How I Made a Website About Children's Church Ministry......and how you can build a site, too!
The Birth of My Website ProjectI began this site in October 2006. My beloved husband tirelessly babysat almost every Monday and Thursday night so that I could throw myself full force into the project of my passion at that season of life. Being the distracted individual that I am... that dedication only lasted about two months! Then Christmas hit, and I took a lengthy break. Of course I made a few New Year's resolutions in regards to my website, and I did somewhat well with it for another couple of months until Little Miss Abigail made her presence known in my womb. We survived a few nauseating and tiring months until it was time to start homeschooling; and then a few months later, we birthed us a baby! And if you've ever had children, I'm sure you don't need to hear any excuses about why my site has been on the back burner since then! I did devote small amounts of time to my site, when I had them, throughout these events; and guess what ~ it paid off! The site just kept growing and gaining traffic.I am the type of person who gets really excited about diving into a new project and then dropping it before it's actually finished! Typically that results in a lot of... unfinished projects around the house. And wasted investments! But not my website! It has held up well; yea, it has even grown by leaps and bounds as I've spent a couple of hours per month tweaking it and adding a bit of content here and there. When I get 'tired' of working on it, I can let it sit for a couple of weeks until I'm motivated again. Then I dive in for a few hours and enjoy the soaring of the traffic (as opposed to the constant, steady traffic that it experiences during the times when other things in life take much higher priority). How Well Is This Site Doing?I'm glad you asked! Well, we are now enjoying about 20,000 visitors per month from countries all over the world. Traffic-wise, according to Alexa, we are in the top one million websites out of the 100+ million sites on the world wide web.We also rank very high in the search engines for almost any keyword pertaining to children's church ministry. Go ahead ~ scroll to the bottom of this page and Google children's church ministry, children's church object lessons, church etiquette for children, or any other term that brought you here or that interests you regarding children's church. You know what? You can Google my church's name, Central Calvary Baptist Church, without even entering the city and state; and I'll bet our site shows up on the first page of Google. Is all this because I'm an expert at Search Engine Optimization? Ha! Never even heard of it before SBI! That's just one of the tools in the package! My favorite part of our website success is that we have children's ministry workers contacting us on a daily basis ~ asking us for advice about specific ministry issues they are facing, sharing prayer requests and burdens, and even just dropping us a line to let us know how much we've been a blessing to their ministry. That is so rewarding to me! Financial Benefits of Owning a WebsiteIndeed, the reason I started the website was to help others in the same "ministry boat" that we are in. But we have also encountered a few other little *perks* along the way. You'll notice that I have Google search bars on most pages along with some affiliate ads (Oriental Trading, Amazon, etc.) scattered about. Well, in the past few months I've been surprised a couple of times to find a mysterious deposit in my bank account or a surprise check in the mail. The little bit of "monetizing" that I've done on the site has begun to pay off! This website is not even a money-making effort, but at least it will pay for itself.See that "Fund Raiser Idea" button in my nav bar on the left? That little project alone has brought us quite a few surprise checks in the form of referral fees. Now that I have a taste of the inevitable success that comes with building an SBI! site, I plan to soon build another just for the purpose of generating income. How wonderful it would be if we could stop stressing about the shaky economy! If my little boys didn't have to beg Daddy every morning to either stay home and play with them or let them go along to work! I am excited about the possibilities and just wanted to share the information with all of you who are like us ~ wanting more time to devote to your ministry and family, more money to give to God's work, and a stable & passive income that would provide both. Is SBI! Right for
Does the idea of owning your own website sound wonderful to you? Would you like sharing your knowledge, products, or talents with everyone in the world? Would it benefit your family to have income trickling in while you are working your other job, volunteering in the ministry, enjoying your hobbies, or spending time with your family? |
