How to Keep a Great Name.

Last month I received a panicky call from a concerned Search Engine Optimization expert named Chris that regarded one of my client’s domains that somehow got placed on the auction block. Chris has no connection to me or my client – he’s just a Christian who didn’t want to see a great church unknowingly loose their domain name. His concern revealed that my client had let the domain expire on accident and here it was getting bids for over $500 by hungry SEO wizards!

Why would so many people be bidding up this church domain you ask?

Domain authority, age, and Google page ranking. This site was a few years old with a lot of incoming links and was well ranked with Google. Any person who purchased it would have the immediate benefit of a well ranked domain (for a little while) by using a common strategy that involves putting up some quick content pointing to the SEO wizard’s target site; the site they want to be higher ranked.

Long story short, we were able to rescue the domain from the auction block just in the nick of time before it would have been gone, and I’m sure, at the mercy of some hefty ransom to get it back.

Domains are an extremely vital piece of your church website, yet for some reason they go un-managed or ignored until there is a problem. I’d like to share a few tips for making sure your domains are safe and secure -hopefully eliminating the potential risk of your domain being stolen, expiring, or being lost.

1. Consolidate

If you are like me or many other churches you probably have a handful of domains such as the main domain, the alternative spellings, the youth domains, and the events of the past. Get all of your domains transferred to one single account. There is nothing worse than hunting around for five logins and passwords just to renew one domain

2. Access control

Who has access to your domains? Who is responsible for making sure they get renewed? It may be you or someone else, or even someone you may not even know! Whatever the answer, get your domain management on someone’s job description and under the control of a key executive leader. This person needs to be around for the long haul, dependable, and trustworthy. I would also suggest having access to this data be shared with an emergency back up person.

3. Track your expiration dates

Knowing when a domain expires is your job – not the web company! Don’t rely on when your registrar tells you either. Sure it’s in their best interest to remind you for a renewal but technology glitches happen. Add your domain renewals to your calendar. Even if you registered it for 5 years, check on it every year to be safe. Review your contact info and ensure that the person responsible for managing the domain name is keeping up with it.

These simple steps and a 15 minute check each year can save a lot of heartache and money! Build your name, protect it, and keep it!

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Matt Adams runs factor 1 studios, a web design firm dedicated to building awesome websites for churches, non-profits and small businesses across the country.

June 4, 2008 · Filed Under Church Media, Church Websites, Internet Ministry, Web 2.0

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Granger Unveils MyOfficeSecret.com

Tim just announced their new interactive website MyOfficeSecrets.com, where peoplecan spill the beans about their office-related secrets anonymously.

For the new sermon series, where the website comes from, they’ve also bought some billboards pointing to the website and are mailing 45,000 postcards ….

my office secrets

August 1, 2007 · Filed Under Church Marketing, Cool Church Websites, Internet Ministry

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Why Church Leaders Must Blog on Their Church Websites

In a previous post, I talked about the only two things your church website needs – a good design and a continual stream of great content. I also said that the only two types of content you must have are:

  1. Upcoming events / news items, and
  2. Personal blogs of church leaders

In this post, I want to expand on #2 and explain why I feel so strongly that church leaders should be blogging.

Read more

July 6, 2007 · Filed Under Blogging, Church Websites, Internet Ministry, Online Ministry

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Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission Launches Josiah Road

According to Baptist Press, the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission has launched a web-based community called Josiah Road.

Haven’t had time to really look through the site … but the design sure rocks!

Read the Baptist Press article here to get the background.

josiah road

June 12, 2007 · Filed Under Internet Ministry, Rockin' Web Sites

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5 Questions with LifeChurch’s Bobby Gruenewald

Last week I had the opportunity to have lunch with LifeChurch.tv’s Innovation Pastor Bobby Gruenewald.

LifeChurch sets the bar, in my opinion, in technological innovation (like starting an Internet campus in the virtual world SecondLife) … and the person behind most of it is Bobby Gruenewald.

Earlier this year, Bobby and senior pastor Craig Groeschel started a blog called Swerve, which I enjoy reading.

Anyway … after our lunch, I emailed him and asked him five or so questions that I thought would be of interest to us in church communications … here they are: Read more

June 10, 2007 · Filed Under Church Marketing, Internet Ministry, Web 2.0

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Blogs4God Is Back!

MeanDean from healyourchurchwebsite.com has announced that Blogs4God is back and ready for action! (unfortunately, this is bittersweet for Dean. Be praying for him.) To be honest, I’m not that familiar with the old iteration, but the new version is VERY digg-like (based on pligg), and looks like it’s gonna be an awesome place for Christian blog aggregation and voting.

Head over there, sign up, and start submitting your favorite Christian blog posts. Also, be sure to browse through the stories that have already been submitted and vote on them.

I’ve been wanting something like this for a long time, and I’m glad someone took the time to make it. If I’m honest, I never really understood why Christian blogs, mine included, would have a “digg this” link. Digg isn’t exactly Christian-friendly. But with our own place to hang out and submit/aggregate our own stories, we can now create our own community much like digg.

So, let me encourage you today to get over there and sign up. Vote A LOT! Oh, and go ahead and add me as your friend. My ID is “nathanrice“. Also, if someone wants to be super-cool, you can go ahead and submit this story to Blogs4God and vote for it! That’d be a cool way to start things off :-)

PS - Be warned that this site is running a bit slow and sometimes won’t come up at all.  I’m sure Dean is on it, but I just wanted to warn everyone.

May 14, 2007 · Filed Under Church Websites, Internet Ministry, Links

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