believers” cycle begins at Google.

Matt Cutts’ blog is also a valuable resource.

Sally Stuart, a well-known authority on Christian writing (she has compiled the Christian Writers’ Market Guide for the last 23 years), recently posted a letter from Craig von Buseck (Director of Ministries at the Christian Broadcasting Network) about his upcoming book tentatively titled “NetCasters: Harnessing the Internet to Make Fishers of Men.”

Craig is looking for stories of those who have come to Christ through the internet. If you know of such a story, Craig would welcome your input .

Dr. Jay Herndon is the Secretary-Treasurer for the Northern California and Nevada district of our denomination (the Assemblies of God). He is also an old, old friend from elementary school, Little League baseball, junior high, and college!

Jay recently sent an email to a mailing list for the ministers of our district and mentioned an intriguing use of text messaging the denomination is planning on using:

I’ve talked to our District Youth Director about using text response in a slightly different way: When there is an appeal for a call to ministry at Youth Convention and other youth events the kids flood the altars, and there are so many that it is impossible to get their name and address. I’m concerned that we haven’t been able to follow up with these kids. And so I have asked him if we can set up a text number, and ask the kids to text us their name and email. We are not using this to avoid the altar call, but to get the information that we need in a way they are accustomed to give it.

Interesting! What other innovative uses for text messaging are being used by the church today? Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments to this article.

I just received an email from Mike Boyink asking me to help get the word out about a new project he’s starting through his Train-ee website.

Before I tell you about the project, though, let me give a quick word of explanation about Train-ee.com.

I’ve been using content management systems from EllisLab for about three and a half years. I first used pMachine and then switched to ExpressionEngine when it was launched. I’ve never been sorry. I now use or have implemented ExpressionEngine on 13 different websites.

Guess where I found out about EllisLab? That’s right — Mike Boyink has been a champion of EllisLab products for over four years, and he was the one who first turned me on to the joys of using EllisLab products.

In January of this year, Mike launched a new site — Train-ee.com — where he shares his wisdom and experience “to help web professionals get up to speed on ExpressionEngine^® as quickly as possible.” Through Train-ee, Mike provides online and in-person training, ebooks, and screencasts, all designed to help you learn the best content management system around in a minimum of time and with a minimum of pain! Mike is considered one of the experts in the ExpressionEngine support forums, and his combination of knowledge, wisdom, internet strategy experience, and extensive experience with ExpressionEngine means there is no one better to help you learn to use this great CMS.

Now, on to Mike’s newest project. One of Mike’s first projects for the Train-ee website was a series on “Building an ExpressionEngine Site - Small Business.” The series was very well-received in the ExpressionEngine community. And now, he will soon begin another “how to Build an ExpressionEngine Site” series, this time building a church website.  At the end of the series when the site is complete it will be auctioned off on eBay, with proceeds going to a TBD charity. You can learn more here:

A New Blog, A New Series

If you have been looking for a content management series for a new church website or to start redevelopment on an old church website, I am confident that this series will prove extremely valuable to you. Mike is the developer of the Manna? church website and is very experienced in working with churches to effectively use their websites. I would strongly encourage you to visit the Train-ee website and start following Mike’s new series!

I was reading this article on Think Christian last week, and was particularly struck by the comments, especially Jason Wells’ reference to 2 John 12. I often talk about the need for face-to-face community and about how internet evangelism still needs the foundation of a physical gathering in a local area. But I had never considered the relevance of 2 John 12 to the discussion (probably because it would largely seem like an obscure verse without much relevance to anything — shame on me for thinking like that!).

Here’s what 2 John 12 says:

Having many things to write to you, I do not want to do so with paper and ink; but I hope to come to you and speak face to face, that your joy may be made full.

The clear implication is that there is something incomplete about communication only through paper and ink — face-to-face communication is necessary for our joy to be made full.

The Greek word which is translated “be made full” in this verse means “to bring something to completion, to finish something already begun.” The verse suggests that face-to-face communication is necessary for believers’ joy to be brought to completion.

If writing letters with paper and ink could not make the believers’ joy full or complete in John’s day, can email make our joy full or complete? Can discussion forums make our joy full or complete? Can online video chat make our joy full or complete? Is there something incomplete about digital communication?

Here’s another blog I came across on Thursday:

ChurchSMO

Here is what the author, Aaron Marshall, writes about himself and his recently-launched blog:

My name is Aaron Marshall, I work for DBS>Interactive, a large web development company in Louisville, Kentucky, as the Director of Sales and Marketing. Being involved in projects from beginning to end gives me copious amounts of opportunity to see web strategies successfully executed. I read between 10-20 RSS feeds a day, regularly finding gold-mines of useful services that could be applied to church and ministry.

I especially like Aaron’s use of videos throughout his articles. It lends a personal touch which is quite engaging.

Here’s a blog that’s been around for awhile but is new to me:

Church Website Help

Mickey Mellen, webmaster at Mt. Bethel United Methodist Church, has been writing the blog since September of 2005 (gee, where have I been to only have noticed it yesterday?).

The article entitled Church Websites Around Atlanta Are Pretty Bad caught my eye immediately since I used to work a bit on a website for a church in the Atlanta area (not on Mickey’s list thankfully! ). The article talks about some of the common mistakes churches make and it also brought the issue of proper canonicalization for search engine optimization purposes back into the forefront of my mind (the issue wasn’t entirely new to me, but I had never given it much thought until yesterday when I carefully read what Mickey had to say on the subject). It made me start testing a lot of my sites! Thankfully, most of them add the “www” in automatically, but the website of my last remaining “design client” (as vs. “strategy client") does not pass the test, so I’ll need to work on that a bit.

All in all, it looks like there is a wealth of content to explore on Mickey’s blog and I encourage you to add it to your list of RSS feeds so you can read him on a regular basis.

Churches, ministries, and missionaries should all be aware of solid search engine optimization principles and implement them faithfully on their websites. Here is a great resource to help you do just that:

Mihai’s SEO Cheat Sheet

from Mihai Gheza.

When I started Strategic Digital Outreach in the Fall of 2004, I would never have imagined that we would be involved in publishing a book. But here we are, three-and-a-half years later, and we have recently helped our friend and advisor Dave Dias publish his first book, Irene’s Journey Of Faith.

Readers of this blog may remember an earlier post in which we shared about the disease Irene Dias has contracted.

Here is the description of the book we are using on Amazon and other websites:

The inspiring story of Irene and Dave Dias and their courageous battle against a rare, incurable and terminal disease, Primary Amyloidosis. Although the suffering they face is severe, this is not a story of despair, but of an incredible faith and even more of an incredible God who sustains His followers with lavish grace, extravagant kindness, and unrelenting love. Compiled from selected blog entries at IreneDias.com, this devotional recounts the story of the initial diagnosis of the disease, Irene’s long hospitalization, the eventual stem cell transplant, Irene’s release from the hospital, and Irene and Dave’s ongoing challenges and victories.

If the challenges you face are frightening ....
If your circumstances seem hopeless ....
If your life is falling apart and you don’t know where to turn ....

Irene’s Journey of Faith will encourage you and strengthen your faith in the God who promises to uphold you no matter how difficult and painful your life’s journey may seem.

I would strongly encourage the readers of this blog to visit Irene and Dave’s website, IreneDias.com (this link will take you to a page from which you can either purchase the book or proceed to the blog to read its entries.

Tony Whittaker of the Web Evangelism Guide and Internet Evangelism Day has written a brilliant parable called A Tale of Two Golf Clubs. See if you can figure out what the meaning of the parable is!

By the way, this year’s Internet Evangelism Day is scheduled for April 27. That’s only 78 days away. Have you started to prepare?

The Rock at Iowa State University
Ames, Iowa
http://www.rockisu.com

This church has boldly made their home page an aggregation of their church members’ blogs. They call their aggregation “Planet Rock” — if you click on that item in the navigation menu, you’ll find that they are currently aggregating the blogs of 50 different church members. Refreshing! The sense I get from this is that the church is a group of people rather than an organization.

Beyond aggregating blogs, the site makes good use of a couple of Web 2.0 technologies — MySpace and Flickr.

Another great thing about this site is that it is standards-compliant (valid XHTML 1.0 Strict and valid CSS). Standards compliance is an aspect of website development that is not talked about much among church and ministry designers, but I believe it has vast implications for the spread of the gospel.

Contact: Matt Heerema

Seed Church
Bothell, Washington
http://www.dyingtolive.org

I think this website excels in its writing. The first time I visited it, this is what the home page said:

It is time for you to lose control.

“Unless a seed falls to the ground and dies, it remains by itself… alone. But if it dies, it produces many others and yields a rich harvest. Anyone who loves his life, loses it. But anyone who despises his life in this world, will keep it all the way until eternity.”

2000 years ago, Jesus said these words. Then, he embodied them. He was God, yet He lived his short life, not to propel himself to greatness, but to serve others. He gave his life to save ours.

The secret of true living is found in a paradox. If you choose to hold on to the control of your life, to find purpose in yourself and your own interests, your choice guarantees you will lose your life when you die. If you choose to give up control of your life now to God, to find purpose in God and in His interests, your choice guarantees you will keep your life after death.

Seed Church invites you to lose control.

I like that because I feel it appeals to the inner desires of many (if not all) unbelievers — to live for something beyond oneself — and because it does so in a fashion which is very atypical of a church website. Today’s tendency among top-notch designers is to concentrate on graphic appearance (which is important because people make a decision about a website almost immediately), but well-written content is usually an afterthought. Often, a church will just republish something that was originally written for a brochure targeted, it seems, at believers moving into an area or looking for a new church rather than at unbelievers in a local area.

By the way, check out the domain name they chose. Very intriguing!

Contacts: Unknown