| | | | Information and Resources for Your Business and Life | | | | Inspiration, Tools & Tips! MAY 2021 | | | | My New Book is Published!!! | | “Disciple Me” is a companion to the readers’ step-by-step journey to understand how to connect with God authentically as a Christian. It is a chronicle of the journey the reader embarks upon, hoping at the end the journey they will have a stronger walk with the Lord. The overall theme and fundamental idea is to develop disciples of Christ. Here, the author leads readers to explore, through questions and answers, the cry of the heart to understand how to choose Christianity. The book allows the reader to go at her/his own pace to understand what the requirements of Christianity are and what they are not. You can purchase this book from me.
You can also purchase it from online booksellers and Westbow Publishers (They have free shipping). | | | | | | Website Effectiveness Is Your Website Working For You?
Consumers look for who they will deal with online. First impressions are everything and, usually, they make their first impression based upon the website experience. Sites that don’t clearly communicate who you are or your mission and values fall flat. Consumer don’t stay long and rarely visit the second time. Sometimes it’s difficult to step back and see what’s not working when you’ve been looking at your own site for years. You may not realize what is hard for visitors to find or how users are really interacting with your site. | | | |  June
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Welcome back. What’s the verdict for you? Is it Facebook, a website or both? Did you take the time to evaluate whether you wanted a website? If you have one, did you look at it to make sure it is doing what you need it to do? Even if you didn’t ask yourself any of these questions, I hope you continue to read this month and give it some additional thought.Last month we discussed marketing and the need for a strong digital component. I hope I provided enough
| | | | information for you to decide where to spend your time, money and resources. There are things you can do to determine if the message you are trying to send is being received. This month I will provide information for you to determine if what you are doing is working for your life, your company, and/or your ministry.
As I do every month, Thanks to everyone who reached out. I get more and more excited as I see what God is doing with and in my business. It is an honor and a pleasure to give you tips and help you learn from my successes and failures. Please stay subscribed to receive more information, success stories, tips, freebies and much more. | | | | | | | |
Is your website working for you? Ask yourself these five questions:
1. Are you getting responses from your website? Part of this is simply having current contact information. Is your phone ringing and are you getting calls from people who mention they saw your website and are interested in what they saw. Bravo! Your website is working hard and helping you meet your goals.
2. Is your company branding is clear? If you took your company’s name off of the website and erased the logo, can your customers still recognize your website over a competitor’s? Your content plays a big role in sharing the personality of your company. Make sure that any content is beneficial to your ideal customer and not just there for your ego.
3. Do mobile visitors feel welcome? They can easily navigate the company website pages from their phone or tablet. ComScore released a report earlier this year detailing the increase of mobile usage versus desktop usage; for the average adult, 3 out of 5 hours spent online is done so on a mobile device. More and more people are abandoning the desktop in favor of a tablet.
4. Can new customers can get to know your work? You have examples of your products or projects on your website, along with testimonials from happy clients. A visual portfolio showing off your best work alongside a glowing quote from your client can help you make the sale.
5. Are you including your URL (website address) on your business marketing materials. Sharing your website consistently throughout your marketing materials shows the potential customer that you are confident in your brand. You can display your website on everything from your business profile at the Chamber of Commerce to your table at the next conference.
How did your website do? Is your website doing its job? Service-based businesses need their websites to work harder than ever because of increased competition in the market and a decrease in the attention span of the user. Having a website isn’t enough to stay competitive and make your brand stand out; your business website has to meet the customer’s needs and exceed their ever-rising expectations. Make sure your website is working for your business as hard as you do.
A website planning worksheet is available in the Freebie Section along with a discount coupon for services. | | | | 
Business Application Whether you are a freelance photographer, own a hardware store, or have another type of small business, there are steps you can take to make sure your website is working for you. | | 
Ministry Application
The entire point of your church’s website is to reach more people, but you can’t do that if your church website isn’t performing well. e your church’s site is making a difference is to monitor READ MORE ... | | 
Personal Application
Now that I have sold you on the benefits of a personal website, there are things you should have on it and things you should avoid if it is going to work for you. Again, keep in mind that your
| | | | | | | | Pamela Russell Ministry Information Prayer Line Name: “At God’s Door” Number: 951-981-7721, no passcode is needed. Time: 5:30- 6:00 a.m. EST, but you can logon as early as 5:20 a.m. Days: Sun-Sat, including holidays
Online information about the prayer line You can submit a prayer request here. The devotional we are using for the prayer line is “Teach My Hands to War”. You can access the entire year. Please come and share with us.
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FREEBIES
Here are this month's free business and personal tools that provide additional helpful information. | | | | | | FEATURED COMPANY/CLIENT REVIEW | | Magic Angel is the feature company for this month because this is the company that I use for my hosting. Marv Conn is also a wealth of website information. Whenever I run into difficulties with my site, he is the one that I reach out to. I highly recommend him. Email him to see how he can help.
| | | | | | Would you like to submit a review and be featured in the next newsletter? Please click here. You will find a list of business review sites. Click the name of the site where you want to leave a review. You can place your review on one or as many as you like. Each review will help me so much, so I am thanking you in advance. If you want to leave a review for a site that is not listed, please contact me and let me know which site. | | | | Your website is a living thing. It should always be changing and evolving. I often tell my clients. “Nothing is “set it and forget it”. You should always review and evaluate what’s working or isn’t working for you and your users”. Standards and technologies change rapidly, and a site created more than a few years ago is likely out of date. Be actively involved in making sure that your website’s design and usability stays current. You don’t want one of your greatest assets to turn into a costly liability. If you have questions, or need any assistance, contact us. You can also call us @ 904-830-0737. You can also set up a free consultation to discuss ways we can help you. | | | | | | “Ignoring the need for an online presence is like opening a business but not telling anyone.” - Dr. Pam Russell | | | | MORE From Business Development If you are looking to build a new startup website or make your current site more effective, here are 10 key steps to getting started and helping your small business website compete effectively in the online marketplace.
1. Obtain a good domain name Your domain name, also known as your website address, is often the entry point to your site. It is important that it makes a good impression for usability purposes, as well as for search engine optimization (SEO).
2. Purchase secure, scalable website hosting with good tech support A website host (or sometimes referred to as a website hosting provider) is a company that offers the technology and services necessary for a website to be viewed on the internet. You connect your domain name to your hosting provider so that when users visit your website address, they are shown your website that you store on your hosting account.
3. Prominently display a clear description of your business It is important to let people know who you are and what you do right away so they don’t feel confused when they visit your small business website. Make sure your main homepage banner (also known as a “hero image”) and subsequent banners are visual representations of your services, and also that you have an introductory text blurb near the top of the page that describes who you are and what you do.
4. Implement the best content management system A content management system (CMS) is a software program or application that is used to create and manage digital content. A good CMS will help you maintain your site, and you don’t need much technical knowledge to use it. You should choose a CMS that is designed for your unique needs; different systems are used for different reasons, such as user-friendliness, extensibility, and budget.
5. Choose a good e-commerce platform If you plan on selling goods and/or services through your website, you will need the right technology to do so. (If you do not currently sell anything, you may want to consider doing so since e-commerce could potentially increase your profits.) If you decide to allow users to financially transact with you online, you will need to choose the right platform for your business model.
6. Create an interesting, memorable, and engaging website user interface Make sure your small business website interface leaves a positive impression that drives results.
7. Optimize your small business website for search engines SEO is a set of practices you apply to your website to ensure search engines index and rank your website appropriately and then show it to search engine users. Once your website is “crawled” by search engines, it competes with websites that have similar content. The better your website design and content is, the higher your site will show up on search engine result pages.
8. Regularly create and publish quality content Both content quantity and freshness are important to search engines, so it’s important that you create a plan to publish quality articles and/or blog posts on your site and on external sites that link to your site. If you want to rank highly in search engine results and encourage people to return to your site again and again, you will have to update your website with new and relevant content as frequently as possible.
9. Install webmaster tools Make use of vital data to help you analyze traffic and site performance by installing Google Analytics and Google Search Console (both preferably via Google Tag Manager), and Bing Webmaster Tools.
10. Implement a website maintenance plan A website shouldn’t be created and then allowed to grow stale. In order to have a successful website that ranks well in search engines and doesn’t get hacked, you need to make sure it is properly maintained.
| | | | MORE From Ministry Development the performance and watch out for any red flags. Little tweaks make a major difference in how many visitors you get and how many come back. Here are some signs to look for:1. Traffic Declining A sudden decline in traffic is never a good thing. It’s normal to see fluctuations, especially around Christian holidays. For instance, a decline after Christmas isn’t unusual. However, sharp declines for no apparent reason are a major sign your church website isn’t performing well.
2. No Traffic Growth If you just launched your church website, don’t panic if you don’t see growth immediately. It takes time for search engines to index your site’s pages and for your site to prove itself in search rankings. However, if your growth has plateaued, it may be time to focus on marketing your church website.
3. High Bounce Rate A bounce rate is refers to people who visit your site and leave quickly or visit one page and leave. No matter how great your church’s site might be, you will have a bounce rate. That’s normal for every single website. A good sign your church website isn’t performing is if your bounce rate suddenly starts growing. This is typically a sign you have an issue with a specific page, broken links, slow loading pages or other general performance issues.
4. Sudden Decline in Participation If you have a fairly active website, a sudden change in participation may be a sign your church website isn’t performing well. For instance, if you have fewer blog comments, less forum participation, fewer new site member sign-ups or other types of interactions, there’s a problem. Ideally, you’ll want to keep adding new content, encourage visitors to comment and ask questions, get your members involved and encourage more social sharing to increase activity on your site.
5. Few Repeat Visitors While it might seem better to keep getting new visitors, you want to focus on retaining visitors too. In fact, loyal visitors are your church’s best marketing tool. If just 10% of your visitors keep coming back, they’ll continue to pull in new visitors for you through word-of-mouth and social sharing. If you’re not seeing a high number of repeat visitors, though, it’s time to improve your church’s site. Typically, a low percentage means there isn’t much opportunity to interact. Or visitors are having an unpleasant experience when trying to interact. If it’s the latter, investigate to find and resolve the problem.
6. Few Signups If you have a sign-up form for your church newsletter or a free resource and no one is signing up, your church website might not be performing as well as you might hope. Typically, it’s not an issue with the website itself, but your call-to-action. Of course, the more people who sign up, the more people who you’ll be able to notify of upcoming church events. So, it’s important to boost your conversion rate.
7. Visitors Complain You should always have a feedback form on your church website. Why? Let your visitors tell you when something isn’t working right. Instead of finding out after traffic starts dropping or Google penalizes your site, let your visitors give you a heads up when your site has glitches or performance problems.
8. It Hasn’t Been Updated In Ages Does it seem like your church website isn’t performing well at all? If you haven’t updated the site in a while, that alone could be the problem. An outdated design, old content and even outdated functionality, such as Flash, all hurt your site. It makes visitors shy away and your search rank will drop.
9. No Online Giving If there’s little to no online giving, it’s a sign your church website isn’t performing well. Once again, there are two potential issues. First, your call-to-action isn’t clear or persuasive enough. Second, your giving form is either too complicated or not working right. Take the time to revamp and test your giving form to ensure everything is working correctly.10. Little to No Mobile VisitsMobile users make up the majority of search traffic, making mobile visits a large part of your church’s traffic too. If you’re not getting much mobile traffic, it’s a clear sign your site doesn’t work well on mobile devices.Test your site using Google’s free Mobile-Friendly Test tool. Also, ask your church members to test out your site on their mobile devices to see what’s going wrong. | | | | MORE From Personal Development personal site should not have the same feel as a business site. Here is a small list of things you should include as well as avoid. 1. Include: Your Elevator Pitch Right off the bat, when people land on your site, you want them to understand who you are, what you do, and what you’re looking for. - Avoid: Your Life Story
- That said, while you definitely want to tell an engaging story on your site, you’re not writing your autobiography here! Just like hiring managers don’t spend much time on your resume, there’s a good chance that the majority of people visiting your personal website aren’t going to spend hours clicking around.
2. Include: Examples of Your Best Work These days, creative professionals often treat their personal websites as their portfolios, where they collect their work in a way that makes it easy for hiring managers to see their chops. If you’re a designer, artist, photographer, or the like, you should definitely do the same. - Avoid: Every Piece of Work You’ve Ever Done
- You should think of your personal website as a curated gallery of your best work—not a repository of everything you’ve ever done. Think about it this way: If a hiring manager comes to your site and has to weed through a long page of work, he’ll likely feel overwhelmed, click on the first thing on the page, and then ignore the rest. But if you’ve carefully picked out your top examples, you control exactly what he sees.
3. Include: Where You Are Around the Web Your personal website isn’t your only real estate on the web these days. Make sure you include your Facebook page, LinkedIn, your Twitter profile, articles written about you or places you’ve been interviewed, your GitHub or Behance profile; etc. - Avoid: Links Totally Unrelated to Your Job
- You should, however, avoid sharing any profiles that are totally unrelated to your job. This also applies to blogs that are side projects. Remember the focus and purpose of your site.
4. Include: A Great, Professional Blog Your personal site is a great place to share your thoughts and philosophies related to your industry, and a blog is the perfect medium to do just that. It gives you a space to become a thought leader, engage with more people around the web, and easily update your network on your career news. Plus, it’ll show you have writing skills—a bonus no matter what your job. - Avoid: A Blog You Haven’t Touched in 2 Years
- If you don’t feel you can regularly write good, thoughtful content (free of embarrassing grammar mistakes), then skip the blog. It’s unnecessary for a good personal site, and if somebody comes to your site and sees that your last post is two years old, they’ll assume the whole site is outdated.
5. Include: Testimonials That Prove Your Worth Testimonials from people you’ve worked with in the past can be a great way to make you look even more impressive, especially if they’re from well-respected professionals in the field. You can use quotes from people you’ve worked with before to show off soft skills that would be hard to demonstrate, to let someone else sing your praises so you don’t have to, or to simply further prove your worth. - Avoid: Testimonials That Highlight You and not Your Work
- A page full of vague testimonials of different people saying “she’s great!” or “he’s the best person I ever worked with!” will sound disingenuous. Also, it won’t actually help the person reading your site learn any more about you. Choose your reviewers carefully and ask for them to be specific.
6. Include: You, Visualized Finally, it’s important to remember that your personal site shouldn’t just be pages full of text—your resume and cover letter handle that. Instead, find ways to visualize yourself and your accomplishments. Maybe it’s creating a simple logo that represents you and what you do. Maybe it’s including a professional photo of yourself. Maybe it’s going as far as to create icons or an infographic representing your accomplishments. - Avoid: Clip Art Graphics
- If you’re not an artistically abled person, don’t feel like you have to resort to low-quality clip art graphics (it’s actually better to have none than ones that make your site stand out in the wrong way). Instead, consider investing a little money in having someone help you design one or two graphics that will really help you stand out, and then keep the rest of the site clean and simple.
| | CALL (OR) EMAIL (904) 830 0737 | help@drpamrussell.com
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