I recently decided to take a test drive of Windows Live services and applications personally because I had spent about a year or so using a laptop with NO MICROSOFT OFFICE .  I did just fine with many of the other free alternatives. Learned a lot about the many faces of Google, got a good education in Open office; but because Microsoft Office is the gold standard in document creation, I was frequently hindered in silly little things like church flyer tweaking.  So, this year I decided that I can’t step away from good old Microsoft forever!  I ALMOST decided to use windows live Essentials and Office Live as my laptop productivity software in order to review it’s ability to work as a reasonable go between…but needed to start evaluating Office 2010 for work purposes.  Had to abandon my plan….well sorta.

Office 2010 works seamlessly with Windows Live, so while I will be keeping a beefed up version of Word and Excel and all those other Office goodies; I have still been able to observe the potential for the Windows Live suite of products to give my church family a similar sharing feel as my work family.

The key is to have all staff sign up for a Live account, probably a hotmail account, and share things out with each other right up front to get the most benefit and get that cool intranet feeling.  And note, it’s that ability to totally control what you share that makes your Intranet needs different from basic Internet needs.  Sure  you have a church website and you should absolutely share as much as you can there; but you don’t share working documents, policy documents, budget documents with the general public unnecessarily.  Those need to live in the Intranet office space where you can invite as many or as few folks as are needed to collaborate.

The SkyDrive, the online document/ image storage spot, offers more than enough space for document sharing. It gives 25 gig of space that can be accessed from anywhere the Internet is available. If each member of a church staff signs up for Windows live they’ll each get their own 25 gig.  That’s a ton of space to save documents too, share them out amongst each other and collaborate on.  It’s also a great place to house all the pictures that we take for church events.  I’ve not really tested out their image sharing features as I use other services, but I’m sure this is a good one.

Office Apps are Microsofts greatest gifts to the world.  Maybe not that great, but this has effectively removed a barrier between Office people and nonoffice people.  Microsoft Office is an expensive purchase if you are buying it yourself and a church budget, much like an individual budget can’t necessarily handle it.  Now, the basics of Word and Excel are available to everyone via Windows Live.  I think that there is a download version that can be used offline and then the documents uploaded to your SkyDrive at some point. Older Office version documents can be uploaded for those who use office 2007 or before now.  And for those early adopters who have started using Office 2010 already, you can save right to or browse your Skydrive within the Office interface.

Messenger is an awesome little chat tool.  I’ve used that for years and didn’t even think of it as a Windows live product; but it is a part of the package and for good reason.  If you are signed into messenger, even if there are 10 of you in 10 different locations you can chat with each other and share those little connection conversations as if you were in the same building.  Being able to see if someone is busy or away or available for a quick question is a very handy way to stay connected with your decision makers.

Integrating Hotmail into the mix allows them to have calendar sharing that is much more attractive than the google calendar alternative.  It also ties in the contacts and task lists that we have come to expect from Outlook.

Finally, Movie Maker doesn’t seem like much but for slideshows, worship presentations or website promo-videos this nifty little piece of freeware does a descent job as a starter product.

There are other products that make up the Live experience, but I wanted to focus on the ones that would be most appropriate to help a church create a work related share.  So, if you are trying to figure out how to bring your church staff together with an easy to use, easy to implement platform….Windows Live is definitely a way to go.  And won’t cost you a dime.

MoonLight Developments is here to help you with:

• Website Development
• Website Management
• Social Network Management
• Email Marketing
• Podcast Setup
• Print Publication Development
• Sermon Transcription
• I.T. Training

Areas of Specialty

• WordPress Websites
• Event Memory Books & Souvenir Journals

Call (804) 592-0589 or email lynn@moonlightdevelopments.com today to get started.

We provide fast, accurate and convenient sermon transcription!
MLD transcription services are based on a few key components.

1. Affordable Pricing
$1.00 per audio minute introductory rate…3 to 4 day turn around.
$1.50 per audio minute introductory rate…24 hour turn around.
2. Simple Delivery
You upload your file using our form.
We send you the return file via email once payment has been recieved.

Electronic File Formats that we can accept:
Mp3, Wma, Wav, Avi, m4p, others upon request

Physical File Formats that we can accept:
CD, DVD, Tape, VHS

File Formats that we can deliver electronically:
Word document, generic text files, PDF file (generally uneditable), others upon request

That’s it!

Contact me for a quote today at lynn@moonlightdevelopments.com

Ring in the New Year with a new website with a little help from MLD! There is still time in December for us to create a website for you that comes with an easily editable interface, calendar, podcast, photo gallery, and associated Facebook page even and have it live by January 1.

Call or email me for additional details and a getting started packet before time runs out!

(804) 592-0589
lynn@moonlightdevelopments.com

Each ministry that ventures to be online at all, should have an effective strategy.  What is yours?  Before you get defensive, web marketing for the body of Christ isn’t the same as marketing for business.  We have a very, very important message and we don’t need to use smoke and mirrors to get it out to the world! We just need to be sure that your church puts it’s best face forward.  If you are still lacking a website or strategy please keep reading.
Maybe I should be working with you.

Objective/ Purpose: Maximize every avenue to spread the message of Jesus Christ to the community, in a way that presents the authentic face of your church to those people that you are trying to reach.

The point of a church website is more than putting your static information online.  That is certainly one of the goals, but it’s not THE point. And if it’s the only thing that you see, you are missing a vast opportunity for ministry.  Christian education is one point, as equipping of the saints is one of the things that your church has been called to do.  Fostering connection between the members of your congregation is another point. And being obedient to the great commission is the one major point that must extend to any effective church website.  And your ministry may have other goals.  Whatever the goal, it must be articulated and acted upon in order to form a strategy around it.
MLD is here to work with you and walk with you to create an effective web presence for your church!

• Image your sermons available online via podcast or video.
• Imagine a forum dynamic article series available to members and visitors alike.
• Imagine a social presence that fosters conversation between your young people while still drawing them close to the fold.

An effective presence should be able to accomplish all of this.

Call or email me today for a consultation!
(804) 592-0589
lynn@moonlightdevelopments.com

Given the way that our economy fluctuates, it’s nice to be able to have a little more control of your own financial well being month to month. Below is a little widget showing the latest freelance projects being posted. Check it out, they’ve got all kinds of things!

Why I liked CC?
It allows you to make very  professional, compelling email newsletters and annoucements very quickly.  And for ministries, they’ve got templates just for you.  Obviously they have them for businesses and they help us offer a consistent appearance. But I was indeed impressed with how little effort was required and I know that this is a great thing for those who aren’t as comfortable messing around on the back end of such things.

They can send out your hundreds or thousands of emails without being blocked as a spammer.  You have no idea how invaluable that is until it has happened to you…and it HAS HAPPENED on my watch once in life.  But I learned my lesson on that quickly. If you are starting a mailing list, you should certainly consider using one of these services for this reason alone.

They manage your mailing list for you.  If you’ve only got about 40 people well it’s way overkill….but turn that into 400 or 4000 and WOW that’s a mammoth list for you to try to deal with updating, purging and adding too.  So, I could certainly see the value.

And for $15 a month, for a small business the added value of having this added bonus to your customers and staying in the forefront of thier mind on a regular basis is worth tons more than the small cost.

Why we didn’t need it?
We are a church in transition at this point and don’t have a permenant pastor.  So weekly or monthly news isn’t really going out from a spiritual leader at this point as it used too. 

And we were just too small to consider the monthly maintenance fee worth it for the few communications that we do  have. Our email list is less than 100 people, all members so, we still do it the old fashioned way where somebody sends announcements around via thier own list…rather than having our nonexistant pastor send things out officially.   NOT THE BEST SYSTEM…I’ve almost showed up at church before because I somehow wasn’t on the email list that was used to send out a cancellation notice.  But really….for 2 or 3 emails per quarter $10 to $15 a month, though not much in general, isn’t really worth it at all.  So what if Sister Lynn missed the email. 

However, once we have a pastoral leader in place that’s something that will certainly be worth revisiting!!!!!!  If you’ve got more than 100 people to mail or manage you should consider this type of service because on your own if you attempt to send out those sized emails you could get slapped by your email service provider as a spammer.

Oh and for now it’s free to try for 60 days.  You could get a real good trial going before you even consider keeping it.

Peace

I tend to focus my writing and research on church and nonproft efforts these days because that’s where most of my own technology related time is spent.  Podcasting was really big for a while and it seemingly died down, however the truth is that it never actually died..it just settled into the comfortable norm of it’s very stable current existence.  It’s still an EXCELLENT way to share info. that is regularly produced…making it a truly wonderful medium for churches to deliver content to a wider audience.  Sunday sermons, Wed. night bible study sessions, youth min. talk programs, etc. are all things that can be recording and shared via a podcast…if developed in the proper format of course.

And with WordPress, a nifty plugin and the ability to capture sound it’s amazingly easy to accomplish.

The plugin that you’ll need for podcasting hosted on your own site is called TSG Podcasting Plugin.  Just search for it under your plug in library and install.  This little plug in allows you to upload recorded items.  Once you put it in a post, the plug in helps you with the rest to update the various podfeed aggregators.

If you are looking for a good way to record yourself there are 2 items that I use.  Replay Music, from Applian technologies which is a purchased product and Audacity which is a free product.

Need a little primer on podcasting?  Have a look at these sites.

http://www.podcasting-tools.com/podcasting-101.htm

http://podcasting101.pbworks.com/

Step One -Get a Domain Name And Web Space
Step Two – Consider Your Content
Step Three- Set Up your Website
Step Four- Consider your Design
Step Five- Turn a Blog into a Site
Step Six – Add A Calendar
Step Seven – Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Extra Credit- Adding A Podcast

So, I’ve pulled my list from a previous blog post and will start the compilation with this list.  I will add other details as  they become available.  Likewise, I’ll need to put this into a static site page too.

StartLogic
Price:  $3.95, Auto WordPress: Yes,  Space/ bandwidth: Unlimited, Email Accounts: Unlimited

Super Green Hosting
Price:  $3.95, Auto WordPress: Yes, Space/ bandwidth: Unlimited, Email Accounts: Unlimited
These guys have a free $50 Facebook credit with all plans, which might come in handy.

iPage
Price:  $3.50, Auto WordPress: Yes, Space/ bandwidth:  Unlimited, Email Accounts:  Unlimited
Another one with a $50 Facebook ad credit.

iPower
Price:  $4.95, Auto WordPress:  Yes, Space/ bandwidth: Unlimited, Email Accounts:  2,500

Search Engine Optimization is the process of improving your  website traffic from search engines.  You Optimize your site for search engines.  I’m a little lazy and the great folks who have contributed to Wikipedia have done a much better job of explaining it so if you want a detailed discussion of what it is, check out Wikipedia.

Why do you care about it?  Well, if it’s not already apparent, you really want people to find you when they type related terms into search engines.  If you sell widgets, you want the guy who is looking for widgets on Google to see you.  If you run  a restaurant you want folks looking for jerk chicken in your city to see your menu online!  If you are a church, you want the city newcomer looking for a local church of their denomination or belief system to see your church.  Part of why we have a website is for our existing customers or friends…but another big part is to attract new people that don’t already know us.  Hopefully, that is sufficient reason to care about it.

Can you do anything about it?  Absolutely.  Despite the complexities of SEO, there are some tools at your disposal to assist you in your efforts.

So, I suppose our step 7 is to address it in a nontechie sort of way!

Content is King. That’s the first rule of optimization…well my first rule anyway.  Before attempting to cajole the search engines into ranking you on the front page, make sure that you have good content on your pages that attract the people you want.  This means you probably do need to start finishing up all that content I told you about a few steps ago. It means that you use tags to highlight your page topics (even if they aren’t visible anywhere).  Write good headers and be sure to fill in your site settings pages with descriptions and keywords that relate to your site.   And keep posting.  Fresh content on a regular basis helps to keep your blog based site high on the blog ranking scale.  That’s one of those side benefits of using something like WordPress for your site.

Now add these little plugins to your site by searching for them in your Plugin search box and you will be a step ahead in getting your site noticed.

Google XML Sitemaps- A sitemap is a tool that helps search engines successfully index your pages for thier search engines and despite the fact that Google is in the name, it does work for more search engines than just Google.  To learn a bit more about sitemaps, check out www.sitemaps.org

Next up is a Plug in that helps your Meta data be a little more friendly.  I like  Meta SEO Pack, but here are a few different ones that have come highly recommended by other bloggers or WordPress CMS users.
TGFI.net SEO WordPress Plugin,   All in One SEO Pack,   or Platinum SEO Plugin.

While using these tools, you will probably run across keyword boxes that want you to add keywords.  Try this great tool to help make the most of your keywords.   http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/

That’s it for today. Hopefully, this series has helped you get yourself online without shelling out a lot of cash.

Step One -Get a Domain Name And Web Space
Step Two – Consider Your Content
Step Three- Set Up your Website
Step Four- Consider your Design
Step Five- Turn a Blog into a Site
Step Six – Add A Calendar
Step Seven – Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Extra Credit- Adding A Podcast