Personal websites for Pastors have become quite popular of late. Jarrod’s Pastor, Tad Savoy, approached us last summer about helping him establish a personal website and blog independent of the main church website. We were quite honored that he approached us to help out. The primary goal for the project was to establish a personal website where Tad could share his thoughts and feelings whether related to the church or not.
Overview and Scope
This particular project was focused on creating and deploying a Blog style personal website rather than a business style website. The main objective was to create a clean and professional looking site that allowed to visitor to focus on content. There were several other objectives including the integration of a way to recommend books and music. Many people look to Pastors for guidance on books and music that will help them change and shape their lives, so this was an important aspect of the site as well. Finally, there was a goal to harness the power of Social Media and make sure that Facebook friends, Twitter followers, and LinkedIn connections could easily be within reach of the website content from each of those services.
This project was also a rare occasion for us, where customization was far less important than simply being able to deliver a nice looking and easy to use personal website quickly.
Social Media Integration
The integration of Social Media for this project was a no brainer. I don’t imagine that there is a Pastor on the face of the earth that isn’t at least using Facebook. As well, many Pastors are seeing the great potential that comes with using Twitter to instantly broadcast a message to thousands of people. In this particular case, Tad was also using LinkedIn to help connect with church members and ultimately, try and help them connect with other professionals. We set Tad’s personal website up so that every time he publishes a new blog post three things happen:
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1. A Tweet is automatically generated announcing the new blog post and a shortened link is included in that Tweet which links people directly to the blog post.
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2. A copy of the blog post, including media, gets posted to his Facebook wall.
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3. A copy of the blog post, including media, gets posted to his LinkedIn profile page.
Unique Aspects of the Site
The primary unique aspect of this personal website compared to others we have done is the integration and implementation of the Amazon Associates code. Because it was so important for Tad to have a way to recommend books and music to site visitors, we recommended that he take advantage of the Amazon Associates program. Essentially, this enables him to recommend the books and music of his choice using some code snippets that Amazon created uniquely for Tad. By putting these code snippets in place, whenever a site visitor clicks on a book or a music item, they are directed to Amazon.com. If they end up purchasing that book or music at Amazon.com then Amazon pays Tad a small bit of change for referring the purchaser. It doesn’t cost the purchaser anything extra and it can help out a Pastor who is trying to help people change and improve their lives.
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