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Content Done Better » Blog Archive » Writing Series Part III — Site Copy

First, this kind of copy has to be interesting right from the beginning. Most people that go to a Web site don’t stick around if it doesn’t catch their attention right away. An attention-grabbing headline along with good writing on the home page is a requirement for anyone that wants to keep customers coming back.

It’s easy to read articles like this and feel complacent but web copy is just as hard as paper. Sometimes harder because there is so little time to grab attention, that of both people and search engines. I’m going to read this several times to make sure it is at the front of my mind the next time I’m writing for websites.

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Church Marketing Sucks: Simply Strategic Growth

Simply Strategic Growth: Attracting a Crowd to Your Church is comprised of 99 short chapters (2-3 pages) each focused on one simple idea. That means it’s a breeze to read through, is packed with ideas, and is very approachable for the ADD crowd (and with the proliferation of blogs and short content I think we’re all joining that club).

The book covers everything from backend administrative tasks (how to conduct a post-service what worked/what didn’t meeting and who to include) to wrangling volunteers (don’t schedule anything other than worship services and corresponding childcare on Sundays so you maximize your volunteer pool) to rationale for adding multiple services (people are more likely to invite friends when a church is not totally full and once your service has several hundred people there’s no way everybody can know everybody).

The writers of the book, Tim Stevens and Tony Morgan, even have their own podcast. And I was thinking I was running low of things to listen to on the train!

6 Ways to Slow Volunteer Turnover by Rick Lawrence

Turnover is a great thing…as long as you’re talking about a pastry. But turnover in youth ministry can be a big headache. Here’s how veteran youth workers have learned to cure the “revolving door syndrome”:

I don’t think you can read too many articles like this. They are a great reminder that people are the most valuable resource you can have, regardless of computers, servers, projectors or AV rigs. The advice is for youth ministries but I can see the relevance for the different areas I work in.

The Importance of a Central Project List - lifehack.org

I can’t escape the fact that having a real centralized project list for the things I’m doing is helping. I want to believe that I have tons of excess capacity in my brain. I want to think that I remember everything I’ve got on the go. But I don’t. And maybe you don’t, either.

I’ve found one of the bigger challenges in the last few projects I’ve been involved in is how to stay organised when there are several different people involved. It’s not like an office where I can quickly pop over to someone’s desk to ask a question. Probably not ideal but with the different service communities at our church it’s possible to go a month without meeting someone in person. We use Joomla for our parish website and there is a useful extension called Project Fork. There are no clever Gantt diagrams to confuse the uninitiated in project management. Just projects that are made up of tasks that can have dependencies. Even with only a couple of people on a project the centralisation can be a huge help.

An area where I often struggle even though I should know better. Turning off distractions be they external or internal often enables me to achieve things I thought would take far longer.

The Unstoppable Power of Focus » Self Improvement Blog - BrianKim.net

Learning to focus on ONE THING is quite possibly one of the best things you can do to invest in yourself. This is probably one of THE MOST overlooked areas of self improvement.