 it will get started. Hey, recording is on. Good morning. Welcome. Just all of you are doing good. And you're having a good week. All right, good. Sorry, could somebody just pray with us and we will get started. Kanan, is your mic okay? Can you pray? Okay, maybe Kanan's mic may not be okay. Dave, would you be able to pray with us and we'll start? Sure. Father, we thank you Lord God for this day. Once again, Lord Jesus, as you come, learn, Lord Jesus, I pray that your spirit will be with us, as our pastor teaches everything with Jesus, happens to us. Happens to usually in our ministry for your glory. Amen. All right, so media and technology and ministry, we were talking, we started by talking about digital engagement, that is how do we engage people digitally, using media, media, using technology, we can serve people, we can engage people, we can minister to them. And we started last week talking about websites and just sharing some practical ideas and thoughts that we can keep in mind as we get websites built for our churches and ministries, some practical things to keep in mind. I'll just quickly review and I'll finish part of what I was talking about towards the end of the class last week. I want to finish that up today, but that we will close and then we will get into the next topic tomorrow. So let me go ahead and just share the same PDF that we were looking at last week. All right, so just a quick review. We said websites are very important tool these days to engage with people. Everybody expects a church or ministry to have a website, but they go for information about the church, about the meetings and maybe even get some resources about the church. And so, you know, some ideas on how to build a useful website, you know, you select your website platform, we encourage, you know, use of what is called as a content management system. One of the leading ones is Joomla, it's open source, it's free, you could use that. And then you select a domain name for your website, try to find something that's short and easy that people remember they'd be able to associate with your church or your ministry. We spoke about that and you can search, but that's available. And then you register your domain name with a hosting provider, right? So we tried to explain a little bit about what happens when you register your domain name, it will be, if you register directly with a hosting provider, the domain name will be registered with the international registrar. And from there they will point to the server where your website is going to be hosted. So that when people search online on the internet, they'll be able to find your website. So that's, that's how generally it works. And, you know, you could register with different hosting providers, you may have hosting providers in your own country, or you can use international. Now, we use hosting, our hosting providers, one that we use hostica is actually based in the US. So our, our website is actually hosted in the US, then we also for other things like our eLearning portal and all and other things we use Amazon web services. So again, it's US based. Now, of course, some of them may have, you know, redundant servers in other parts of the world, but technically that the main server will be in the US. Now, some things to keep in mind, which I will say later on is where your website is hosted, like which country with geographical location will determine whether it's easily visible there. So there are some, the ways, the way the search engines work in some ways are also connected to where your website is hosted. So the visibility of your website is determined by that as well. So I will mention that a little later. Right. So the next thing is to build your website. And you can decide, you know, how do you want it depending on whom you're trying to reach? And what are the objectives you want to achieve through your website, whether it's content or, you know, whatever, you want get people to respond to certain things, typical pages that would be there in websites, and some useful thoughts here we shared on websites and so on. And then, so having said, you know, shared this, I just explained that, you know, for us at ABCWRG, our church website, we wanted it to be like a resource center. So we're trying to build it into a resource center where people will come to this place because there are sermons, there are free books, and there are sermon series, all those kinds of things. So it will draw people there. So it's not only serving our immediate church community, but it's also going to be like a resource center for believers anywhere in the world. They can come. And so we intentionally have designed it like that. And also we are providing all our resources for free. So, you know, we're not charging for any of the sermons or the books or anything like that, make it free. Just people can come and use it and be benefited. So that's our motive or our motivation. That's how we are trying to position our church website. Now what we were talking about last week towards the end of the class is, of course, you can, you know, link your website with all your social media accounts. So people know that, you know, this is your Facebook page, or YouTube channel, or Instagram, Twitter, whatever, you know, whatever you're using. People will know that. But this is what we were talking about. We were saying, look, you know, we need to, when you create a website, creating a website is one thing, you know, you have your website, you have your graphics and your content you put all together. But you need to be searchable online. That means when people search, they should be able to find your website. Okay, so that's important. And so part of doing that is search, what is referred to as search engine optimization. That means there are certain things that you do in your website and certain ways that you build your website, so that search engines will be able to take them or find them. Okay, I just want to share some things, some simple ideas with you, so that when you build your website, it's a good thing to have a website, but also think about these things. Because the content, many, many times that you will be providing the content, you know, you're the one who knows your ministry or your organization, you will be providing the content. So when you are putting up content on your website, on the various pages, you need to be thinking about some of these things. Okay, the developer, the IT people or the media team may not be thinking about these things, because they are busy, you know, they want to build a website and they want to do all the graphics and they want to do that work, they may or may not be thinking about this. So you need to be thinking about this and also, you know, there are people who are specialists in search engine optimization, that means they specialize in improving the visibility of your website. So if you have such kind of people who can help you, that's wonderful. Otherwise, there are some simple things you can do. So one, and I'm just going to talk about some of them. Okay, one of the simple things that we can do to make our website visible. Okay, let me just back up a little bit and share a little bit about how, you know, how does search, how do search engines work? So Google is the big search engine that, you know, the world's biggest search engine that many, many people use. So nowadays we just say Google it, you know, now how does Google search engine work? Now, just in a nutshell, right? So one, the place where the person is searching from is important, because Google shows its results. Firstly, in relation to the location of the person. So you're not always get the results that you see when you do a search are not always global. No. The results you see are, it's a blended thing. First and foremost, it is specific to where you are searching from. So if you are in the city of Bangalore and you do a search, Google is going to first of all look up for things in your city or in your geolocation, wherever you are searching from. So if you're searching for, you know, a spirit, like we did last time example, a spiritful church, it's going to show you spiritual churches, first of all, in your location, okay? You're in Bangalore, so okay. Now, and then after that, it will it will expand it into churches that are, you know, spiritful church that are from other locations that are ranked very highly. And there are certain reasons why those churches are ranked very highly. But first, it's showing you results that are specific to your location. And then makes it goes global by ranking. Okay, so that's how the search results that people see are influenced. So if you have a website that is hosted, so this is where where you host your website comes into play. If you host your website in the US, you know, so it will be picked up there also. And then although your church is in Bangalore and you're giving your address in Bangalore and all of that, both those things are there. But if you want your website to appear in another part of the world, some of the things is you may have to have an address in that part of the world, or you may have to have a domain name that's specific to their region. Like, you know, if you're if you wanted to show up in France, you may have to have a domain name that is .fr with that, you know, countries in geolocation.fr or .uk or whatever, whichever part of the world you wanted to show. So your website, if you are a church in Bangalore and your website is hosted in the US, it will show up here, but it won't show up in UK or France or, you know, some other part of the Netherlands or, you know, some other part of the world, because there's no relation with your church that's in Bangalore, that's hosted in the US, no relation to France or UK or other countries. Unless your website has a high ranking globally, or you have a region-specific domain name like .uk or .fr or .Netherlands and so on. Okay, so those things come into play. So, you know, so if you're not getting into those things, you know, we'll just talk about, okay, if you want your website to show up in your region, and technically people in your country or in your city or your country are searching and you want to appear there, what are some of the things you have to keep in mind? First of all, keywords. That means there have to be words in the content in your website that match the words and the phrases that people use to search. So, you know, suppose you create a website for your church, say Hope City Church, and Hope City is based in Bangalore, but for some reason, and now let's say Hope City is a spirit-filled church, now it's based in Bangalore. So, in the content, in the text that is used in the website, it's important to use those keywords like spirit-filled church, you know, church in Bangalore. It's important to use those words in the text in your website so that it gets picked up. So, Google has what it's called as web crawlers. That means these are scripts that are running in the background that they'll read through all the pages of all the websites. That's really huge amounts of data that are being crawled every day, right? So, it is reading through, and these are engines, so it's not humans, but it's all software, they're reading through all the content that's on your pages, okay? And they're looking for words that are being used often. So, in your content, oh, it's Bangalore is there, spirit-filled is there, church is there, you know, oh, it's a fellowship, family church. So, you know, those things, and it's reading through that, and then it's indexing it. It's putting it in some sort of a you know, cataloging or an indexing system so that when people search, you know, the websites that have a lot of the content related to those keywords get higher, right? Not exactly, but there are other issues, other parameters as well. But one very important thing is those keywords must be in the content of your website, right? So, if you are running a children's home, state that, you know, children's home, children, ages so and so, or you know, of what kind of children now, how are you going to help them? The phrases and the keywords that people use to search must be used in the content of your website, right? And these keywords are also put into the, what are known as the meta-titles or they're used in the URLs. That's important, okay? So, the person who's doing your website, you can tell them, hey, make sure you put these keywords in the title of my webpage, in the URL of my webpage. They use these keywords because that will make your website more visible. Another thing that increases your visibility is when you list your organization on Google Business. So, you simply have to go to googlebusiness.com and you list your website there and then put in information, a lot of information related to what your organization does, right? So, when people search, Google usually shows up first, you know, the directory of businesses it'll show usually in relation to that search phrase. And so, if your business is listed in Google Business and it matches those phrases or search keywords, then your business is going to show up in the result, in the business listing. So, that is very, very useful. So, you know, your organization will be displayed and people will find you easily, okay? Another thing that influences the search results is how many links are there to your page from other places. So, they call it citations or cross-linking, right? So, here's your website. But are there other websites also referencing or providing a link to your website? And are they providing, you know, the name of the address? Are they referencing your website? The more such references are there, the higher your website is going to be ranked. It increases the ranking of your website in the search engines. Okay. So, some of this you can do intentionally, right? So, you have a website and if you have other online places, like example, it could be your social media, your Facebook page or Instagram page, it could be other places. You may use some free portals that are available where you can write content. And from there, you intentionally link to your website, right? So, sometimes there are a lot of yellow pages and other directories where you can list businesses. So, you intentionally list your business on these other places and you provide a link back to your church website. So, eventually what happens, the ranking because of these citations or these crosslinks, the ranking of your website goes up. It becomes more visible in the searches that take place in the search engines. Okay. So, some of the places that you can list your website, of course, Google Business, then you can use Facebook, Ping and Apple and several other places and there are many more where you can list your website. But remember, do this intentionally because if you have more references, more links to your website from every other, you know, as many places as you can, your ranking will go up. Okay. Now, in order for Google to actually crawl through your website, there is a place and I can't show it to you now because I'm logged in as a different account. But if you go to Search Console, Google Search Console. So, you go to search.google.com slash search hyphen console and then you log in there. So, you go in there and you can submit your domain name. You can give your domain name for Google to index your website, to crawl through your website and to index the pages of your website. So, you should make sure that whoever is managing your website does this. Now, I can't log in there because I'm logged into the APC Bible College on Google Meet. But otherwise, I would have logged in to using all people's Gmail account. I would log into search.google.com search console and I can show you how we have submitted all our different websites. We have about six or seven different websites that we are maintaining. And we submit all our web, we have submitted all our websites to the Search Console, Google Search Console, so that they will, it will in turn crawl through our websites and index all the pages. And it gives you very good reports, you know, it shows you, you know, if there are problems with your web page, how many links are coming in to your page, you know, how many times it's been referenced from other pages, which are the places where it's most highly linked in. It gives a lot of information. So, you can really see how your website is doing and look at ways to improve it. So, you can have somebody do that for you. So, optimizing a website, make sure you use keywords. So, if you go to all people's church website, you will see, you know, we talk about being a spirit-filled church, we talk about, you know, different words like, you know, youth ministry or children's ministry, whatever people are going to be searching. Some people search for a church that has a good family ministry or a good community or, you know, so all those words, keywords are being used intentionally in the content of our website because when people search, they need to be able to find us. And so, of course, we have been, we list ourselves there in Google Business Listing. We keep building these cross links, references back to our website and we are listed on these various places that we can get references back. So, other things that you would want to keep in mind to improve the visibility of your website is you must keep the website content updated. So, what happens is, over time, if you don't update, the pages are going to, you know, just then they're indexing the ranking is going to drop. If you don't keep your content updated, slowly the website ranking will begin to drop. So, the important thing is to keep content fresh, keep it updated, and keep it growing. So, that requires, you know, a bit of work. So, you have dedicated people, you have people who can help you with that to keep the content fresh, keep it updated and that will improve or make sure that you don't at least lose your ranking or your visibility through the search engines. Okay. So, just to give you some examples, right now, our ABC Bible College website, it's a simple HTML website. It's being changed, actually. It's going to be, it's actually, we have an under the back end, it's being moved to a content management system, but initially we wanted to build something very quick so we built something with just plain HTML. Our APCW.org website is built on Joomla, which is a content management system, and APC Music. It's right now just a simple website, simple HTML website. It's not on a content management system. So, we have different websites built on different things, but eventually all our websites are going to be moved to this content management system. All right. So, last week, I was, I was just sharing with you, you know, I was just showing you how when we do searches, you know, like we said, spirit-filled churches in Bangalore. Yeah, we did that last week. So, you know, how when, you know, you, when spirit-filled churches, somebody searches, so you can imagine somebody who comes to Bangalore. If they are looking for a spirit-filled church, they would search. What are the spirit-filled churches in Bangalore? Now, you're looking at the search results. This section is basically Google's business listing. Right? So, this is here, Google's business listing. So, the reason we are shown up here is because we've been listed in Google's business and the map. So, it's showing the map and so on. And then, of course, these are the actual search results. Right? Now, why did it pick up all people's church? You will see that in the description of all people's church, the word spirit-filled is used. All people's church in Bangalore is a spirit-filled church. So, we intentionally used that word spirit-filled. Right? And we also used it in the title of that page, All People's Church in Bangalore, Spirit-Filled. Right? So, when you use those words intentionally in your website, the chances of those pages or that website getting picked up is higher. Right? So, when somebody searched spirit-filled churches in Bangalore, the reason this website got picked up is because we are used that word spirit-filled. Right? So, using those words intentionally are important. Now, you see, we also used the word word-based. Word-based. So, intentionally because sometimes people may search, you know, they want a word-based church in Bangalore. So, they will search word-based churches in Bangalore. So, here you see there are some other churches that have been listed based on the comments. But in the search results, again, ABC is listed high or number one because we used that those words intentionally word-based. Word-based. Right? So, just how do you want to position your church? You use those keywords. Right? Now, since the time of the lockdown, online church became very, very big. And so, people were looking for online churches. Now, so when you search for online church, the first in the search result is life church. Now, why is life church here? Because life church is very highly ranked globally. Right? I think they have the largest online church presence in the world. I think that's what it is. So, they're ranked very highly. So, life church is listed number one in the search result for online church. But, you know, you see, just go down a little bit. And of course, you have the videos of online church services. And then first in the local site is All People's Church. Now, why is All People's Church picked up? Because we have intentionally used the word online Sunday church service, online church, online church in the text of our webpage. Right? So, because we've used those words online church service, online church, this website has been picked up and it's, you know, showing up on page one. And then you have other international like Hillsong and Church of England. So, these are global sites, they're ranked highly globally. Right? So, but it's interesting that, you know, this would come here because we intentionally use those words online church. Right? So, I'm just showing you, you know, how intentionally you use certain things. And it will cause your website to be ranked highly, along with the other criteria, other things that I had mentioned. Okay. And why is this important? Because ultimately, when people are looking for something, they go and search online. And if you are, you know, and you want your website to be there, you know. So, if somebody searches for free books, right? So, you look for free Christian books, we are ranked here. Number one. Now, this is local, right? I mean, it's bringing it, it's, this is not global. So, if somebody from Australia is searching free Christian books or they may find other links. But in our, in this geolocation context, when somebody searches for free, free Christian books, they get to our, ours is listed here first so that they can then go to our page and make use of the Christian books. And notice, we have used intentionally free Christian books, in the text of our page heading and the text of our page. So, it gets listed. And then there are, of course, other websites that are available as well. Okay. Now, I don't want to brag so much about ABC. I'm just showing you, you know, how we have worked through this. Any questions so far? Are you all with me? You're understanding it? You're good? Okay. Now, okay. Are others understanding? Sit down, Thomas. You're following me? Is it? Okay. Okay. All right. So, Kanan said, Kanan said free books and he found ABC website. Okay. So, Kanan is in Tamil Nadu. So, even there, he's able to, you know, see. So, I think in this geolocation with maybe India and around, you know, ABC website will have a good ranking, but it may not be the same, you know, in other parts of the world because it'll pick up those websites. Now, there is a way by which we can see other parts of the world. Okay. This is a little side journey, but I want you to understand from a search perspective. So, okay. I'll just show this to you then we'll close. So, basically, you understood, right? When you build a website, use keywords in the content of your website. Yeah. So, okay. Thanks, Kanan. I see Kanan saying on the first page, rank number two, he finds it in Tamil Nadu. So, maybe there's something else that's ranked one over there. Okay. Yeah. So, what I was saying is to summarize, you know, you're creating a website, but you also want your website to be visible to search engines and simple tips, right? One is to use content in your website that people will search. Now, we have a team of people, this again, who are building content for a mental health, a Christian mental health portal. So, Christmas Life, which is our counseling website, it's going to be changed into a mental health portal. So, they're writing content and they're intensely using, you know, they're building content on mental health-related topics, simple things like anxiety or anger, things like that. So, we're building content. So, once we release it, when people search, hopefully we will be ranked high so that they will find content that will help them but it'll be Christian-based. So, there will be a chance for them to be exposed to, maybe there are people looking for Christian-based help with mental health problems, right? And they will find our website resources useful. So, again, that content is being built with that intentionally to use those keywords by which people will be searching and it'll help provide the content for them. So, that's one thing, use keywords. Second is, list it in Google Business. It is free, very simple to do, go to google.com slash business and list your church there, you know, put it as a church, give it a link to your website and then use other keywords like, you know, Spiritfield or Assembly of God or Baptist or Methodist, whatever the denomination, whatever you want your church to be visible by. Because sometimes people will search, you know, Baptist Church in Bangalore or people will search Methodist Church in Bangalore or Pentecostal Church in Bangalore, you know, people search by those terms because they're looking for that kind of a church. If you use that word in your website, then you are likely to be visible, okay? So, I'm listed in Google Listing. Thirdly, we said, link to your website from other places. So, through your social media accounts, link back to your website, gives you more visibility. Okay. So, these are some simple things you can do. And of course, if you get somebody who knows search engine optimization, they will give you a lot more ideas. I don't want to get into too much technical things, but things that you as a pastor or as a leader should be informed about so that, you know, you can make sure that what you do is visible. Okay. Now, just a little side thing. If you want to know whether, you know, there is something called Google.com Advanced Search. Okay, let me share that with you. I didn't start the sharing on my screen. I'll just share this quickly before we close. So, there's something called Google.com Advanced Search. Okay. That means you can search how, you know, what is seen by somebody in a different part of the world in a different language. So, you know, you can search for a phrase, but you want to say, okay, in, you know, Afghanistan or Albania, any other country, you know, okay, so example, you know, let's say, how will this phrase look if somebody is searching in the United States? Okay. Language, of course, is going to be in English. I don't have to do it, but that's language. All right. So, suppose somebody in the United States searching in English and they search, okay, will they be able to see all people's church? Example. Okay. So, I just, just to see this, let me see all people's church. Okay. The people's church is visible. Okay. In the United States. Now, why is it visible because, and of course, it's giving us, giving the information here and all the YouTube channels. The reason is because it's hosted. This, this, this thing is hosted in the US. But if you want to say, okay, what about, you know, will it be visible in some other country? Let me say, suppose somebody is searching in English, but they are searching in, you know, let me just pick up Albania. Will they see all people's church? Most likely they won't. They are saying locally. Okay. So, it's showing the, the, the results of videos here, but you see all people search website is not visible here. Okay. So, you see Albania, all these are Albanian sites. They, you don't see all people search. Now, this section, I think it's being listed here. This is the Google business listing. Okay. So, this is picked up based on my, where I'm searching from, but the actual results here, Albania results, you don't see all people's church, except for somebody has shared a link on their Facebook page. That's why this is showing up. But otherwise, you don't see all people's church. Okay. This is one way to do, to find out if your website is being visible in other languages and regions. And there's another way more, you can actually shift your location to another part of the world, you know, and you can search as though somebody in, in that country is searching. I don't want to get into it, but you can actually do it and search. But that's just for interest. Okay. So, I'll pause here. I hope I didn't overload you with technical information. The basic thing I wanted to get across was, in addition to building a good website, make sure it's searchable. And there are some simple things you can keep in mind. And you can do because you'll be providing the content for your website. Make sure you intensely use phrases and words that make your website visible. Okay. So, that's kind of the main message I want to get across here. Now, what we will do get into tomorrow is other, other areas of digital engagement, which you may be a little bit more familiar, things like email and so on. And just quickly run through it. Nowadays, especially in India, WhatsApp has become a very common, you know, digital engagement platform. Now, I'll just share with you what we do using WhatsApp, where you can actually set up an account with Facebook or with Meta, and you can do broadcasting through WhatsApp. So, I'll just share those things with you so you can make use of those, you know, the email, the WhatsApp messaging to engage with people, keep people connected to your church and ministry. Okay. So, we'll cover those kinds of things tomorrow. And those will be a little bit more familiar to all of us. Okay. We have five minutes. Any questions, any things you would like to clarify? Fine. I don't see any questions in the chat. So, we will close. But think about it. You're welcome to ask questions anytime. Okay. If you're working on a website and you need some guidance, you know, you're welcome to ask. Okay. I see Aaron's comment. Okay. It's clear, trying your best to understand. Okay. And, you know, keep these thoughts in mind. You know, sooner or later you'll have to build something for your organization, for your church. And you can share these ideas with them as they work on their content. Okay. All right. Let's wrap up. Can somebody close in prayer? And we will connect back tomorrow and take this forward. Prince, would you close and dismiss us in prayer? Please? Prince connections. Okay. Anyone else? Siddharth, Aaron, just pray with us and dismiss. Well, thank you for your guidance in understanding throughout the class. And Lord, whatever we have learned so far and whatever we can learn, Lord, Father, help us all to be a good influencer in this digital world so that God, Father, so that we can reach out many for your kingdom. So Lord, please, everyone, and submit rest of the day into your loving and into this name I pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. All right. Thank you, everyone, for being on the class today. We'll continue this tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of your day. Bye now. Thank you. Thank you, Pastor. Thank you, Pastor.