I was the web master of a church website once where the pastor refused to give public support for the ministry and often worked in ways that were detrimental for the progress of the ministry. The pastor would force the web minister to placate the whims of other ministry leaders who were not working in the best interests of the ministry.

Because of this, I suggest that the one who is over web ministry be either the senior pastor (preferable) or at least one who is a pastor on the staff. This individual need not do any of the technical work, but should be in a position to push the interests of the ministry. A staff position (either full time or part time) will help to give this ministry the support it needs to do the work it has been assigned.

Questions 2 and 3 are at the heart of what I want to talk about today. They center around keywords to target. I think that this is an important thing, but I have not done it as much as I have wished. However, I have kind of backed into this kind of keyword work by specializing in a niche.

Over at my SoulPreaching.Com blog, I have emphasized African American Preaching. I have specialized in it. And thus I have naturally chosen the correct keywords to target just by specializing in the niche. I have found that when I have gone astray from that niche, my traffic has fallen. So I think that keyword research will help me to provide more rigor to my word choice, but at the very least you must find a niche that you can fulfill and work in that niche.

One of the problems about using niches in ministry is that you are targeting a certain segment of the population. Some will argue, correctly, that the Gospel is for everyone. While that is true, we also must recognize that you individually cannot reach everyone. Your experiences are needed and necessary and relevant for a segment of the population but not all. And as you target that segment you will more effectively reach them (in the search engines and through other forms of internet marketing).

Paradoxically, as you target your niche you will continue to grow even outside of the niche. Again, going back to my SoulPreaching.Com example, as I have targeted celebrating the African American Preaching Tradition, my site grew to be one of the top blogs in “preaching,” but when I attempted to target the keyword “preaching” directly, I began falling in the rankings. So, in this case, targeting a segment of the population (those of all ethnicities who wish to learn preaching from the African American preaching tradition), I was able to address the larger community (those of all ethnicities who wish to learn preaching from any tradition).

You must specialize and become known for something to get traffic either from others or from the search engines.

If you are going to have an effective blog or website, it is important to demonstrate your understanding of the subject as well as help people to solve real concrete problems. To do that, you need to give pillar articles.

In reality, this powerful concept will get you quickly moving towards an effective blog. So check out Starak’s description, print it out, and begin incorporating it in your web ministry. In the next few posts, I will give some hints about how to use each one in a ministry context.

1) Write short posts – no one is going to read your 1K word article. Well someone might, but the majority will skim. Some brave souls may print it out and then never read it. The majority will simply skip it. A blog post should be short no more than 500 words (give or take). Let people consume your point and move on. They will come back tomorrow if it is effective and valuable information.

2) Add pictures – Pictures pull people in. I have added pictures to all of my blog posts on all of my blogs. It grabs people. I would encourage you not to fall into the trap of copyright infringement. Don’t just copy pictures off the web.

3) Turn it into a how to – If possible, have how to posts. These move people forward quickly. My blogs most successful posts (in traffic) are always “how to ” articles.

4) Good Title – I am very bad at titles, but you really need to get good titles if you are going to have effective articles. A good title draws people in and also has the words that you will address in the article.

Do the above and you will be one step closer to a growing ministry blog.

Right now, I will probably simply publish to the top directory which is ezinearticles. I am not sure if it will be terribly effective, but I am told that article marketing is a volume game. For that reason I will publish 100 articles over the next year and study the returns.

My key now is to find a way to keep fresh content going to my blog (SoulPreaching.Com) as well as keep my email newsletter (the Soul Preacher), web seminars (SoulPreachingSeminars), as well as this article marketing endeavor going.

Here is my plan:

1. Write a 350 word article for my newsletter every other week – This will be included with my other ads in the newsletter. This will give me about 150 articles over the next year.
2. Add a Bio Section That Will Point to a Question Capture Page – This will help me determine the questions that are in my niche. I will also grab their email address at the same time.
3. Plug the Article Into EZine Articles – So every two weeks we will add a new article into EZine Articles.

Traffic is the lifeblood of any web site or web ministry. I hope that this method will serve to build the ministry brand as well as move the ministry forward.

However, the web minister need not know how to do all of these things. The minister may need to make use of a facebook expert to set up a fan page. She may need to hire a web designer to put that page up. The web minister must have a solid grasp of what needs to be done, but it is probably best if the web minister does not do all of these things.

I have had a hard time learning this important lesson. When I began my work in web ministry, I put up my pages, did my graphics, transcribed my audios, as well as many other mundane aspects of putting on a web ministry. It may have saved a few bucks, but it cost me much time and effort.

Now I have put together a team. Making use of sites like odesk.com and other people I have found on various forums, I now have a graphics person. I have a transcriptionist. I have other people as well who are a part of my team. The best thing about it is that the team is virtual and per job. So we pay them on contract basis.

As noted above, don’t do all of these things yourself. You need to know what these things are that need to be done, but never fall into the trap of doing everything. The work will be sub-par and the effort will be too much. The web minister is not a technitian!

My first major assumption about web ministry is that it does not replace other more “hands on” approaches.  There are many in the field who will disagree with this assumption.  I do believe that in a pinch this kind of ministry can be better than nothing (then again it could be worse than nothing in the wrong hands.)  I have seen with my own eyes emails and traffic coming from countries where it is illegal to be a Christian.  I do believe that we are helping those who have no other way of learning and growing in the paths of righteousnes..  However, I think it is a mistake to describe web ministry as a replacement to hands on face to face ministry.

I take this view for a few reasons.  First, we are told not to neglect the gathering together as Christians (Hebrews 10:25).   I have seen this done as people think they can simply “do church” on the internet.  Such a mindset promotes a selfishness (I just need to get what I want) in our people.  In addition, it promotes an unrealistic expectation for our preachers who will have difficulty preaching with the great preachers that you can find on the net.

Another reason why I believe that we cannot lose the hands on ministry is that it is so easy to take on a false persona on the web.  Some are much more aggressive on the web than in real life.  Others are more religious while others are more worldly.  In all of these cases, people can easily be that which they are not.  We need the face to face to help us hold on to reality.

I think it is important as I begin this blog to speak against the idea that the web can replace totally “face to face” ministry.  In this article I wrote about what web ministry cannot do, in the next article, I want to talk about what we can do with web ministry, and then move forward into the practicalities of this important work.