Last month I shared with you free or very inexpensive strategies for driving people within your ministry region to your online equipping center.  This month, I will now turn my focus to strategies that will help your ministry “go into all the world and make disciples”.

Some ministries utilizing E-Church Essentials have already seen the benefit of being part of an online ministry network.  One pastor called me about ten days after they registered their ministry…they had not built a website or anything yet…yet they had a man from Kenya who registered with their ministry seeking to be mentored in Christ.  The E-Church Network has registered members from almost every part of the globe who are seeking a ministry to mentor them.

If you think about it, outside of North America, there are precious few churches, Christian book stores or Bible schools.  The world is desperate for Christ, and yet most churches are using the same mission strategies the Church of Christ used in the 1800’s!  Today, the only thing that is keeping your church, regardless of its size, from making a significant global impact, is your leadership’s limited vision.  The resources are all available and very inexpensive.  All your church needs to do is catch the vision and make it happen!

Because E-Church Essentials is the only commercial online ministry system currently available, I will illustrate the following strategies using the E-Church Essentials software.  However, if your ministry has developed a custom online ministry system, these strategies will likely also apply.

Strategy #1: Optimize Your Website(s) for Search Engine and Directory Spiders

Ministry organizations are often so focused on their little part of the world, that they do not take this important step seriously. Fundamental to global online ministry is defining who your target group(s) may be, and speaking directly to their distinct issues.  Once your have created a targeted website, it makes no sense what-so-ever to register your website with search engines and directories, if you have not set up your website to be properly read by the internet “spiders”.  A “spider” is an internet program sent by search engines, designed to seek out key words and descriptions associated with your website, so that your website can be properly cataloged on the search engine database.  To optimize your website for spidering, please implement the following rules:

• Key Words: Select three dominate words (or two-word phrases) that you believe an internet user would most likely input into a search engine that would lead the visitor to your website.  These three words MUST be included in the keyword meta-tags of every page (I’ll explain this in a moment), and MUST appear at least three to four times on every major page of your website.  DO NOT place these key words on your page randomly and DO NOT hide the key words on your pages by making the text color the same color as the background.  These are old optimization tricks that most search engines now consider “spamming” and will likely result in your website being dropped from search engine listings.

• Key Descriptions:  Write a one sentence description of your website, including the key words defined.  This description must be included in all description meta-tags and will display within search engines.  You may add an addition sentence, on a page-by-page basis, for describing each page of your website.  Within E-Church Essentials, configuring meta-tag keywords and descriptions is very easy.  Within the content editor you may configure meta-tags in the “properties” portion of the editor (see graphic below).

• Page Title:  Every page of your website should have a unique title.  If the menu label for a page is “Student Ministries”, the page title, configured again through meta-tags, can be a descriptive phrase such as “Student Ministries of Genesis Church”.  Again, in E-Church Essentials simply type the page title in the Property Editor next to the label “Title”.

• Alt-Tags:  Short for “Alternate Tags” are brief descriptions that may be applied to graphics, media and Flash elements so that a search engine can read what these elements are.  Alt-Tags are optional.  If your system supports them, then it is helpful to include them.  However, they are not crucial unless your web page contains no textual content at all.

• Use Web-Safe Fonts:  Many people are surprised to learn that a website does not embed the fonts used to create the website.  When an internet visitor comes to your website, the website literally tells the visitor’s computer to display the appropriate fonts from the available fonts on the visitor’s computer.  If the font cannot be found, it is any one’s guess what font will actually be utilized.  If web-safe fonts are not utilized, your website may not be spidered properly by search engines, your website may load slower as the fonts cannot be found on the visitor’s computer, and your website formatting may be distorted by substitute fonts.  Safe fonts include: Ariel, Sans, Times New Roman, and Veranda.  Main textual content should be formatted using 8-point to 12-point fonts.  Headings should be formatted using 11-point to 14-point fonts.

Strategy #2: Register your Website with DMOZ…it’s FREE!

DEMOZ is the Open Directory Project found at http://dmoz.org.  The Open Directory is the most widely distributed data base of Web content classified by humans.  Its’ editorial standards body of net-citizens provide the collective brain behind resource discovery on the Web.  The Open Directory powers the core directory services for the Web's largest and most popular search engines and portals, including Netscape Search, AOL Search, Google, Lycos, HotBot, DirectHit, and hundreds of others.  Registration is 100% FREE.  Be extremely careful about the category you select for your listing and the descriptions that you use.  Make sure you use the same key words and descriptions as utilized on your website.

Strategy #3: Register Your Website with Search Engines

There are so many search engines today that it does not make sense to manually register your website to hundreds of engines.  Rather, I would encourage the use of reputable service organization like SubmitIT from Microsoft.  For only $49/year, your website can be submitted to most of the popular search engines and included in Microsoft’s business directory. 

Be wary of organizations that “guarantee” top placement in search engines.  The only way such organizations can make top placement occur is by breaking the rules that govern the internet and search engines.  Many websites have been banned from search engines and directories for breaking the governing rules.  Primary among these rules are that websites will list higher when they receive more traffic, and will list lower when they receive less traffic.  There are legitimate ways to drive traffic to your website.  The methods used by marketing firms to “guarantee” top placement is considered “spamming” and will likely result in a brief top-listing and then a banning of your website from the search engines altogether.  Search engines may take as long as six months before your website is even listed.  It will take another six to twelve months to build momentum on the internet through search engines.  This is normal.  So be patient.  (NOTE: If your ministry is not willing to invest at least two years in trying to develop a serious online ministry, then your ministry clearly does not understand what it takes to build traffic and synergy on the internet.  Plan and budget for a two year trial period.)

Strategy #4: Manually List Your Website with Topical Directories

There are thousands of topical directories on the internet.  All require manual registration of your website.  Fortunately, the marketing principle of “targeting” means that only a few dozen such directories will likely apply to your ministry website.  To find relevant directories, I recommend using Google as your search engine and entering the following categories in quotations (“ “):

• “Christian Directories”
• “New Age Directories”
• “Religious Directories”
• “Religion Directories”
• “Spiritual Directories”
• “Church Directories”

Many of these directory sites will not be “Christian”.  That is alright, we are seeking to reach into the cultures across the planet.  We need to meet the world where they are at before we can bring them to where we are at…”In Christ”.

Strategy 5: Banner Advertising

Depending upon your strategy, and how serious your ministry really is about reaching the world for Christ, you may have to commit to a financial budget to really utilize banner advertising effectively.  However, banner advertising can be highly effective at sending prospects to your website and online equipping center.  I would encourage you to target websites that are popular and originate in the countries you seek to reach.  Properly executed, your banner campaign could easily generate 10,000 visitors or more to your website each year.  You can expect a registration rate of 2-3% of your website visitors.

Banner Example:

Strategy 6: Online Radio Advertising

This is another potentially very effective strategy.  Christian radio is rare in many parts of the world.  More and more the international community is turning to internet radio for Christian music and teaching.  Advertising with many Christian internet radio stations is down right cheap, as little as $50/month. 

Although there are hundreds of online radio station options, you may wish to explore this online radio option as an example for international advertising:

• Premier Radio - http://www.premier.org.uk/engine.cfm?i=144 

Alternatively, if your ministry has the outreach budget available, there are several online Christian broadcast networks that will help your church set up your own online Christian radio station.  Start your own online radio station for as little as $15/month for a basic starter package, or $99/month for a professional package, with Live365 at http://www.live365.com/pro/index.html.  They offer an easy and robust means of empowering your ministry to broadcast your own music and teachings.  People listening to your online broadcast ministry, can then register with your online equipping ministry and receive the relational support and nurture that they require.

Strategy #7: Unleash the blogosphere! 

I cannot stress enough the potential impact of this strategy…both locally and globally.  However, to understand how this strategy works, you need to understand what a blog is, and more importantly, why blogs on the E-Church Network specifically can greatly benefit your online spiritual equipping community.

A blog is an ideal platform for writing articles, providing resources to people and sharing spiritual meditations.  I believe every pastoral person SHOULD blog.  For an example, click here.  Young adults prefer blogs 10/1 over viewing websites.  The reason is that blogs have relevant content that is constantly changing, the content can be “broadcast” directly to their computer through the use of “News Reader” programs (for a Free News Reader, Click Here), and because blogs enable people to respond and comment on each blog entry…a blog is more conversational.

How E-Church Essentials handles blogs is very unique and is designed to build online synergy for your ministry.  Within your ministry’s online ministry account, each member has the option of having their own multi-media capable blog.  Our philosophy is that your key staff and lay leaders should have a platform in which they may communicate their heart and ministry to others.  Here is the kicker…The more blogs that exist through your exclusive online community, the more doorways you have for bringing people into your online spiritual training community.  And since your numerous blogs are all ministry-based, you will be attracting people who are truly spiritually hungry.  A modernist analogy to this strategy would be door-to-door evangelism.  The more people you can send door-to-door (back in the 1940’s -1970’s), the more people you are likely to lead to Christ and bring into your ministry.  We need to knock on as many internet doors as possible in order to maximize our online ministry impact.

Strategy #8: Google Ads

The last strategy is not free, but it can be fairly inexpensive.  Google provides a banner advertising service called Adwords.  Recently, Adwords was expanded to include “Targeted Sites”.  Targeted Sites enables you to identify specific websites on the Google network and have your test-only banner advertisement display on that site.  The cost is as little at $1/1000 views.  This is a phenomenal traffic generation strategy.  To get your ministry started, go to https://adwords.google.com/select/.

Strategy #9: Strategic Partnerships

Identify ministry organizations within the regions your ministry wishes to target, and negotiate strategic partnerships with them.  The strategic partnership will provide your ministry with a relational connection to the cultures your ministry seeks to reach.  And because your online equipping center is truly international, leaders from your strategic partnerships can develop websites, conduct training and participate in community forums all through your online equipping ministry.  Such leaders will be the cultural bridge that your ministry will need if it is to truly make a significant impact within foreign cultures.

Strategy #10: Begin a Missionary/Church Planting Network

E-Church Essentials can enable your ministry to maintain a communication and training connection with missionaries/church-planters, all over the planet.  So while your ministry may wish to have “feet-on-the-ground” those feet can still be an integral part of your everyday ministry organization.  Each missionary/church-planter can have their own website and blog through the parent ministry, and all related ministries can share a common community and equipping center.  This is really a modified version of the classic satellite ministry model depicted below:

The more ministries you add to your network, the greater your regional and global impact will become.  Furthermore, each additional ministry can help distribute the overall cost of your online ministry, making it cheaper and cheaper for all involved, the larger your online ministry network becomes.

Conclusion:

If you would like more information about how to implement any of these ten suggestions for global ministry impact, please feel free to contact me or call me toll-free at 1-800-724-1159.  The world is at your door, and they desperately seek to know Jesus, all it takes is for your leadership to catch the vision, be willing to step out of the 1800’s, and become a ministry of the new millennium.