Understanding Google Search Indexing of Your Site
How my site appears in Google search rankings after having my domain for just over a year. 

How my site appears in Google search rankings after having my domain for just over a year. 

For bloggers, ministers, youth ministers, and others involved in church internet ministries, you may not think very much about optimizing your app, website or blog with SEO (Search Engine Optimization). How do you become #1 in Google Search? While I don't understand completely all the ins and outs of SEO, there are some very easy and free things you can do to drastically improve your search rankings on Google or any other engine. But first, we need to understand how SEO works. 

If you don't understand the complex code and "crawling" that Google does to index every internet site on the web, you're not alone. According to some, Google's search algorithms can change on a daily basis. They are constantly tweaking and improving their first product. (Some of you may just remember when Google was only a search engine.)

There are a wide variety of factors that make your site better and easier for search engines to index. The three most influential are time, changes, and metadata. 

Time

One thing you may not know is that time is a very important factor in SEO. How long has your domain (your .com) been active? Months? Years? This affects search index. What about how long you've had certain keywords or metadata for the search engines to "crawl" your site? That also affects the indexing. Know this: indexing your site takes time, sometimes up to 90 days or more. So if you have a big blog or project you want to get off the ground, give it at least 3 months to show up in Google results. You can also research what your blog or site will be called and be sure not to name it something that is really popular. I would recommend Googling every possible name for your new site or blog until you find one that will be easily found on a search engine from anywhere in the world. "Chad Landman" is a fairly uncommon name and works well for me to call my blog that. If your name is John Smith, that might not work. 

Changes

How often does your site change? Is it a blog format where it is ever-changing, or a static page that usually doesn't change? Something you may not also know is that changing the *look* of your site usually does not affect indexing. Pictures are indexed by search engines, but any text on them is not (this is changing every day, however). Text is huge for indexing, which is why blogs have become so popular. At the same time, *too many* changes can affect your index ranking as well. 

Metadata

Metadata is just a fancy word for the information contained in your site headers. What that means is that any site, whether you use Squarespace, Wordpress, or straight HTML has header tags in the code of every page. Here's an example:

<head>
  <meta name="description" content="ChadL.co :: Chad Landman">
<meta name="keywords" content="Chad, Landman, Chad Landman, Youth Ministry, Ministry, Christianity, Tech, Apple, iOS, Star Trek">
<meta name="author" content="Chad Landman">
<meta charset="UTF-8">
</head>

Now, you could pay to have your name first in Google, but I wouldn't recommend that for two reasons: 1) it's expensive and sometimes based upon how many clicks you get, and if you get a lot of clicks, you have to fork over a lot. 2) Studies have shown that paid-for "Sponsored Links" are skipped right over by about 9 out of 10 users. Why? I don't know. Many people think they're advertisements, partially because they are. Google says that you'll be seeing less and less of these ads as a result.

An example of a "paid" advertisement in Google Search results.&nbsp;

An example of a "paid" advertisement in Google Search results. 

Now, if I had an HTML site, I would manually put this information into my header code. But since I'm on a platform like Squarespace, they do it for me. I had to fill out some title and description stuff, as well as every blog post I write has some keywords attached to it, but other than that, I don't have to do anything. 

If you use Wordpress, I would recommend the excellent All-in-One SEO Plugin. 

One last thing to note is that the way search is done on the backend is constantly changing for everyone. Google will change its algorithms, Yahoo will change this, Apple will change that, and so on. SEO is something that needs to be monitored and maintained, not set and forgotten about. 

Whatever platform you use, make sure you have a Title, Description, and keywords attached to your site. You could start seeing results pretty soon with good metadata on your site or blog. 

Ministry, Resources, Tech, Youth MinistryChad LandmanSEO, Google, Search Engines, Keywords, Metadata, Chad Landman, LandmanComment
What Do Elders Do?

Chris Clevenger has an excellent post on his blog that you should check out about Elders in the church and what they do. This is especially important, not only for ministers and youth ministers (where Elders would technically be our bosses at work), but very important for the church member as well:

The elders of the church have a great amount of responsibility. Their work is multifaceted and is often extremely difficult. The hours which they invest in the service of God often go unnoticed and under appreciated. Many Christians recognize their elders, but fewer know exactly what they do. The primary work of elders is not accomplished in secret, back-room meetings; their leadership should be evident.

Be sure to go check out Chris' post. And his nicely redesigned blog.

What Do Elders Do? [via Chris Clevenger]

Ministry, Resources, Youth Ministry, ChristianityChad LandmanElders, Elderships, Leaders, Leadership Comment
Lock-In Survival Guide

This post is intended as satire. Don’t take the things I say here literally, even if there is some truth to it ;-]

 

Since you're not going to say it, I will.

Lock-Ins are lame. 

Lock-Ins are the bane of a youth minister’s existence. 

Whoever invented them should be lined up and shot. 

But I digress. 

The first Lock-In dates all the way back 1596. John Wycliffe, a Bible scholar at the time, got accidentally locked in a cellar for 12 hours with 36 children, signifying centuries of tradition of staying up all night with kids and having no help doing it. 

But that’s neither here nor there. 

I have a lock-in coming up in about 28 days - and it’s a New Year’s Lock-In to be exact, the worst kind of lock-in. Why? I don’t know. It just is. 

survivor-yg-copy.jpg

But what youth ministers fail to realize is that lock-in preparation begins 30 days before. 

At a month before the actual event, I start prepping myself mentally. I start preparing myself for voluntarily staying up 24 hours straight with screaming kids who won’t clean when it’s time to leave. I mentally prepare myself for the parents asking me when they pick up their kids 15 minutes late (which might as well be 15 hours late when you haven’t slept all night): “So did you all have fun?” And you wish you could respond: “I don’t know, does getting the mess beat out of you sound like fun!?”

But I digress.

Lock-Ins are WONDERFUL for the kids. Kids you haven’t seen in six years will come to a lock-in and act like they’ve been there all along. You can go outside and shout “LOCK-IN!!” and you will literally have kids coming from every nook and cranny, crawling out of holes in the ground and jumping out of cars. It’s absolutely ridiculous. 

But I digress. 

For me, a lock-in isn’t just a night with no sleep. It’s a week-long event. 

The three days before and three days after are just as important as the actual lock-in itself. I begin sleeping late and staying up late about three days before the actual lock-in. This never works though, as I have a family and a normal life and work that still has to be done, lock-in or not. So it all usually happens the night before, I try to sleep late but never do, ensuring I will be incredibly tired come 2AM. If, however, you have a toddler and a pregnant wife, you can play your cards right and take a nap during the day. That is, providing you have understanding Elders who will let you “lay outta work” just for some silly lock-in. 

The three days after is what I call LIR, or Lock-In Recovery. This can vary with your age. I’m 32, so I feel as though I’m 120 years old when a lock-in is finished. My wife has an IV waiting to stick me once all the kids are gone. I’ve never had to go to the hospital after a lock-in, but I am anticipating that day is not too far off. 

What follows in the next few days (again, depending on your age and experience), are nightmares, cold sweats, some sleeplessness, and an off-kilter diet because of all the honey buns and energy drinks you ingested while at the lock-in. Some youth ministers even suffer longer from PTLID - or Post-Traumatic Lock-In Disorder. 

While I won’t get into the structure of a lock-in and the activities thereof, I will tell you that it is absolutely essential that you do as little as possible while managing the lock-in. That means no basketball, running around, shouting at video games, or anything else. Just sit there. Quietly. 

The best lock-ins are the ones where you can sucker other youth ministers into bringing their groups of kids. You can lull them into a false sense of security, and then go back home and sleep. Show up an hour before the lock-in is over and say you were playing video games all night with some boys upstairs. This only works if you have a really big building though. 

So, I hope this short survival guide has opened your eyes a little and made you realize that lock-ins aren’t worth it. But we’re youth ministers, and we like punishment. 

Best of luck to you in all your lock-ins, whether at New Years or in 2014. Cause you need all the luck you can get. 

Youth Ministry, ComedyChad LandmanLock-Ins, Lock-In, Survival, youth ministry, Youth Ministers, FunnyComment
The Bible in the Bloc

Richard Riehn of Eastern European Missions tells the story of exactly how Bibles were smuggled into the Communist Bloc in Germany in the 1960s and 70s - in, believe it or not, cowboy boots. 

Berlinermauer.jpg

Riding a train was the only mode of transportation from West Germany to East Germany at the time, and soldiers would check IDs and ransack bags on the way across. 

A prominent businessman who had business in the Bloc also helped smuggle Bibles into East Germany. The man was a devout Christian. He was on his way one day to the Bloc when the soldiers came in for their customary searches and his heart jumped up in his throat because he realized he had his personal Bible, not one of the smuggled ones, in with his regular bag. 

The man was well-known, and some of the soldiers even knew him. They searched him and his bag and upon finding the Bible, one of the soldiers was greatly surprised. 

"A respected businessman like you, and you read this TRASH?" he said as he threw the Bible out the train window. 

The businessman was allowed to proceed, sans Bible. He was devastated. This was his personal Bible, it had handwritten notes all throughout, and while it just a Bible and he could get another one, everyone knows that personal Bibles are sometimes special. Although it had his name and address inside, it was probably lost for good. 

Two years later, he was on the same train bound for the Bloc when someone returned the Bible to him. As it turns out, two little boys beside the train tracks had found the Bible that day, taken it back to their village, and started making copies for the entire village. They had been reading the Bible and baptizing one another for the last two years. 

I think sometimes we underestimate the true, undiluted power of the Word of God. We underestimate what it can do. We don't need fancy preachers in high-dollar suits giving creative and interesting illustrations, we need the Word. 

We also underestimate the saving power of the Gospel. The story itself cuts us to the heart - there's no need to add to that message. 

This was a nice mid-week pickup for me. I hope it's the same for you. 

ChristianityChad LandmanCommunism, Eastern Bloc, Bible, Eastern European Missions, GospelComment