I found that the work I was putting into the site, compared to the traffic I was getting from the people I was trying to help just wasn’t adding up.

So I have decided to move out.

I will be moving most of the content over to my personal blog, this should take some time to do, so the site will be slowly phased out over a period of time.

I will be setting up 301 redirects to all of the posts and pages I move and will be updating any relevant content, so if you are looking for a specific page on this site and are redirected to my blog then that is the reason why.

I hope you will join me on my site as I have allready started posting some pretty handy tips for you to try.

You can find me at http://jeremyyoung.ws/

More On This Topic...

• How To Do Basic Competition Research In Google
• Googles Free Keyword Research Tool
• Conversations With The Bible College Dean
• Blog Maintenance Day

This tutorial will show you a quick and simple way to find out the exact phrase match competition for your long tail keyword phrases.

After doing a keyword search, Go to the Google home page and type in your specific search term inside of “Quotation marks”.

Hit enter on your keyboard and when the search results load up in the screen, look to the right of your screen for the Number of Results listed.

As you can see in the image above the number of web pages for the search term “My Phrase In Quotes” is only 9.

If we were to perform the exact same search without the “Quotations”, the number would be considerably higher.

As you can see, there is now 8,010,000 pages with the words My Phrase In Quotes, which is quite a fair amount of difference between the two.

In the top example using the Quotation marks, you are looking for all pages indexed in Google with the exact phrase, all four words in the exact order.

Whereas, in the second example you are seeing all pages that contain the words My Phrase In Quotes, in any particular order.

There is a lot of speculation as to what is the least number of competing web pages you need to target when using this method.

The least amount the better obviously, but there are other factors that do come into play as far as on site optimization and the strength of the competitions web site is concerned, that I will save for another day.

But using this method of gauging your competition in Google will give you an insight as to the likely hood of you getting ranked on the front page of Google for your specific keywords or not.

More On This Topic...

• Googles Free Keyword Research Tool
• I’m Moving Out
• Adjusting The Reading Settings In Wordpress
• Check Your Privacy Settings

Typically the term implies that the Researcher is looking for the number of searches performed in a specific time period, using a specific search command or query.

Keyword research is mainly used to find highly searched for phrases, that will produce high levels of traffic to a website.

A person who is performing any type of Keyword Research could use the data for any number of reasons.

The following list is by no means comprehensive but will give you an idea of how you can use the information gathered from Keyword Research.

• Purchase Keyword focused domain names.
• Article and blog post titles.
• Category and subcategory titles.
• Tags used on blog posts for categorizing content.
• Meta data for page titles and descriptions.
• Hyperlink titles and on page link text.
• Localized or area specific search data.
• Market and product research.
• and so on…

Keywords help Search engines determine the content on a webpage, so when a person types in a specific search command, the search engine will provide the best possible result based on the Keywords and related synonyms found on a particular web page .

This is why so many people focus heavily on performing Keyword Research.

Keyword Research is vitally important for building a website that is targeting free search engine traffic and to keep your costs down when running a paid advertising campaign such as Googles Adwords.

There are plenty of tools available to perform keyword research, Google has a great Free Keyword Research Tool, and is my personal favorite for providing quick and easy results, The Google Keyword tool is perfect for gaining a basic understanding of Keyword Research techniques.

More On This Topic...

• What Is A Tag?
• Googles Free Keyword Research Tool
• What Is The Browser Address Bar.
• What Is Feedburner?

Knowing what keywords people use when surfing the web will help you understand what they want, and therefore give you the power to put yourself in a position to supply them with what they are looking for.

The Google keyword tool is yet another great free product from Google.com.

This tutorial is basically an introduction on how to use Googles Free Keyword Research tool for finding targeted and specific keywords that real people type into Googles search engine when looking for stuff online.

You can find the Keyword Tool by doing a search at Google.com with the key words Keyword Tool, the first result to come up should be Googles Free Keyword Research tool, I would be very surprised if it isn’t

Otherwise you can type into your browsers address bar the following URL, https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Once the site is loaded into your browser you will see a page similar to the screenshot below.

There are quite a few functions for this tool, but for this tutorial I just want to show you the very basics of keyword research. I have numbered each of the main elements of the Keyword Research Tool homepage and described theme in detail below the image.

1. How would you like to generate keyword ideas? The keyword tool gives you Two choices for generating traffic data, in this example we want to make sure the Descriptive words or phrases option is checked.
2. Enter one keyword or phrase per line: This is the area you type in your main keyword or phrase. By leaving the Use Synonyms box checked, additional keyword ideas related to your main keyword will be returned at the bottom of the page.
3. Type the characters you see in the picture below: Fill in the capture text, this proves that you are not a bot trying to access the data but a real person.
4. Get Keyword Ideas: Click this button to generate your results.

Once you have entered your keyword or phase, filled in the capture image and hit the Get Keyword Ideas button, the Google keyword tool will generate a list of keywords that contain the specific word you initially typed in.

In the example below, I have used the Keyword Prayer, I have numbered each of the columns and described them in detail below the image.

1. Keywords. This column contains a list of all related searches using the specific keyword you entered. Notice how we now have a list of multi word phrases that contain our initial Keyword.
2. Advertiser Competition. This column is used to Gage the competition you would be up against if you would be running a Google Adwords campaign. A Google Adwords campaign is when you pay to advertise on Google.com, your results are shown in the sponsored links column to the right of your search results in Google.
3. Local Search Volume. The Local Search Volume column will provide search results for your country and language, this does not give you data specific to your immediate area, suburb, state etc…
4. Global Monthly Search Volume. The Global Monthly Search Volume column will return results from all countries and all languages.

By Clicking on any of the column header links you can rearrange the order in which the results are listed, from highest to lowest or lowest to highest.

Googles Free Keyword Research tool is one of my favorite and most used tools online.

I am always coming back to use this site, when deciding on article titles, blog posts and even choosing Domain names.

More On This Topic...

• How To Do Basic Competition Research In Google
• I’m Moving Out
• What Is Keyword Research?
• Conversations With The Bible College Dean

The conversation seemed like it wasn’t going anywhere and the general consensus and feedback I was getting was that blogging is hard because of the technical skills and time involved.

When I was able to convince him that writing a blog post is about as difficult as writing an email, I began to see some signs of interest.

The conversation covered some interesting points about Facebook and Twitter, but I really wanted to impress upon him the importance of having a self hosted blog that is autonomous of Facebook or any other social media site.

I thought I would share some of the ideas we discussed here…

• The blog would be a launch pad to promote an online bible study course at some point in time.
• The blog would give the college a national and global presence, giving international students an insight as to what they would learn from attending the college.
• The blog would be able to target a younger Christian audience that is already spending time online.
• The blog could be used to promote the college to other church members by posting regular updates on the progress of the students.
• The blog could also help the students set up their public profile, if they had a desire for an evangelistic ministry.

Many of the ideas discussed were only of the cuff ideas, and would need to thought out and somehow worked into a strategy, but the main concept of using a blog to promote the bible college was not lost.(I hope not anyway)

I believe when you combine all of the benefits of blogging, compared to the time and money invested, the college would be doing itself an injustice by not looking into the possiblities of how a blog could help build the profile of the college.

More On This Topic...

• I’m Moving Out
• How To Do Basic Competition Research In Google
• Googles Free Keyword Research Tool
• Blog Maintenance Day

Initially when I started the site, I was publishing posts seven days a week, I then reduce that to six per week and I have since decided to stop posting weekends altogether.

Why?

Because I want to start a regular blog maintenance program, which will probably be spread out in small blocks of time over the entire weekend.

Now that the site is building up an archive of articles, and I am starting to get a clearer picture of the direction the site is heading in, there are a couple of things that I would like to change, but don’t seem to find the time to do.

Some of the things I would like to keep on top of are…

• Improve the image quality on some of the earlier published articles.
• Increase traffic to some of the lesser popular articles.
• Remove unused or obsolete plugins.
• Tweak and modify the look and functionality of the theme.
• Test new plugins.
• Create and plan a list of potential articles for the week ahead.
• Study and refine my coding skills.
• Create a free downloadable report that will explain how to build and maintain a Wordpress site.
• and whatever else I don’t get time to do during the week.

Plus, on top of all this, I just want to spend some more time with my wife and kids.

With that said, it’s a good lesson to remember when planning your site, make sure you devote specific time to keep your blog in tip-top condition.

More On This Topic...

• On A More Personal Note
• Does Your Pastor Blog?
• Building An Online Ministry From Idea To Traffic.
• Setting Up The Site.

The major point of that article came down to this, If all your using Twitter for is to literally tell people what you are doing, then you will loose the attention of your followers.

This post is more about making sure that doesn’t happen.

I want to share with you some of the best resources online that will help you find good quality content to keep your Twitter followers engaged in your Twitter activity and eagerly waiting for your next tweet.

I’m not talking about any old content, I’m talking about the best of the best. This is content that is already proven to be popular, well recieved and up to date, so you know that your readers will also enjoy it.

The first place I’d like to start is Digg.com

Digg is a very popular site where people can vote on the quality of specific content.

On the Digg home page there are a couple of features that make it easy for you to quickly find articles, video’s and images that have been voted on as being a high quality and popular.

You can tell if something is popular because of the number of Digg’s associated to the content, the more Digg votes, the more popular the item.

1. Use the search box to find specific content you are interested in.
2. Browse through the latest popular stories.
3. The most popular articles on Digg over all categories.

There is a massive amount of content on Digg, I’m sure you will find something your readers will enjoy.

The second site is Technorati.com

When you land on the Technorati home page, you have a couple of options to choose from when looking for popular content.

1. A dropdown menu with a link to the top 100 blogs listed by authority or the number of subscribers.
2. The most popular on Technorati.
3. The blog posts and news stories that are currently receiving the most attention.
4. The tags associated to content that is receiving the most attention.

If you find a blog on Technorati that provides good information relevant to your interests a good idea is to subscribe to the RSS feed so you can automaticaly recieve new content delivered to your RSS reader.

The next site to look at is a site called Stufftotweet.com

Stuff to tweet pulls in the top content from a handful of the top social sites online.

Although you don’t currently have an option to search for content that may relate specifically to your list of followers, and the amount of content here is pretty limited, you can still find some great stuff here without too much effort.

The next site on the list is Alltop.com

Alltop gives you a lot of flexibility to find specific and relevant content.

Much like Digg,  Alltop has the function to search it’s database to find content on blogs specifically related to your keywords.

Alltop is pretty comprehensive and will return some great results definitely worth a look.

Another great site is a site called Popurls.com

Popurls has a user interface very similar to the Stuff To Tweet site, but it provides a lot more resources to choose from.

Popurls also updates it’s content every couple of hours, so you know you are getting the very latest content online from a list of the most popular social bookmarking sites, video sites, image sites, magazine and news websites, and more.

Popurls also provides a search feature so you can search the site for key word specific content.

Using just a couple of the sites listed here regularly will provide you with some great content to keep not just your Twitter followers happy but help to keep you informed and educated about the latest news online.

More On This Topic...

• Are Your Tweets Falling On Stony Ground?
• How To Link A Facebook Fan Page To Twitter.
• How To Do Basic Competition Research In Google
• How To Create A Facebook Fan Page.

But, I have found there are a lot of Pastors and Christians in general who are using Twitter in their ministry that are just so incredibly boring.

I know that every one has the right to use Twitter or any other social media how they like, and I may be completely off the mark with this post, but when I look at following a Pastor in particular, I kinda expect to receive a few scriptures now and then, maybe some guidance or spiritual insight, some breaking news that may affect the Church and Christianity or even the odd Prayer request.

But sadly, the majority of the time, all I get from Church leaders are tweets about, who they are having dinner with, what movie they are watching with their wife or what cafe’ they are at, and so on.

It is such a shame that this is the best we are getting from our Church leaders when it comes to using this incredibly powerful social networking tool.

Tweets about sipping lattes in beach front cafes at 10 o’clock in the morning, when everyone else is slogging it out at work isn’t very uplifting or inspiring in my opinion, and being constantly told how Awesome church is going to be looses it’s Awesomeness after a while.

Now please don’t get me wrong, I love church, I think church IS Awesome and just like every one else, Pastors need time out to recharge, relax and fellowship, but if your going to be using Twitter in your ministry, there needs to be a balance.

If it’s constantly all about YOU, your tweets will seem irrelevant to the people following you.

People will still follow you, but it may end up being out of a sense of loyalty or obligation, but in all likelihood, you definitely run the risk of fewer and fewer people reading your tweets, every time your avatar shows up, automatically people will assume your talking about your self again and they just won’t bother reading what you have to say.

Please don’t take what I am saying as an attempt to beat up on pastors, I am not, I eagerly follow a handful of Pastors and I love what they send out through twitter, I am just trying to explain that…

There is a better way to use Twitter to engage the people in your ministry.

I guess getting started on Twitter can be fun and exciting, you open a new account and it’s like you want to tell the world, “Hey, Look at me I’m on Twitter“, and every single Tweet is all about you, I mean Twitter does ask What Are You Doing? doesn’t it?

But as an avid student of social media and a Twitter user myself, I have found that the people who are most successfully using Twitter are the people who are…

• Constantly engaging with their followers.
• Sharing useful and relevant resources to their list of followers.
• Re-tweeting the Tweets from the people they follow.
• and
• Think more about providing quality content to their list rather than just sending out a Tweet for the sake of Tweeting.

If you want to use Twitter effectively, then there has to be a balance, a balance between what your doing, what the people you follow are doing and what information you can share that will help the people who are following you.

When you actually stop and think about the concept of real people, living real lives, who have to deal with real life issues, who are following you on twitter, how many of these people do you honestly think want to know that your Driving to Church? or Having Coffee with Friends?

Some things to consider for using Twitter in ministry.

• If you read a good news story, blog post or see a great video online and you think other people would find it useful then tweet it. (even if it is a post from a Pastor that doesn’t belong to your Church)
• Tweet out prayer requests.
• Share Scriptures and spiritual revelations.
• Testimonies of healing and Salvation.
• News on missionary work.
• and so on,

Remember, Twitter in ministry is not all about YOU, Remember the words of Christ when he talked about the greatest among us will be a servant of all; Matthew 20:26-28

Be the servant on Twitter, your followers will thank you for it.

More On This Topic...

• How To Find Content That’s Worth Tweeting.
• What Is A Retweet?
• Making Your First Tweet At Twitter.com
• Forcing Links To Open A New Window.

I had seen a plugin that would do this about twelve months ago, but the plugin itself was no longer supported and had been that way for a couple of years, so making it work with the current version of Wordpress could become a problem.

Then I saw someone in my twitter feed tweeting about a plugin that would allow users to open external links in a new window called Target Blank in Posts and Comments.

I decided that I might give the plugin a try, but before setting it up I thought I would find out if there was a way I could manually code this function into my site without having to install another plugin, So I went to the Hybrid support forum and posted the question.

I can’t tell you what the exact response was because you need to be a member to read the reply, but the response I got made me wonder if I was doing the right thing by my visitors by forcing all of my external links to open in a new window.

I started looking into it further to see what other people thought on the subject, and seeing all of the responses, my attitude on the topic started to change.

But their was one comment in particular that really made me stop and think, and it was from Darren Rowse at problogger.net, his comment was…

My priority as a blogger is to develop communities of readers who have positive user experiences.

While keeping people on a blog by opening new windows for links might seem to make a blog stickier – I’d rather keep people engaged with content that they just can’t live without coming back to.

If they do leave the site and want to come back they’ll use the back button.

It was this comment that made me understand the responsibility I have in creating such good Quality content for my readers that they will want to come back to my site over again.

It also confirmed my desire to build community around my site among Christians wanting to use the web as part of their outreach and ministry.

To be honest I personally don’t have a problem with links opening up in a new tab, but after reading the comments and opinions of others I am inclined to see that the argument for opening links in the same window is a valid one.

Some of the articles which helped in making my decision are listed below.

Should Links Open In New Windows? Smashingmagazine.com

Should Links Open In a New Window? Problogger.net

Use interim solutions. w3.org

How Should Outbound Links Function. Wiliam.com.au

To most people reading this, having links open in a new or the same window probably isn’t an issue, but for me it’s about making my site usable for the majority, especially for the non technical visitor who expects links to open in the same window.

So I guess I have a pretty busy time ahead of me as I go back through each of my posts to reset all of the links I have opening in a new window.

More On This Topic...

• I’m Moving Out
• How To Do Basic Competition Research In Google
• Googles Free Keyword Research Tool
• Conversations With The Bible College Dean

You may have noticed recently, I have been adding quite a few articles that would be for some, covering some very basic stuff, the reason for this, really has to do with my long term vision,

My goal is to build a site which is a complete resource for any level of person wanting to build a successful ministry on the web from the ground up.

A lot of the articles I am writing now are simply laying the foundation and setting the scene for what’s to come for the future of Global Evangelists.com.

I know from my own experience of getting started online, that the Language and Terminology you read on the web can be a little hard to understand, and knowing what Software’s, Tools and Services to use in order to build an effective presence online can be quite confusing and overwhelming for the newcomer to the web.

I feel it’s important to share with you, what I’ve found to be helpful and what I have found to save me both time and money from the perspective of someone who is just getting started, but in saying that as the site grows and the readership starts to gain some momentum the level of teaching will also become more and more advanced.

I also want to make sure I explain what I am talking about in a simple non techy everyday language that anyone can understand and comprehend, Hence the “What Is” category.

There is also another reason why I have decided to write articles that cover basic but fundamental topics and have included tutorials that some would consider to be basic, and that is to do with the overall construction of the site.

It’s important to note, when building a site it’s always a good idea to create internal links, (linking from one page to another), there are a couple of reasons why this is a good practice and I will talk in depth about this in a future post, but creating inbound links for your site is a basic principle that you should be doing with your website or blog.

Hopefully in the next few days I will be going into more detail on setting up and building your Wordpress blogs, so stay tuned and please share what you find helpful to your online friends or tell your friends at church about this site, so they can start to build an online ministry and preach the good news. Isaiah 61:1-3

More On This Topic...

• Setting Up The Site.
• I’m Moving Out
• A Free Roadmap
• Blog Maintenance Day