As I was driving around today, I noticed a hand-made poster sign stuck in the ground beside the road that read something like, "Free Ride to Church. We'll Pick You Up."  And, the poster listed a telephone number to call for a ride.

This is a simple, yet incredibly effective marketing iniative.  By offering free rides with the increase in gas prices, you are eliminating another excuse for lack of attendance.  Also, some individuals/families might not even have transportation.  This is a great way for churches to minister and serve their local communities.

For small churches, your members and regular attendees are already coming to church; so, why not call and ask them to pick up someone on their way?  For larger churches, you can, perhaps, provide a van service.

How cheap and easy is it to make some home-made posters with the church's phone number and hang them up all over town (on telephone posts, shopping centers, grocery stores, public libraries, restaurants, bars (hey, bring 'em to church even if they're hung over), stick 'em in the ground)?

Poster board = $.50 - $.75 per sheet
A few markers = $2 - $3
Salvation, Discipleship, & Relationships = Priceless

Churches without marketing budgets have NO EXCUSE for not reaching their communities.

Excited to announce a new plug-in that I've created which allows users to display random motivational quotes on their web site.  The fantastic new tool displays quotes for topics such as leadership, success, happiness, ambition, and so much more.  The new plug-in is called "Blind Insights" and is available in 8 different colors; it only requires you to place two lines of code in your web site's source.

To choose your color and copy the source, visit the Blind Insights web site.

I saw a great article today on building your back link network.

Rand Fishkin wrote about requesting links in your order confirmation e-mails.  Great idea.

Furthermore, one of the comments in the blog mentioned a company that offered the same thing, but with one exception.  After your order placement, if you provide a link on your web site to the company, then the company would credit your account 10% of your total purchase.

As for churches, how many of you have requested that your members place a link on their web sites to the church's web site?

My plug (hey I have to)...please put a link on your web site to mine.  The Marketed Church @ http://www.themarketedchurch.com

As I've mentioned previously in my blog, "Define Your Audience," one of the first steps in optimizing your site is to determine who you want to attract.  However, you also need to know who your site is currently attracting and where it stands currently in the search engines. Only after this assessment can you adjust or modify your site's design accordingly. A powerful tool for this assessment is Google Analytics. As pointed out by Eric Lander in his article, Google Analytics only measures user data.  Therefore, you would have to view your web site's log files to get a complete report of visibility and navigation through your site.  However, if you are interested user metrics such as page visits, bounce rates, time on site (these topics will be discussed in laters posts), then Google Analytics is a great tool for getting started.

Navigating through Google Analytics and interpreting the data reports can be pretty confusing for beginners.  Therefore, as part of my search engine optimization series, I'm going to be including some posts on how to interpret various parts of the reports provided by Google Analytics. More...

Today, I read an article on Slate, "How we read online," by Michael Agger.   The article reports a study performed by Jakob Nielsen who is a usability expert and discusses topics such as eye-tracking research, web design errors, and banner blindness.

Jakob's study makes some good points on presentation.  While I don't agree with all of his beliefs, overall, Jakob's suggestions are worth noting.

Additionally, I inform clients all of the time about the importance of eye-tracking.  In print media, the eyes are limited to the page's edges.  On the web, however, if the page is not designed properly, then a visitor's attention could be hard to keep and diverted quite easily.  Good web designers are typically able to draw the attention of visitors to certain aspects of pages and "encourage" specific navigational routes to increase the chances of conversion - or, simply, getting information about the user by them completing a form or something of that nature.

Quality does matter, especially if your site is one-in-a-million.  How does your site stand out? What kind of impact does your site make?

I've been asked to write an eBook on the why's and how's of marketing and search engine optimization for churches.  In preparation for doing so, I'd like to use this blog as a think tank for acquiring questions, issues, and comments for search engine optimization and marketing for religious organizations.  Therefore, I ask that you to be invloved in this process - I want to know your questions and concerns; I want to know your thoughts.

First off, if you'd like to know more about who I am, I would encourage you to check out the "About" page.  As for my "credibility" in search engine optimization (SEO), I will report that 90% of my clients are listed on the top 2 pages of major search engines for their targeted keywords and phrases.  I cannot, however, take any responsibility for my accomplishments - save my faithfulness to be obedient in using my gifts.  God has given each of us talents to use for His glory; and, when we use those talents, He increases our fruitfulness.  God does not call us to do things in which Has not first equipped us to do.  God has equipped me to do this, and He has made me successful in the online marketing arena. More...

Sarah McLachlan, instead of paying $150,000 for the normal video shoot, pays $15 for this video and uses the rest of the money to help over 1,000,000 women and children worldwide.  This video has some staggering statistics.  What are we doing to reach our communities with the resources that God has given us?

For all of you subscribers, here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0O2LMqnHGg

Until June 17th, Google is holding a contest offering free optimization to a handful of sites.  Enter your site and win a free search engine optimization!

The URL is: http://www.google.com/websiteoptimizer/workout/index.html

A friend of mine, Shep, has an incredible testimony.  He had the opportunity of sharing it with the FCA camp on Tuesday night.  I posted the testimony on YouTube.  However, because of the time limits of YouTube, I had to split the testimony into three parts.  If you would like to have the full testimony on DVD, let me know.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

For all of you subscribers, here's the links:

• Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlOt8ycqunE
• Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQgxgYv0ods
• Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd6KMwMUGCo

I saw this earlier this week.  I thought it was a great inspirational video.  The next time you think you have it bad, remember this kid.

Nick Santonastasso talks to TODAY’s Ann Curry about living without limbs.

For all of you subscribers, here's the link: 12-year-old Defies the Odds
For those of your who would like to read the article, here's the link: Nick Santonastasso talks to TODAY’s Ann Curry about living without limbs.