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Success Story – Journey Church Communication Strategy brings 100 NEW Adult Visitors in 6 Months Watch as Pastor Aaron from Journey Church of Kansas City speaks about the results they received after putting Church Communication Strategy ideas in place from FindingYourChurch.com The post Success Story – Journey Church Communication Strategy brings 100 NEW Adult Visitors in 6 Months appeared first on Finding Your Church.

FYC Podcast 015: Free Tool to Automate Your Church Tasks LINK >> FREE Fiverr For Churches Guide You CAN automate specific online and digital tasks to save you a ton of time. Obviously you cannot automate ALL aspects of your Church or Ministry, but there are a lot of things you do every day that could be removed from your to-do list using this FREE resource. So much of what we do during the day is repetitive. Many tasks could actually be done by an assistant, but paid staff in many Churches is not always an abundant resource. Even if you do have plenty of paid staff, most ministries are always looking for ways to increase productivity and get more done. Just because you paid staff does not mean you are satisfied having people do things they could have done for them for free. You will have to figure out how this works in your Church, but with this FREE tool you can automate your Church email, scheduling, team coordination, syncing content and files, and sending reminders. Of course, every solution on the site will not work for everyone in every situation so you have to find the ones that will be a benefit to you. It also works for your personal tasks, not just Church. Automate your Church Tasks with IFTTT IFTTT.com is the site that can help you accomplish this for your Church and personal to-do lists. They have divided your solutions into an easy to navigate menu of what they call RECIPIES that can automate a huge number of online and digital tasks. These recipes are explained with If/Then and DO scenarios to make it easy for you to figure out what you want to accomplish what that specific recipe. Examples of the If/Then tasks you can put on autopilot. Automatically log your Mileage Mute your phone when you get to work or maybe even Church. Connect your Church Facebook and Twitter. Find your phone and keep a call log. Keep your Church Social Media Profile Logos synced. Have news from specific websites automatically emailed to you. Save new contacts to a Google spreadsheet. Automatically share new WordPress blog posts to your Church Facebook page. Track your Church work hours in Google calendar. Document your daily Church activity in a Google spreadsheet. Message your spouse when you leave to or from work. Examples of the DO solutions that you can help you with digital and online tasks. Block off the next hour as “Do Not Disturb”. Record when and where you received a business card. Quickly create events in your Church and personal Google calendar. Save notes directly to Evernote on the go. Record security footage. Get yourself out of an awkward situation with a fake phone call. Let someone know you are heading home. Log a map of your current location in Evernote. Scan a picture directly to your computer. Keep track of where you were this week for accountability or Church work. My favorite DO Recipe is the one where you can have it call you to get out of an awkward or boring situation. Maybe this could work for your next Church Board Meeting or Counseling Session? This is obviously not very honest of course, and you probably would NOT want to do this while representing your Church. But, it is still funny. Check out IFTTT and get started creating your automated recipes for your Church and personal tasks with the link below. LINK >> IFTTT.com – Learn How To Automate Your Small Business The post 015: Free Tool to Automate Your Church Tasks appeared first on Finding Your Church.

FYC Podcast 014: Cheap Royalty Free Church Photos, Graphics, Themes & Template Designs LINK >> FREE Fiverr For Churches Guide Whether you are in a creative or tech position on a Church Staff or the Lead Pastor, you are always in need of a great graphic or template for something. Whether it is for a postcard design for an upcoming mailing or a template for your Sermon screen presentation, the creativity needs to keep coming. The problem is we all have our go-to places for resources. These can get old and worn out very quickly, and people begin to notice the same thing over and over again in our print and presentations. It is time for some new ideas. Cheap Royalty Free Photos and much more for your Church with Creative Market I completely realize that we all want to get free stuff. Creative Market.com does offer some free graphics and templates, but sometimes you do need to pay at least something to get access to more choices and excellent quality. I first heard about this site from Brad Zimmerman creator of Church Media Design when he was on the Pro Church Tools Podcast. He is an excellent designer, Church conference speaker, and a promoter of resources for Churches with small budgets. Creative Market uses designs from over 11,000 independent creators to bring you a huge selection of pieces that can be used on your website, in print and for virtually any other purpose in your Church. Yes, most of the items do cost. But, you will get great quality and know you are safe and legal using it for your ministry. What does Creative Market offer? Here is a short list of the amazing free and cheap resources this site can offer your Church. Photos in nearly any category Graphics including icons, illustrations, objects, patterns, mockups, textures and web elements Templates for brochures, business cards, emails, flyers, invitations, logos, presentations and websites Themes for WordPress, HTML/CSS, Joomla and Drupal Fonts in nearly any style 3D elements You can get these individually, or find where the creatives have put packages together to give you more value for your money. Check out the link below to begin expanding your library of creative assets. LINK >> CreativeMarket.com The post 014: Cheap Royalty Free Church Photos, Graphics, Themes & Template Designs appeared first on Finding Your Church.

LINK >> How To Create A {nearly} FREE Church Website with WordPress // FREE Guide The post 013: How To Create A {nearly} FREE Church WordPress Website appeared first on Finding Your Church.

FYC Podcast Episode 012: Attending The Church For People Who Hate Church I recently drove by a Church in my area that had a sign that said “The Church For People Who Don’t Like Church”. [Yes, I exaggerated a little about the hate.] I am all for Church outreach, missions and evangelism. I realize that people are coming to a saving knowledge of our Savior because of outreach events that rival a Barnum & Bailey Circus. I have even participated in suggesting somewhat outrageous ideas to further the Gospel. Once in a staff meeting I suggested that we have Nik Wallenda string up a high wire and walk between our main building and youth building, which was a significant distance. I am sure we could come up with a sermon for it. That is how it works correct? Start with an illustration, then an application and then find a Scripture right? Churches give away cars, TV’s, bicycles and even play the devil’s music for sermon openers. Whatever works. But even though the sign is eye-catching and creative, when I drove by I began to wonder if they were serious. And if they were serious, what would it be like to try to attend a Church for people who really don’t like Church. Trying to attend a “Church For People Who Don’t Like Church” Here are some questions I asked myself. Do I have to not like this particular Church to attend, or just Church in general? If I didn’t like the Church at first, but after attending for awhile I start to like it… do I have to leave? Are there different levels of not liking Church? Does mildly perturbed count? Do I have to not like everything, or can I pick and choose? If I do like Church, do I have to find something to not like in order to attend? How do you create a Service for people who don’t like Church? Is Ice Cream Sunday an option? If so, I’m there. Do the Pastor and Staff also dislike Church? Do you welcome people by saying, “I’m sorry you are here. I know you are mad right now.”? Should we even call it a Church because if people really don’t like it they would never come to a Church? Is it anything like a restaurant for people who don’t like restaurants? Maybe you make your own food there? Ok, so I agree. The last one was just stupid, because nearly nobody would go to a restaurant to make their own food [unless they go to The Melting Pot]. But evidently people will go to a Church for people who don’t like Church, because I see cars there every Sunday. Hey, whatever works. The post 012: Attending The Church For People Who Hate Church appeared first on Finding Your Church.

FYC Podcast Episode 011: 101 Tools For Church Communication There is such as thing as too many Church Communication tools. It is so easy to get distracted by using too many gadgets, or too many ways of doing the same thing. Do we really need an iWatch that syncs with our iPhone that syncs with our iPad that syncs with our iMac that syncs with our iCloud? Especially when all of these are essentially doing the SAME THING? But, there is a place for tools [and especially free resources] that make our lives easier. There are so many options and ways to improve and automate how we do Church Communications. 101 Tools to Improve Church Communication A Search Engine Journal article by Christina Baldassarre looks at 101 Tools to help grow a business this year. I would also say that many of these tools will also help grow your Church. You will find that you are already using many of these tools, some you will have heard of, and many will be new to you. Here is a list of the ones listed that I have used to help Grow my Church, Business and for personal use. Check out the link below for the complete list of links. What ones do you use? Hootsuite Buffer Canva PicMonkey Bitly Facebook Power Editor Google AdWords Facebook Audience Insights Skitch Evernote Google Apps for Work Google Drive Screencast Camtasia Google Calendar Google PageSpeed Google Mobile-Friendly Test Yoast SEO Google Photos Google Alerts Google Trends LINK >> 101 Tools To Grow Your Business In 2016 from Search Engine Journal The post 011: 101 Tools For Church Communication appeared first on Finding Your Church.

FYC Podcast Episode 010: Free Church Website Security Scan Podcast Resource Links > FindingYourChurch.com/FreeScan – FREE Church Online Visibility Scan > Free Website Security Scan > FindingYourChurch.com/Toolbox Podcast Episode Text Version It is a horrible feeling to go to Google and type in your Church website address and see absolutely nothing, or worse to see it has been replaced by hackers with something that does not promote the message of your Church. The problem is that a full blown hack is not the only thing you should be concerned about when it comes to your Church Website Security. Your site may already be hacked and you not even know it. You may have no idea. That is why a free Church website security scan can be very useful. Why would Hackers want to take control of your Church Website? You would not think that a hacker would any desire to gain access to your Church website. Even if you have a large Church, why would they want to hack into it? But, you would be wrong. They do want access. My Church website hosting company explained that some hacking strategies involve gaining backend control of hundreds or thousands of websites so they can attack larger targets without getting found out. When they launch their larger attacks, they can send them through these sites instead of their own. They can even create systems to bounce between sites so they can cover their tracks as far as I understand. Your Church website IS at risk no matter how small your Church is. Examples of Church Websites getting Hacked Number One: I created a WordPress based website for a small Church. The Pastors did not check the site often because it was pretty much information only, so they did not view it themselves that much. I randomly checked it, and the entire site had been replaced with an image of a Turkish flag and a song that automatically played when you accessed the site. It said it had been taken over by Turkish militants. I have no idea if the site had really been taken over by Turkish militants, but I can assure you this was not the message they were attempting to convey to their Church website visitors. Number Two: In a similar situation, I created a site several years ago for a Church. I randomly visited the site and there was a small text ad in the top left corner for Viagra. Now I am all for Church growth, but again that was not the message they wanted people to see. Number Three: At my last Church Staff position part of my responsibility was the website. I installed a WordPress plugin that would alert me if someone or something tried to login to my WordPress site too many times. When that happens, it is usually a program trying to crack your password and break into your website. I began receiving these email alerts every few minutes stating that something was trying to break into my Church WordPress site. I received these emails for a couple of days when I contacted my website hosting support to see if there was anything they could do. They said I just had to ride it out, and to change the password. I changed the password to a random string of 20 characters, and after 3 or 4 days the email notifications tapered off. I survived that time without getting hacked. In all 3 cases I was able to fix the issues, but it can be very challenging. How can you protect your Church Website from getting hacked? Your FIRST STEP is to see if your website has been infected with malicious code already. If so, you need to ACT NOW to correct the problem. Even though the hackers may try to keep it a secret that they have hacked into your website, they still do have control. At any moment they could try to hide their tracks or do something extremely damaging to your site. This damage could be irreversible if you do not have a backup. So the first step is to get a Free Church Website Security Scan that shows how secure your site is right now. Sucuri Site Check is a great place to start. They allow you to easily enter your website address, and very quickly see the results of your free Church website security scan. You can access that that link below. LINK >> Sucuri Free Website Security Scan [my affiliate link] What if your website has already been hacked? You WILL need to act on this as soon as possible if there has already been a breach in your site security. Thankfully you have at least a couple of options in addition to what they offer on the Sucuri Scanning Site. #1 – If you have a WORDPRESS Church Website, you can use WPCurve. This is service keeps all of your WordPress Themes, Plugins and even your WordPress software up to date so you do not have to maintain the back end of your website. It also creates and maintains backups of your website for you in case something goes wrong. They also offer a service where they will complete small website jobs for you. If you have been wanting to make small tweaks to your Church WordPress website that you have not been able to figure out how to do, they will do it for you. Here is the link to WPCurve. LINK >> WPCurve WordPress Website Security #2 – If your Church website is created with anything else except Church Website Builders [these should provide security for you], use Sucuri. Sucuri does NOT do extra small jobs like WPCurve, but they DO guarantee to keep your site safe from hackers as much as possible. And, if your website does get hacked, they can fix it for you. Check it out at the link below. LINK >> Sucuri Website Security Please note that previously we recommended Sitelock, but NOW we recommend Sucuri Website Security. The post 010: Free Church Website Security Scan appeared first on Finding Your Church.

FYC Podcast Episode 009: 5 FREE Steps To Improve Your Church Website and Online Reach Podcast Resource Links > FindingYourChurch.com/FreeScan – FREE Church Online Visibility Scan > “FREE Photoshop For Churches, Non-Profits and Businesses” Podcast Episode > FindingYourChurch.com/Toolbox Podcast Episode Text Version Welcome to the Finding Your Church Podcast from FindingYourChurch.com. My name is Jeremy Phillips and my goal is to help you make it a challenge for people to live in your community without finding your Church. There are many different approaches we could talk about, and extremely technical things we could do to improve the findability of our Church online. There are some of you listening who would understand them, and love to make the tedious and detailed time investment it would take to put those strategies in place. Those ideas are probably valid and would work to improve your Church online presence. But, how many of those extremely technical strategies would actually bring new Guests through your doors and new people visiting your Church? Even more importantly, if you are limited on time and resources you want to put your effort into something you can actually understand and accomplish. You do NOT want to invest your limited time into something that will frustrate you and produce limited results. So we want to look at 5 FREE Steps you can take TODAY to improve the online presence of your Church. For the most part, as long as you have access to the Internet and your Social Media accounts you can do these steps. Only one of the steps requires that you have access to the backend of your actual website. So lets get started with the 5 FREE Steps. #1 – Add your exact Church Name, Address and Phone Number to the footer of your website. If you are using WordPress you can usually add this information using a Footer Widget so that you only have to add it only once and it will show up on every page. If you are using some other website program, you may have to actually add this to the footer of each page of your site one at a time. If you are using an outside company to handle your website, you will need to ask them to make this change for you. If you are currently unhappy with your Church Website, check out our Resource Page at www.findingyourchurch.com/Toolbox for options to have a new one created for you. So why would we want to add this information to every page of our Church Website? Why not just have this contact information on the Contact Page only? The main reason for this will tie into the 4th and 5th steps as well. One thing Google looks for to make sure business and Churches are open and being managed by real people is how consistent the business or Church Name, Address and Phone Number is across the Internet. When Google sees that your Church Name, Address and Phone Number is exactly the same on Local Business Directories and other directory sites online as it is on your Church Website, it can be more likely that Google will boost your website in local Church search terms. So the simple way to approach this is to determine your exact Church Name, Address and main Phone Number and use it EVERYWHERE in the exact same format. You have to decide exactly how you are going to write your Church Name. Do you include your denomination in the name? Do you abbreviate anything? One of the Churches I worked at was an Assembly of God Church. This definitely becomes a problem when you abbreviate the word Assembly. An abbreviated version of Assembly of God is probably one of the most disrespectful things you could ever see, AND YET you would see it abbreviated over and over again from Churches who evidently put zero thought into their Church Name. An additional problem with the word Assembly shows up when you open up multiple tabs in your internet browser. The more tabs you open, the less text you see in the Tab title. Many times you would look at the tabs and Assembly would abbreviate itself. No bueno. The way we got around this was to just use AG in place of Assembly of God. But regardless of your name issues, you need to decide on the EXACT wording of your Name and Address. How are you going to write your address? Do you spell out North or just use N.? Do you use Avenue or Ave? It doesn’t matter how you do it other than you need to make a decision and stick with it. Place it in the footer of your website so that it shows up on every page so Google can definitely connect that contact information to your website. #2 – Google Search for your Church to FIND and FIX issues. This is especially important if you have changed locations a lot in your Church history. You will most likely find places online that still have your old address, phone numbers, website addresses or outdated Service Times. If you can find them, most likely a potential new Guest trying to visit your Church will find them too. Once you find the problem sites, you can make a list of them and contact the site owner to make changes to reflect the truth about your Church. You never know what you will find when you start Googling. Some Churches have entire blogs dedicated to pushing negative information about them. You may find out some things you did not want to know about a staff member or volunteer or whatever. You are mainly trying to correct inaccurate contact information that would detour a new visitor from finding your Church. But, if you find out other information, it would be better to know now and deal with it sooner than later anyway. So Google away. #3 – Open and Improve your Social Media account Profiles and Graphics. You may have had your Social Media accounts created a long time ago and things have changed, or you created them quickly and did not really fill in all of the details. One way to make an immediate impact on your online presence is to simply log in to the settings of all your accounts and update your information. Just like having outdated information in a Google Search can detour a potential new guest from visiting your Church, the same is true for outdated or incorrect profile information. Another issue is how often these sites change their layout. Your account home pages may have looked great as far as the graphics when you first set them up, but things have changed. And rudely, the sites never bothered to tell you about it. So now either your header graphic is stretched weird to fit the new size, or just a blank box where one of your graphics should be. Login and completely fill out your account profile and update your graphics today. Check out the “FREE Photoshop For Churches” Podcast Episode for details on a free graphics creation online software that has templates for nearly every type of Social Media graphic. #4 – Decide to get control of your Google Business, Yahoo, Bing and many other local search directory listings. Now the 5th step that I am going to talk about in a minute will make this process easier for these main three and many other of these types of local directory sites. But Google, Yahoo and Bing have created local business directories, and your Church needs to claim and optimize all of them if possible to become more easily found by potential new Guests who want to visit your Church. These can be a challenge to claim and optimize however. But what you need to realize is that potential new Guests who want to visit your Church are many times finding these business page listings BEFORE finding your Church Website. If these listings are not claimed, the information is not filled out completely, and there are not pictures or a Church logo, it can look like your Church is not very professional. It may even give the impression that your Church is not even open at all. That potential Church Visitor will just move on and find somewhere else to go. In addition to the BIG 3, you will also want to Claim and Optimize as many of these Local Business Directories as possible. These include websites like Manta, Merchant Circle and the online Yellow pages, but there are many more than that. The reason for that is this. When you claim and optimize these listings you are also adding in your correct Church Name, Address and Phone Number. As we discussed in the first step, placing this correct contact information on as many of these directory sites as possible potentially helps your website in Google Search. This is also a benefit because you are listed correctly in these sites themselves. People are searching for business and Churches there too. So the 4th step is realizing that you need to see what your potential guests and visitors are seeing on these sites when they search for your Church. That is fairly simple to find on Google Business, Yahoo Local and Bing Places, but definitely a challenge to find on the 50 or so other directory websites you will want to found on. Each of these sites has their own setup and it can be a challenge to pull that information together. That leads me to the 5th FREE Step. #5 – Get a FREE Local Business Directory Scan for your Church You can request your FREE personalized online visibility scan for your Church by going directly to the scan request page at www.findingyourchurch.com/FreeScan This scan will save you a ton of time and work. This scan will not only search to discover if you are listed on all of these sites, it will also give you the direct links to the listings that it does find so you can see if your information is correct. When you get the scan all of the information is yours to keep. So you can either claim and optimize these listings yourself using this information, or you can have a company help you and complete this process for you. So once you get the free scan the choice is up to you. You will have all of the information you need to do it yourself, and Finding Your Church offers a Service that can do this for you saving you even more time setting this up. All you need to do now is go www.findingyourchurch.com/FreeScan to request yours, and remember to check out our Resource Page with that link and many other resources to help your Church get found at www.findingyourchurch.com/Toolbox That is all for this episode. Now GO and GET FOUND. The post 009: 5 FREE Steps To Improve Your Church Website and Online Reach appeared first on Finding Your Church.

FYC Podcast Episode 008: FREE Photoshop for Churches, Non-Profits and Businesses Podcast Resource Links > Canva.com > GracewayMedia.com > iStockPhoto.com > IconFinder.com > Pexels.com > FindingYourChurch.com/Toolbox Podcast Episode Text Version Welcome to the Finding Your Church Podcast from FindingYourChurch.com. My name is Jeremy Phillips and my goal is to help you make it a challenge for people to live in your community without finding your Church. Creating graphics can be extremely challenging. In this episode, we are going to look at what is currently a FREE alternative to Photoshop, and I will give you a resource to have graphics created extremely cheaply if you do not want to mess with creating graphics. I have been in a position both while working in Churches, and now with developing website and social media graphics, where that is part of the job description. However, I am not what I would consider to be a Graphic Designer. I know very few rules of Graphic Design. There are rules about Thirds and contrast and layering and whatever else. I think most people think the rule of Thirds is something you do to a pie when having dessert. But regardless, I am not a Graphics Designer. My approach to Graphic Design for Church or whatever project I am working on would more resemble the process of elimination than creation. I know what looks bad more than I know what looks good. So I start creating something and realize that it looks bad, then I continue to work on it until it looks at least tolerable or good. The end result may look fine. But, it definitely was not because I had some great design plan from the start. The result is more like evolution than creation. So I use tools to help me get started. Resources like www.GracewayMedia.com, iStockPhoto.com and some free places IconFinder.com and Pexels.com to at least have background images to start with. I can use Photoshop, so that is what I typically use to create the actual graphics with. But, you may not be skilled in the Photoshop arts, or you may not have the budget for those types of paid tools. There is an alternative that you can use for your Church that at least at this time is 100% FREE. I say at this time, because anything can change and their pricing is 100% out of my control. This site is Canva.com Not only can you create any size custom graphics that you want, they also have starting point templates for nearly any type of social media, book cover, info graphic, and website header that you would need to create. They have many backgrounds and icon images that you can use, and they have have different sizes and styles of text already pre-formatted. You just click on the template and it shows up in your editing area ready for you to make changes to it. In addition to the free backgrounds and graphics, you can purchase premium options for $1 each. If you create a graphic with a premium options however, your graphic will only currently be available for download for 24 hours at this time. They have a lot of great paid options, and those might be worth using for certain projects. But, the way you can get around this is to use the “Uploads” section. You can upload any graphic, background or icon that you want to use in your graphic in this section. Again, you can find free icons and graphics at IconFinder.com and Pexels.com The benefit of this is that your graphics files remain available for download for as long as you want. Plus, you can copy the graphic and duplicate it to use as a template for future graphics you create. So Canva.com is an extremely quality and effective alternative to use as FREE Photoshop for your Church to create graphics to use for Sermons Slides, Posters, Invitations, Postcards, Bulletins, Website and Social Media Graphics. But what if you are still terrible at creating graphics? There is no shame in it. Some people are just horrible. They have no idea how to coordinate colors, or refrain from using 15 fonts on one Social Media Graphic. There is no shame in not knowing how to do it. There is only shame in it when you know you stink at it, but you do it anyway. We all know people who stink at it and do it anyway. But thankfully whether you are not graphically skilled, or just do not have the time for certain graphics related or other types of technical and creative projects, there is a resource that can help you that is very inexpensive. That resource is my FREE Guide called “Fiverr For Churches” that you can get at www.findingyourchurch.com/Toolbox This guide and website really can help your church be more productive, especially if you are struggling with having enough time, staff, money or volunteers. All Churches and Ministries struggle with at least one of those from time to time. Fiverr is a site where you can get nearly any type of creative and technical online work done for you starting at only $5. The site is beginning to expand some and allow Sellers to offer higher priced Services, but many [if not most] of the Sellers will still have options available for you for around $5. This short guide shows you exactly how to get on Fiverr, and how to find the Sellers on the site who will do the best job for your church. When you get the FREE Fiverr For Churches downloadable book you will learn… What Services are offered on the site that can help your Church. How to create an Account and use the Dashboard. Tips to help you as a Buyer on the site. How Sellers are rated and how to choose ones that are best for your Church. How to get bigger projects done with “Gig Extras” How to Search for and Find the Seller and Services you need to do your Project. I have personally used this site to create video and fix some website issues, and the sellers I used did a great job. But there are a few tips you will want to know before getting on the site that will help make your experience a great one. And when you sign up to get the FREE Book, you will also receive an offer to take advantage of a REDUCED PRICE on our full Finder Resource Membership. The Finder Resource is a Step-by-Step Guide showing you exactly how to help your Church get found online. That reduced price is only available when you request your FREE “Fiverr For Churches” Book. So go to www.findingyourchurch.com/Toolbox to find the link to download your FREE PDF Guide. You will also find a lot of other resources on that page that can help your Church get found online as well. That is all for this episode. Now GO and GET FOUND. The post 008: FREE Photoshop for Churches, Non-Profits and Businesses appeared first on Finding Your Church.

FYC Podcast Episode 007: Is Your Church Website Mobile Friendly? – FREE Tool Podcast Resource Links > Google – FREE Mobile Website Checker Tool > Click Here to get a NEW Mobile Responsive Church Website > FindingYourChurch.com/Toolbox Podcast Episode Text Version Welcome to the Finding Your Church Podcast from FindingYourChurch.com. My name is Jeremy Phillips and my goal is to help you make it a challenge for people to live in your community without finding your Church. Is your Church Website mobile friendly? Awhile back Google changed the rules once again. Google loves coming out with new updates and changing the rules. Sometimes these changes are extremely technical, and you or I would not know how to comply with them anyway. However, this change is something that is easy to find out if your are in compliance. And, you can take steps to be in compliance, but it will take some effort on your part. Basically if your Church Website is not mobile responsive you have a very high possibility of being demoted in Google Search. If you have never had a mobile phone or tablet, you will not know the pain I am about to describe. But we have all been on a mobile device and stumbled on websites that are NOT mobile ready. You have to pinch and zoom and try to click the little links just to get around the website. This is NOT good. Mobile Ready and Mobile Responsive simply means that the website changes shape and design to conform to the size and display of whatever mobile device it is being displayed on. But Google has said that if your Church Website is not ready for mobile users and mobile devices, it will take a ranking hit in Google Search. So whether you have accidentally gotten to the top of your local Church search terms or even if you have worked hard to get there, you have most likely taken a ranking hit if your site is not mobile ready. So other than grabbing an iPhone and checking out your website, how do you know if your site is mobile ready? Google has created a page for you to check your site just to be sure. When you go to this Google website you will enter your Church Website address and it will… #1 – Show you how your site displays on a mobile device. #2 – Tell you if your site is officially ready for mobile devices as far as how Google views it. Now I will let you know that sometimes Google will say you are mobile ready, but when you look at it on a mobile device your website may still not display properly for an actual person. If that is the case, you still need to fix your website even though Google says you are ok. You can CLICK HERE to access the free Google Website Mobile checker tool, or visit the Resource Page at www.findingyourchurch.com/Toolbox I have also linked a website development option for you to check out in case you do need a new website redesign. This option will help you create a mobile ready website for your Church. >> Click Here to get a NEW Church Website Check out your site now to see if yours will take a hit. That is all for this episode. Now GO and GET FOUND. The post 007: Is Your Church Website Mobile Friendly – FREE Google Tool appeared first on Finding Your Church.

FYC Podcast Episode 006: A Podcast About Church Podcasts Podcast Resource Links > YouTube Channel – Finding Your Church > “How To Create A Church iTunes Podcast With WordPress” Podcast Episode > Pat Flynn – Smart Passive Income > Feedburner.com > Blubrry WordPress Plugin > FindingYourChurch.com/Toolbox Podcast Episode Text Version Welcome to the Finding Your Church Podcast from FindingYourChurch.com. My name is Jeremy Phillips and my goal is to help you make it a challenge for people to live in your community without finding your Church. I want to do a quick podcast episode about how I am approaching this podcast, some various ways you can connect to the podcast, and how it could affect your Church Podcast. Before I get to that information and how it affects your Church, I do want to talk about something that is alluded to in the “How To Create A Church iTunes Podcast With WordPress” episode. I did say very clearly that the steps I outlined in that episode was only ONE way you could create a Church Podcast, and NOT the ONLY way. I used to think that the best way to create a Church Podcast was using the Google site Feedburner to create the feed that you needed to be able to submit to iTunes. If you have a Gmail account you can login and check it out at Feedburner.com So when I began creating a podcast recently, that is the approach that I took. I setup everything like I normally would have and attempted to submit the podcast to iTunes and it would not accept it. I really have no idea why, but after searching for a better solution that is when I found the information about the Blubrry WordPress Plugin. I found that information out from an excellent Internet Marketer named Pat Flynn. He also has an even more in depth Podcast tutorial that you can access on his site at www.SmartPassiveIncome.com as well as a podcast player you can add to your site that would work well for Sermon Podcasting. My point in bringing this up is that even though Feedburner is a great way to get user and subscription stats, it has become more unreliable for podcasting for whatever reason. Plus, Google changes things so much that it is even possible that they could fade out the site altogether. So I switched. So if you are wanting to know how to setup your Church Podcast, check out that previous episode titled “How To Create A Church iTunes Podcast With WordPress” I will link that specific Podcast on our Resource page at www.findingyourchurch.com/Toolbox to make it easy for you to find. So in addition to that, lets briefly talk about my approach to this Podcast and how it will hopefully help to improve how findable my actual website becomes. It would be really easy to just start recording, save the audio file, link it in a blog post, have it automatically feed to iTunes and have you just listen to the podcast. But, I do not think that would be very beneficial to the person who wants the podcast information, or for how findable my website becomes. So what I have started doing takes a little extra work, but I think will pay off. I have started writing out my podcast episodes completely and using that as the basis of a script to record from. I may not record it exactly, and if I were to interview someone or have a co-host or something that would not be a great way to do it. But since it is primarily me on the podcast, this works well. The key is of course to at least attempt to act like you are not reading it. But the larger reason for this is that by starting with the text I already have the text to include in the podcast post as a blog post that is readable by Google. That gives me actual content to be found by the search engines, and not just an audio file. Also, by having the audio first I am easily able to convert that to a video podcast that is available on YouTube. If you go to www.findingyourchurch.com/youtube you can access the video version and subscribe there too. Sometimes I just put up the title for the entire video episode. But, if I am talking about a website or something in detail, like in the How To Podcast episode, I may put in screenshots or even a screen recording to add more value to the podcast episode. This gives me at least 3 ways for people to find and consume each podcast episode. Plus some people like to read, some listen and some watch. So I am attempting to connect with how and where people consume content. Even though all of the videos may not be full motion video content, it is still on the platform that video consumers like to use so I can also be found there. I also want to let you know about another benefit of including the full podcast text and resource links in your podcast blog post. This could be the full text of your interview or sermon or whatever your content is. At the moment in iTunes when you click on an individual episode and then on the podcast graphic it shows the full text. So people can read along AND click on links directly from the podcast. This is a great feature as it allows people to not only read along, but also potentially continue reading your podcast even if they are in a place where they cannot listen. And, they can do that without having to go to your website. So my main encouragement to you is to think about how many ways you can use one piece of content to promote your Church. This could be breaking up a sermon video into 5 parts to create 5 videos on YouTube instead of just one. You can also include the full video as well to make 6 or whatever. Instead of just creating a recap video for your latest event, you could use a screenshot for Instagram and a couple of quotes from the video for Facebook and Twitter with links to the video on YouTube. Begin thinking about how you can expand the reach of your Church by creating something once like a Sermon, but using it many times. That is all for now. Remember to go to www.findingyourchurch.com/Toolbox for all of our resource links including a link to the YouTube channel and the episode where we walk you through creating your own Church Podcast. Now GO and GET FOUND. The post 006: A Podcast About Church Podcasts appeared first on Finding Your Church.

FYC Podcast Episode 005: Google Trends – Sermon Preparation and Church Video Podcast Resource Links > Google.com/Trends > FindingYourChurch.com/Toolbox Podcast Episode Text Version Welcome to the Finding Your Church Podcast from FindingYourChurch.com. My name is Jeremy Phillips and my goal is to help you make it a challenge for people to live in your community without finding your Church. I want to look at a website that may be able to help your Church in at least a couple of different areas. One of those areas for Pastors and Church Staff who preach is in your Sermon Preparation for both content and sermon titles. The other is for Church Tech & Media Staff and Volunteers in the area of video development and creation. So I want to give you the website name and link, explain what is available at the site, then explain where I think this tool could be helpful for Churches. The website is Google Trends, and you can find it at Google.com/Trends One of the benefits of this site is that since it is a Google connected page, you can actually save and subscribe to searches you make inside of your Gmail account. So if you are a Gmail user you will definitely want to make sure you are logged into Gmail while you are using Google Trends. When you go to the site you will see a page with “Featured Stories” and “Trending Stories”. This list of stories continues to populate itself as you scroll down. I am not sure how many stories it will allow you to view, but there is plenty of content for you to go through. You can also “Explore” a search term specifically in the search bar. That may be of use to you depending on the topic, but I was not able to get very good information from using that search bar. If you do use it, you can start with one term then continue adding more terms to drill down your topic more specifically. If you go to the Menu [which currently is located near the Google Trends logo and looks like a mobile style lined menu] you will find “Trending Searches”. Here you will see the most searched for people, sports and media topics by date. You should also find the “Trending on YouTube” page, which shows you some of the top videos in the past 24 hours. You should also find the “Top Charts” page. This page is going to show you the top results for categories like Actors, Authors, Sports Teams, Books, Politicians, People, Pop Artists, Companies and Songs in order of how popular they are trending at the time. Lastly, you will find the “Subscriptions” pages, which links to the searches you have saved in the past so you can see current results when you login. So that is what you will find on Google Trends, but how could it be used to help you and your Church. I think most of you will be able to easily see the value by just checking it out and looking around, but here are a couple of thoughts. Sermon Preparation Illustrations, Ideas and Topics can be hard to come by especially when you are preaching 2-3 times each week depending on the style of Church you lead. Titles and Topics are also challenging for those in the media and video departments who are constantly having to come with new takes on Bible content. It is difficult enough to come up with fresh and creative ideas of any type for video and sermon preparation on a regular weekly basis. But when you add that pressure to the need to connect your content so that it engages the culture and connects with something people are familiar with in their daily lives, it becomes even more of an issue. So this is not going to probably become your main sermon prep or video idea resource, but when you are brainstorming new ideas for Sermon Topics, Titles and Creative Video Ideas Google Trends may be a great place to start. I do want to remind you that all of our individual resource links are in the notes of the podcast and on the Resource Page at www.findingyourchurch.com/Toolbox On this page you will find all of our recommended links and resources from the Podcast, as well as Partner and Product links to help you become better found online. Check out the Resource Page and as always… GO and GET FOUND. The post FYC 005: Google Trends – Sermon Preparation and Church Video appeared first on Finding Your Church.

FYC Podcast Episode 004: FREE Book To Boost Church Productivity Podcast Resource Links > Evernote.com > David Allen – Getting Things Done > FindingYourChurch.com/Toolbox Podcast Episode Text Version Welcome to the Finding Your Church Podcast from FindingYourChurch.com. My name is Jeremy Phillips and my goal is to help you make it a challenge for people to live in your community without finding your Church. On this episode I want to talk about podcasting for your church. Hopefully, if you follow the steps, you SHOULD be able to create your Church Podcast using this information. I say hopefully, because you never know what can happen. There can be issues that are out of your control, you may miss a step or whatever. But if you follow the steps, you SHOULD be able to create your Church Podcast and get on iTunes with this information. The post FYC 004: FREE Book To Boost Church Productivity appeared first on Finding Your Church.

FYC Podcast Episode 003: How To Create A Church Podcast with WordPress Podcast Resource Links > BLUEHOST – Recommended Podcast Website Hosting > Canva.com > Amazon S3 file hosting > Free WordPress Video Tutorials > FREE “Fiverr For Churches” PDF Book Download > FindingYourChurch.com/Toolbox Podcast Episode Text Version Welcome to the Finding Your Church Podcast from FindingYourChurch.com. My name is Jeremy Phillips and my goal is to help you make it a challenge for people to live in your community without finding your Church. On this episode I want to talk about podcasting for your church. Hopefully, if you follow the steps, you SHOULD be able to create your Church Podcast using this information. I say hopefully, because you never know what can happen. There can be issues that are out of your control, you may miss a step or whatever. But if you follow the steps, you SHOULD be able to create your Church Podcast and get on iTunes with this information. This is also going to be a little longer episode than normal because there is a lot of information to cover. The first thing you think of when looking at Church Podcasting are the sermons from the Sunday Morning Service. But there are a lot of places in churches that could benefit from podcasting. You could podcast individual Ministry Services. You could create a podcast for your volunteers to keep them informed and engaged with what is going on at the Church. You could create a discipleship podcast separate from the Sunday Morning Service for everyone in your Church for increased spiritual growth. You know your Church and where a podcast would potentially fit. It does take some work, so you do not want to go to the effort if you think nobody will connect with it. But there are some benefits if you can create a podcast that people connect to. The main benefit is that people can subscribe and have the content you put in the podcast come directly to their computer or mobile device. That is huge. For sure in the case of iTunes it is very clear when they have new content that is ready to be watched or listened to. But how do you create a podcast for your church? The ideas you can come up with for the content of the podcast are up to you, but the steps to creating a podcast are pretty much the same for everyone. Now, there are many ways to create a podcast that can be submitted to iTunes. The way I am going to walk you through here is NOT the only way. But it a way that works. And it is one of the best ways to create a podcast that FITS into your existing Church Website. There are external websites like Podbean.com, but even that costs money. So in my opinion, you might as well do it correctly from the start and make it directly connected or loosely connected to your site. I will explain the difference between directly and loosely connected in just a second. So with this method of creating a Church Podcast you will need to create a WordPress Website. If you already have a WordPress website for your Church that has a working blog, you are pretty much already setup to be able to start your Podcast. There are still a few things you will need to do however to make this work so that it is subscribable in iTunes and the other Podcast feed players. But you will need a WordPress Website, so this is where the difference between a podcast that is directly connected and one that is loosely connected to your site comes into play. If your main Church Website is created with WordPress and has the blog feature enabled, then you can directly connect the Podcast into the blog feed of your site. If you main site is NOT WordPress, you can either change and create a WordPress website or you can create a separate WordPress installation to run your podcast on. You can set this up on your existing Church Website Hosting account if you have access to that. But many churches are setup with website developers and companies that do NOT give you access to your website hosting account. The other option is to purchase another website hosting account just for your podcast. You can find the website hosting that I recommend at www.findingyourchurch.com/toolbox in the Most Recommended Resources section. This is a company that is connected to FindingYourChurch.com and I will receive a small commission if you purchase using my page link, but it does NOT cost you any more to use my link. There are other products like that on that page as well. Whether you are creating an entire Church Website or just creating a WordPress installation for the Podcast only, you will get a FREE website domain name for the first year when you use my recommended hosting at www.findingyourchurch.com/toolbox So my recommendation if you are creating a podcast only site is to get a domain name that just adds the word “podcast” to your church website name. That way the link is very similar to your church name. Then it will be something like mychurchnamepodcast.com so it will be easy for people to remember. So that is your first step. If you are not setup for WordPress already or do not have access to your website hosting, Get Website Hosting from www.findingyourchurch.com/toolbox and create your account. So once you either have access to or have purchased the website hosting and login to your account, you will go to the cPanel section of your hosting account, at least on the hosting that I recommend. This is basically your dashboard, and remember that it may look different in your website hosting account. Then go to what is probably labeled the Website Builder section or something similar, and find the “Install WordPress” button. Remember, if you are not using my hosting recommendation there may not be a one step install button, but most hosts do have that feature. Now this is going to walk you through the process of installing WordPress. You will most likely get an email letting you know your username, password, and link to login to your new WordPress website. Now what we are not going to talk about in this Podcast is how to design or use themes for WordPress. The reason is because even if you create a new WordPress website for the Podcast and have the basic design that it comes with, it will still work. You can make it look better later. So, login to your new WordPress account dashboard, and go to the Plugins section, most likely located in the sidebar on the left. Click on “Add New”. Then search for the Blubrry PowerPress Plugin. It is spelled funny like Blubrry, so make sure you type it in correctly or just search for PowerPress. Click to install that plugin. After it is installed you will find the settings for the plugin in the sidebar, most likely under the word PowerPress. There are a lot of settings that we could go through, but the main tabs you need to worry about are the iTunes and Artwork tabs. Under iTunes you will fill in the information about your Podcast. Your title is actually the title of your blog or website. You can change this in the settings of your WordPress dashboard by going to “Settings” in the sidebar, and then clicking “General”. So, you will enter in all of those details for your iTunes Podcast, then go to the Artwork tab and upload your Podcast Artwork. There are instructions on that page for your Artwork. If you do not know how to create this, you can download my FREE “Fiverr For Churches” PDF Guide at www.findingyourchurch.com/toolbox and learn how to have someone create this for you for as little as $5. Or you can use Photoshop or a free software like Canva.com to create this artwork. Once this is complete you will need to place an audio file linked in a blog post so that iTunes has something to connect with when you submit your podcast. One lesson I learned the hard way is that you do not want to host your podcast files on the same hosting as your website. I actually had a website taken down briefly for doing that. So what you want to do is create an account with Amazon S3 file hosting. This is extremely cheap, and hardly costs anything. I have received a monthly bill for under a dollar before, so this is not a major expense. So you will go to Amazon S3 and create your account. Inside your account you will create what are called buckets. This simply differentiates your uploads for you. So you could separate podcast episodes from images if you wanted. So create a new podcast bucket, and then when you get inside that bucket you will click to upload a file. Upload your Audio file. It definitely helps if you have already created a podcast episode, but if not you can use any audio file. Just make sure it is not copyrighted. Once it is uploaded, right click on it and select to “Make Public”. This allows people outside of your account to access and listen to the file. In the Properties section you will find the MP3 audio link. Copy that. Now go back to WordPress and create a New Post. Scroll down to the “Podcast Episode” section of the post editor and paste the audio link into the Media URL area, then click “Verify”. Then scroll back up and click Publish to create your first post. Click “View Post” and you should be able to see the post and play your audio file. Now go back to the PowerPress podcast plugin settings and go to the iTunes section. Under the “Item Subscription URL” you will find the “Recommended feed to submit to iTunes”. Copy that link, and then either click to “Publish and Account on iTunes” or open iTunes, go to the iTunes Store and click to “Submit a Podcast”. Of course you will need an iTunes account, hopefully a Church iTunes account, to complete this step. When you get to the “Submit a Podcast” page on iTunes, simply paste in that feed link and follow the steps to get started with your Church iTunes Podcast. It will most likely take a couple of days at least for them to review and either approve or deny your Podcast. So in the mean time, you can be w

FYC Podcast Episode 002: The Church Valentine Banquet Story Podcast Resource Links > FREE “Fiverr For Churches” PDF Book Download > The Finder Resource Membership Podcast Episode Text Version Welcome to the Finding Your Church podcast from FindingYourChurch.com. My name is Jeremy Phillips and my goal is to help you make it a challenge for people to live in your community without finding your Church. I want to tell a quick story that happened a couple of years back when I was on a church staff. One of my responsibilities was the website and maintaining the online presence for the church. For whatever reason that year we decided to have an event that many churches have around February. Our church had many, many, many food events and lunches and dinners and dessert auctions and banquets going on year round. I mean you can’t have fellowship without a food event right? But normally we did not have a Valentine’s banquet, however that year we did. And for the most part it was couples only. So my wife and I were seated at a table with another couple who were new to the church. Because obviously if you are on staff at a church, you have to sit with someone new. A lot of times that does not happen at many churches especially at food focused events. The reason for this is that, as you have probably experienced, fellowship food events can sometimes be chaotic. Depending on the type of the event, kids can be running around everywhere and people are seating themselves wherever they want as they come in one family at a time. So what happens is that after most people are seated, you look around and realize that there are three families sitting at tables by themselves. So at that point, you are already seated with a family and cannot get away to connect with them either. So what was intended to be a connecting event can turn into a disconnecting event for some families who are not outgoing enough to sit with others. Or even worse, you did not plan well enough and the tables can only facilitate one family at a time. You cannot always help that either though. When I was growing up we had 7 total, so there really was no way for us to sit with anyone else ever. Now I have 4 kids so we have 6 and are nearly in the same situation. We would talk a lot about how to make those fellowship events more meaningful and impactful for new people. So that is not the point of the story about the Valentine’s banquet, but just a side note to encourage you to think through your meal and fellowship events to make sure guests and new people can get connected and feel included in the event. Something my Pastor at the time did extremely well was connect with people at these types of events. Instead of eating, he would go from table to table and talk with as many people he could to make sure they felt included and connected. Besides that, our rule at the church was the Church Staff always ate last anyway to make sure there would be more than enough food. Regardless, that has very little to do with the Valentine’s banquet story. While my wife and I were talking to this new couple, I asked them how they heard about the church. They said they searched online, found our church website and decided to make a first time visit. Now obviously I knew that people find the church through the website. But when they said that in front of me I realized something. Basically, through my investment of time and energy in the website… I actually had invited them to church. Nobody else talked to them about our church except me. Most of the time I never heard directly from people like that, and of course a lot of people are invited by someone and it has nothing to do with the website at all. But I want you to know that the strategies you put in place online for your church including your website, social media, local business directories, Google Maps and whatever else you work on will make a difference. Whether you hear it directly from anyone or not, when you take steps to improve the online presence of your church it makes a difference. Whether you use resources like The Finder Resource Membership that Finding Your Church has created to walk you through step by step how to get found online, or some other resource to help your Church get found, I want to encourage you do start now. It is worth the effort. I do want to let you know about a specific page on the website that has links and resources to help you get found online, and that is www.findingyourchurch.com/toolbox This is the place where all of our recommended resources links can be found. This includes partner resources and affiliates connected to our site, but also FREE resources and products created by FindingYourChurch.com One of our FREE resources that I want to recommend is our FREE downloadable PDF Guide called “Fiverr For Churches” Fiverr is a site where you can get nearly any type of creative and technical online work done for you starting at only $5. This short guide shows you exactly how to get on Fiverr, and how to find the people on the site who will do the best job for your church. I have personally used this site to create video and fix some website issues, and the sellers I used did a great job. But there are a few tips you will want to know before getting on the site that will help make your experience a great one. And when you sign up to get the FREE Book, you will also receive an offer to take advantage of a REDUCED PRICE on The Finder Resource Membership. That reduced price is only available when you request your FREE Fiverr Book. So go to www.findingyourchurch.com/toolbox to find the link to download your FREE “Fiverr for Churches” PDF Guide. That is all for this episode. Now GO and GET FOUND. The post FYC 002: The Church Valentine Banquet Story appeared first on Finding Your Church.

FYC Podcast Episode 001: Your Church Was Lost, But Can Be Found Podcast Resource Links Podcast Episode Text Version Welcome to the Finding Your Church podcast from FindingYourChurch.com. My name is Jeremy Phillips, and my goal is to help you make it a challenge for people to live in your community WITHOUT finding your Church. So this podcast is focused on helping Pastors, Church Staff, Church Leaders and Volunteers whether you are an existing church that has been around for decades, or you are just starting out with a new church plant. It really does not matter how old or what size or what style or whatever your church currently is, there is typically more that can be done to help your church become better found in your community. Now a little about me. I have been on a Church Staff for a total of around 16 years in the past. The first few years I was a Youth Pastor, and then for 10 years I was on a church staff in more of a behind the scenes role. My responsibilities included overseeing the technical aspects of the church as well as the website, social media and the overall online presence. While I enjoyed working on a large Church Staff and being in that role, I had felt the desire for a very long time to create something that would benefit many churches and not just the one I was working in at the time. So after being at that church for 10 years, my wife and I decided that it was time to make that dream and desire a reality. So that is what FindingYourChurch.com is. It is designed to be a resource for Churches that can help you take steps to making your church more findable in your community so that you will have an INCREASE in NEW Guests visiting your Church. The key to this is taking what are hopefully simple steps to actually help your church bring more people through the doors. There are all kinds of technical things we could research and do to our website that may help us get found in search engines. We will definitely look at some of those just in case that interests you and you have the time to make them work. But what we want to focus on are simple strategies that will help you get found in your local community with the goal of bringing NEW people in your doors. Now, am I some search engine optimization guru? Absolutely not. There are other people out there who could do a better job of creating resources and sharing ideas with you to help your church get found online I am sure. But, I have taken a lot of time and effort to learn a few strategies that will help your church get found. Some of these are from trial, and error and some are strategies I have learned from internet marketers who HAVE to get found to survive. One other thing. The best part for you is that I am still learning. After moving away from my previous position, we are already connected to our new church, and already deeply involved in helping our new church get found online. So the strategies and resources we will be looking at in the podcast and on the blog are the same ones I will be looking at to see if they are a fit for my current church. Will my church use all of them? NO, and neither will yours. So we want to look at as many options as we can and see what fits for our church in our current situation. So that is who I am and what this podcast will cover. Basically, I want you to know that there is hope if you feel lost in your local area. If you church is currently lost, there are steps you can take to help it become found. I do want to let you know about a specific page on the website that will get mentioned a lot on this podcast and that is www.findingyourchurch.com/toolbox. This is the place where all of our recommended resource links will be. This will include partner resources and affiliates connected to our site, but also FREE resources and products created by FindingYourChurch.com The first one I want to recommend to you is the FREE downloadable PDF guide called “Fiverr For Churches”. Fiverr is a site where you can get nearly any type of creative and technical online work done for you starting at only $5. This short guide shows you exactly how to get on Fiverr, and how to find the people on the site who will do the best job for your church. I have personally used this site to create video and fix some website issues, and the sellers I used did a great job. But, there are a few tips you will want to know before getting on the site that will help make your experience a great one. So go to www.findingyourchurch.com/toolbox to find the link to download your FREE “Fiverr for Churches” PDF guide. Well, that is all for this introductory episode. Now GO, and GET FOUND. The post FYC 001: Your Church Was Lost, But Can Be Found appeared first on Finding Your Church.