1. Newsletter articles
2. Announcements
3. Calendar Events
4. RSS External Content Feeds

The News page is fairly complex and it is best not to edit the page if you do not have to. Instead, work with the page after you are logged in but have clicked the 'View Site' link rather than the 'Edit Page, link.

The Newsletters are articles while the announcements are meant to be more like the church bulletin for non-date-specific announcements, like a new staff member or a birth. Add the Newsletter article by clicking on 'Add Newsletter' when you are logged into the site editor. When you are editing the Newsletter page remember to add a short description at the bottom of the page template. This becomes the newsletter teaser on the News Page.

You should always add Announcements through the "add announcement" link on the News Page when you are in site edit mode. This will put the announcement short description and title on the News page and you can click through to the full announcement description. Do not add announcements on the Announcements Page - only add announcements by clicking the add announcement link on the News page.

The News page holds your last 3-5 (depending on how you set it up)announcements but you can see all of the users can see all of the announcements on the Announcements page. To change which announcements appear on the News page go to the page list and reorder the announcements. The last announcement on the list (the last one you entered) is the first announcement to show on the News page. To delete an announcement go to the page list and find the announcement under the announcements list and click delete (it will not let you delete the last announcement - it needs a place holder).

If you want to delete the announcement component on the News page just edit the page and delete the component and delete the title component as well. Then go to the page list and delete the announcements page. However, I suggest you keep it all, I think you will find it an easy way to keep everyone up to speed.

You enter Events through the calendar. Remember to make sure your hit 'view site' to take you out of page edit mode when you add events to the calendar. You make events show up on the news page by checking the "visible" button. Do not make recurring events visible - it does not work well.

To edit an existing calendar event you have to be in site edit mode so click the view site button. Then navigate to the calendar, find the event and click it, then click the 'edit this event' link on the event description page.

You can add RSS feeds for external news. CLICK HERE to learn more about RSS Feeds.

If you corrupt your News Page don't worry. Go to the Add Page interface and add another copy of the News page. All of the automatic content will be there. When you are satisfied with the page go to your page list, delete your old news page and then move your new News page to the correct menu location.

• You need a .JPG or .GIF file format
• All of the web pictures display at 72 dpi. If you upload a picture that is at say 150 dpi, it will be about twice as big on the website.
• Once the picture is ready simply edit your site and add a component with an image, it can be a Text, Image or Link component.
• Click the link that says "Click here to change this image"
• Hit browse and find the image on your computer
• Click "Open"
• Click "Upload"
• Resize the picture if you want to by clicking the "-Reduce" or "+Increase" links.
• Click "OK"

Most picture editing software has a 'save for the web' option under 'file'. If you size you picture in the editing software and then save for the web you will have the best results. If you do not have picture editing software we recommend Adobe Photoshop Essential

If you are using Windows XT you can go to the Microsoft site and search for power tools and download the Microsoft Image Resizer. This is a great tool that allows you to find a picture or group of pictures in Windows File Explorer and right clicking and selecting resize image.

The new Multi-image upload Image Gallery component is an extremely quick and effective way to add pictures to your website. Once you master the methodology you will find you can upload up to 20 images in just a few minutes. Below are instructions for the first time you use the image upload utility.

By selecting the advanced file upload utility you can select multiple files for upload (up to 20). You control click on multiple images and these upload all at one time. A total of 50 images can be uploaded into the new multi-image components.

To have the file play when the page is opened (such as music on a page), add a "Media File" component: >Add >Multimedia >Media File. Upload the file by clicking the "Browse" link and locating the file on your computer and clicking "Open". Check the box for Auto Play. Click "OK".

To create links to audio files that play when the link is clicked on (such as selecting a sermon to listen to): >Add >Links > select any of the links aside from the bulleted link. Click the radio button for "File" then select and upload the file from your computer. After you add the other elements of the component (link name for example), click "OK".

Good file compression is very important. A good compromise between download time and sound quality if to store music at 56kps (FM Stereo) and voice at 28kps (FM Mono). Your sermon file should be compressed to about 1MB for every 6-7 minutes of audio.

What I do for my church is record the sermon on a CD-ROM recording deck plugged into the sound board - about $300 from Best Buy. I then take the CD and use software called Sony Sound Forge Audio Studio ($70 for this 'light' version at http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/Products/ShowProduct.asp?PID=975) to rip it off the CD convert from the CD format to Windows Media Audio (.wma) format. I save it at 28.8 kps, FM Mono quality. Another converter we have used successfully is Windows Movie Maker which is free and comes integrated with Windows XP or available for download at the Microsoft site.

To use Windows Movie Maker import you sound file using the menu on the left hand side (Capture Video>Import audio or music). Drop the file into the audio/music track. You can then crop it and adjust sound levels. You may have to create clips to do this (place you cursor in the audio track where you want to create a clip then click Clip>Split). Use the Finish Movie>Save to my computer function to save to a compressed .wma file format (make sure you have "show more choices" clicked in the movie setting section of the save wizard and select FM quality audio 32 kbps).

1. Carefully fill in your description and keywords on your settings page (edit the site and click the settings button). Make sure your description is 30 words or less and that it is a description, not a mission statement. You do not have to repeat the title (Church or Ministry name). If you are a local ministry include the city and state. Include important keywords in the description like "Christian church in northwest Houston, Texas." Put your most important keywords first in the keyword box.
2. Search engines like Google claim they do not look at the meta-tags. That re-emphasizes the importance of putting key word content onto your site including keywords in the Page Title. It is our experience that using Google site map or analytics has very little effect on search engine listing.
3. Make sure your site title is filled in and includes your city and state if you are a local ministry - click on title/footer link in the site settings.
4. Follow all the directions in submitting the site to the search engines (from the Search Engine Submission button on the Admin page).
5. Submit your site in Yahoo! It is free. The 'suggest a site' is at the bottom of most pages.
6. Submit your site to the Open Directory Project. Go to www.DMOZ.com and click on the suggest URL. It is free as well. The appears to be less ability to respond to requests but try submitting your request anyway.
7. If you have a marketing budget you can try pay-per-click (ppc) Internet marketing. If someone searches for your category - you can pay to have your URL as a sponsored link. The first tier PPC engines are www.Overture.com and Adwords.Google.com - they are also the most expensive. Start small and evaluate whether the budget is well spent.
8. Make sure you are listed on local directories, the Chamber of Commerce site as well as denominational sites. You again might consider part of your marketing budget to pay up to say $100/year for listing on some of the local directories. Your marketing statistics (under site traffic from the ADMIN page) should show if you are getting referrals from these sites.

• Mailbox password - allows you to reset your password
• Mailbox addresses - This allows you to enter email aliases, that is if someone entered Pastor@Churchname.org you could redirect that to the pastors regular email box. Or if you have Firstname.Lastname as your regular email naming convention, you could have Firstname as an alias.
• Auto Responder - This will send a automatic email to anyone who sends an email into a particular mailbox. This is especially useful for generic mailboxes like Info@churchname.com. You can thank the person for the inquiry and give them a timeframe when they will be contacted with a personal message.

PayPal is well suited for Churches who do not have a merchant account (the ability to take credit card payments). Their rates are competitive and they enable ongoing charges, like a weekly or monthly donation.

To sign-up for your PayPal account, click this link:

Then click the sign-up for a new account on the right. Then click "business" and follow the directions.

Edit your site and click on your design manager and then on Header and Images. Click Custom Banner and you will see the window to browse your PC for you banner file.

If your version does not here are some choices for document conversion: