Life lessons

I was very lucky in hindsight to have a pseudo-father growing up. An artist and poet, with a giving heart to the beat down and tired. Not wealthy by the worlds standard yet one of the richest people I have ever known. He would make his living by going to flea markets buying then reselling the things the people had for sale. Many times when I asked him why he bought that worthless dirty thing he would say

“One man’s junk is another man’s treasure”

I always thought this was about material possessions. This morning I wonder if it means a man may see one person as worthless, while others will see him valuable? Or maybe the “bad things” we go through in life can be junk to us, but to others our experience are useful, like addictions or abuse. So many times in life we may never know that the hard times we can go through can help so many other people. Mr. Rodgers said

“If only you could sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.”

Our past can shape someones future. The stuff we go through can either build or destroy not only us but the people come into contact with and even our loved ones. Like the child with an alcoholic or abusive parent who becomes an addict. The way we deal with trials and hardships develop our character, good or bad. Helen Keller once said

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved”.

How different my life would be if I had never went to the flea market with my Uncle Bob. I learned everything from discipline, work ethics and later in life, perspective. Many of my charter traits are from him and his time, love and quotes that he poured into me. I hope this encourages you to look at anything your going through in a new light and reminds you that we are all connected to each other. Lastly

“There was a man and they called him mad;
the more he gave the more he had”.

A Guide to Church Social Media and SEO

One of the big buzzwords in Christian technology and design circles is social media and its role in online engagement and community. To answer some of the questions about church social media, I’ve provided this short guide, which is the first in a series of posts about church social media strategy.

1) Quality content. Stories, art, insight, and fun content that keeps readers interested. You might also consider video if that works for you.

2) The three most important components to consider in your church’s social media vision are:

Spiritual gifting and passion

Intended audience

Available time and resources

God’s mission for you and His gifting to your church staff will likely orient much of the content and nature of your online and social media ministry efforts. For instance, one strategy is the use of the bridge strategy to guide social media efforts.

3) Focus on evergreen content over time-specific content. One way to help create more evergreen content is to create a series on particular issues important to potential members. What would be helpful or valuable to my members which I feel is consistent with my faith? Realize that time-specific content like church, community, and event announcements are still incredibly important, but this tip is more about focusing on what will be valuable 3 years from now than just 3 days from now.

4) Consider re-purposing content. If you already have a church newsletter or e-mail newsletter, perhaps 65 to 85 percent of that could be valuable to your users. One great way is to re-purpose sermon content in 1 to 3.5 minute snippets. Most users won’t be interested in listening to 25 minute lessons, so making short snippets available so they can access core lesson components in short bursts is important. One website that has done a great job of putting their content into snippets and is an example of video social media best practice in this regard is Stanford E-Corner website, which provides short themed segments.

5) Idea board. Create a document, wiki, or whiteboard to explore ideas for the blog. You might even just use a traditional paper model. This helps centralize your ideas so that no ideas get left behind. There are a ton of great free and low cost Enterprise 2.0 and Web 2.0 tools that are perfect for document collaboration (Google Docs and PB Wiki are available for free, while Zoho Docs and Basecamp are inexpensive paid platforms). This is also a great way to collaborate productively on ideas in staff and ministry groups.

6) Try to keep it personal and conversational. This is one of the core precepts of the new era of social media on the web. One way to do this is with your tone. Another is to have short interviews with community members about important issues and events.

7) Look to models and proven social media best practices. Check out the top 100 church blogs. What do they share in common? This can provide you with strategic insight about what type of content is link worthy and therefore SEO friendly.

8) Think about users. What are the 7 to 10 most relevant items? This is the same decision you might make in a Christian newspaper or magazine. Front page your most important content by putting links on the top or side menu bar. Another user-centric design consideration is to keep your design visual.

9) Aggregation. If you have multiple publishing platforms online you may consider consolidating them in one place via aggregation. Content aggregation makes it easy for users to access and view all the content on one particular topic all in one easy to use location. Widgets and content aggregation is one way for you to bring in content from your favorite Christian magazine, website, or blogger.

You will want to return to some of these concepts every 6 to 12 months as you review your church social media goals and strategies. Make no mistake, it is a time and content creation commitment. Often solving that issue is just a matter of focus and time management.

If you have questions about church search engine optimization or church website design, don’t hesitate to give us a call.

What should a website cost?

What should a website cost?

this is a common question many people ask…..

To not show favoritism because I am a developer and graphic artist I have take the pricing from the source many freelancers use to price their work….. The following comes directly from http://www.designquote.net/html/dq_estimate_wizard.cfm

Web Design Pricing Calculator

Average Hourly Rates

Student/Offshore $15 – $30/hour

Freelancer/Company $25 – $75

Expert Consultant $50 – $250

Professional Firm $75 – $200

Average Cost Guide

Logo Design:
$100 – $250+ (Student or Offshore)
$250 – $1000+ (Professional Designer)

Basic Brochure Website:
$500 – $1000+ (Student / Offshore)
$1500 – $5000+ (Professional Designer)

E-Commerce Website:
$1000 – $5,000+ (Outsourced Offshore)
$2000 – $10,000+ (Experienced Developer)

Custom Database / Interactive Website:
$1500 – $15,000+ (Offshore)
$2500 – $25,000+ (Experienced Developer)

To put this into perspective….. Elev8 Web Design just completes a website of 10 pages with a logo and 20 images, a java image slider with 5 custom images and client included 10 microsoft word documents that i placed in the pages. This site also included a email contact form… Our Cost….. $750.00

VS

Estimates: Note: These are ballpark estimates, submit a project for real bids.
Premium	Medium	Discount
Professional Designer or Company	Small Company or Freelancer	Student or Offshore
BallPark: $11,305.00 – $15,295.00 DesignQuote Budget: $10,000 – $15,000	BallPark: $6,783.00 – $9,177.00 DesignQuote Budget: $7,500 – $10,000	BallPark: $2,826.25 – $3,823.75 DesignQuote Budget: $2,500 – $5,000

If you need a website let us know free quotes and prompt attention to details are our calling cards. For examples of our work visit us @ Http://www.elev8webdesign.com or email sales@elev8webdesign.com

Facebook now has Improved Analytics for Websites, Applications, and Pages

Improved Analytics for Websites, Applications, and Pages

Having good analytics is a key to successfully growing a business. To provide you with even better metrics for your Facebook applications, websites, and Pages, we recently launched an improved Insights dashboard.

The new Insights dashboard is your single source for all your Facebook analytics needs for:

• Websites: Fully-integrated sites and those that use social plugins, or add a non-integrated domain in one easy step
• Applications: Including canvas, mobile, device, and desktop applications
• Facebook Pages: Including Pages created on Facebook.com and those that are part of the Open Graph protocol

For example, you can now view analytics around specific stories liked on your website, or how many users commented on posts made on your Page (note that this is anonymized aggregate data and does not include personally identifiable information). From there, you will have a better idea of what your audience finds most interesting and capitalize on that content.

The Insights dashboard contains more data than before, as well as a host of new visualization tools, including the ability to view full screen, print, and save graphs. We’ve also released a new demographics visualization so you can get more information about the audience interacting with your application, Page, or website.

As a domain administrator, you can now access sharing metrics and demographic information per domain and per URL so you can optimize your content for sharing and better tailor your content to your audience. To get started, you will need to associate your domain with a user ID or a Facebook application or Facebook Page that you administer. You can do this by clicking the green “Insights for your Domain” button on the Insights dashboard and adding the meta tag that is generated to the “>If you administer a Facebook Page or have integrated the Open Graph protocol into your Web pages, you can now see analytics for referral traffic and stream stories in the Insights dashboard, as well as tab views for your Page. Insights will capture engagement with Pages regardless of whether an action was taken on or off Facebook.

Accessing Analytics Programmatically

In the coming days, we’ll discuss the ways in which you can get even more analytics, and in a programmatic way. Until then, we’d love to hear your feedback on the Developer Forum.

Alex, an engineer on the Platform team, enjoys having better insight.

http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?api_key=113869198637480&channel_url=http%3A%2F%2Fstatic.ak.fbcdn.net%2Fconnect%2Fxd_proxy.php%23%3F%3D%26cb%3Df1e9631c3%26origin%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fdevelopers.facebook.com%252Ff7078bca%26relation%3Dparent.parent%26transport%3Dpostmessage&href=http%3A%2F%2Fdevelopers.facebook.com%2Fblog%2Fpost%2F388&layout=standard&locale=en_US&node_type=link&sdk=joey&show_faces=true&width=450

RSS Feed? What to do with it! ?!?!?!?!?

Subscribe to RSS Feeds found in Windows Internet Explorer

Subscribing to RSS Feeds from Windows Internet Explorer is the fastest and easiest way to add RSS Feeds to Outlook.

1. When you browse to a Web page that contains RSS information, appears next to the Home button.

2. Click .

A list of all available RSS Feeds on the Web page is displayed.

3. Click the RSS Feed that you want to add.
4. When the RSS Feed opens in Internet Explorer, click Subscribe to this feed.

The RSS Feed subscription is added to the Common Feed List (Common Feed List: A list of subscribed RSS Feeds that is saved with your Windows user profile. RSS clients, including Windows Internet Explorer and Outlook, use this list so that you do not have to configure subscriptions in each program.) in Windows. Your RSS Feed subscription is available in Internet Explorer, Outlook, and other programs which use the Common Feed List.

Tip On a Web page, you might see , or, . Usually, when you click these icons, you can view and subscribe to the RSS Feed.

Top of Page

Manually enter a new RSS Feed subscription

To manually enter an RSS Feed subscription, you are required to enter the Web address (Web address: An address that specifies a location of an object, document, Web page, or other destination on the Internet or an intranet, for example: http://microsoft.com. Also known as Uniform Resource Locator (URL).).

1. Click the File tab.
2. On the RSS Feeds tab, click New.
3. In the New RSS Feed dialog box, type the URL of the RSS Feed. For example, http://www.example.com/feed/main.xml.

Tip In most Web browsers, on a Web page, you can right-click the RSS icon, and then copy the shortcut to the Clipboard. Press Ctrl+V to paste the information from the Clipboard into the RSS Feed location box.

4. Click Add.
5. Click OK.

Top of Page

Subscribe to a RSS Feeds sent to you as an Outlook RSS Feed sharing message

1. When you receive an RSS Feed sharing invitation, click Add this RSS Feed.

You can click the button at the top the Reading Pane, or if you open the message, on the Share tab, in the Open group, click Add this RSS Feed.

2. Click OK to confirm the addition of the RSS Feed.

Top of Page

Import a collection of RSS Feeds from an OPML file

Outlook 2010 supports the .opml file format for exchanging a collection of RSS Feeds and sharing configuration information between programs that can organize and display RSS Feeds.

1. Click the File tab.
2. On the Open tab, click Import.
3. Select Import RSS Feeds from an OPML file.
4. Click Next.
5. Click Browse to specify where the file you want to import is located, and then click Open.
6. Click Next.
7. Select the Feed name check box for each subscription that you want to import.

Tip Click Select All or Clear All to quickly select or clear all of the check boxes.

Note You are importing only the subscription information, not the actual items from the subscription.

8. Click Next.

Rise and Sing By FEE

INTRO I

Guitar I Intro (with delay)

e|————————————————————————–|

B|————————————————————————–|

G|—-4——————————-4————————————-|

D|—-4——————————-4————————————-|

A|—-2——————————-2————————————-|

E|————————————————————————–|

Just hit a B chord a couple of times with delay set to tempo.

Guitar I hits that last strum of the B as Guitar II starts.

Guitar II Intro

e|————————————————————————–|

B|————————————————————————–|

G|———————————————————————-6—|

D|—–9-7-9-7—9——–9-7-9-7—9——–9-7-9-7—9——–9—7-9—9-|

A|-9-9—————-7-7—————-6-6—————-7-7—7———|

E|————————————————————————–|

Play this twice, then…

INTRO PART II

Guitar I (No delay for the rest of the song)

e|————————————————————————–|

B|————————————————————————–|

G|—-4—————-8———————————-9—————–|

D|—-4—————-8—————-6—————–9—————–|

A|—-2—————-6—————-6—————–7—————–|

E|————————————–4———————————–|

B D# G# E

Guitar II

e|————————————————————————–|

B|————————————————————————–|

G|—-11—-8—-9–8–9–8————-11—-8—-9–8–9–8—————|

D|—————————9———————————9————|

A|————————————————————————–|

E|————————————————————————–|

Play these parts together twice.

VERSE I

Guitar I

these are just octaves…

e|————————————————————————–|

B|————————————————————————–|

G|—-4—————-9—————-8—————-9——————|

D|—-X—————-X—————-X—————-X——————|

A|—-2—————-7—————-6—————-7——————|

E|————————————————————————–|

B E D# E

Guitar II

e|————————————————————————–|

B|————————————————————————–|

G|———————————————————————-6—|

D|—–9-7-9-7—9——–9-7-9-7—9——–9-7-9-7—9——–9—7-9—9-|

A|-9-9—————-7-7—————-6-6—————-7-7—7———|

E|————————————————————————–|

Play these parts together twice.

PRE-CHORUS

Either guitar……………….Whoa, oh, oh oh….

e|————————————————————————–|

B|————————————————————————–|

G|—-4——–9——–4——–9——————————————|

D|—-4——–9——–4——–9——————————————|

A|—-2——–7——–2——–7——————————————|

E|————————————————————————–|

B E B E

VERSE 2, Guitar I the same, Guitar II slightly different

Guitar II

e|————————————————————————–|

B|————————————————————————–|

G|———————————————————————-6—|

D|—–9-7-9-7—9——–9-7-9-7—9——–9-7-9-7—9——–9—7-9—9-|

A|-9-9—————-7-7—————-6-6—————-7-7—7———|

E|————————————————————————–|

this once…

e|————————————————————————–|

B|————————————————————————–|

G|————————————————————————–|

D|—–9-7-9-7—9——–9-7-9-7—9——–9-7-9-7—9——–9-7-9-7—9-|

A|-9-9—————-7-7—————-6-6—————-7-7————-|

E|————————————————————————–|

and then this once…

PRE-CHORUS again

CHORUS

Either or both guitars…

e|————————————————————————–|

B|————————————————————————–|

G|—-4——–8—————–9——–4——–8——————9—–|

D|—-4——–8——–6——–9——–4——–8——–6———9—–|

A|—-2——–6——–6——–7——–2——–6——–6———7—–|

E|———————-4———————————–4—————|

B D# G# E B D# G# E

Back to INTRO PART II (but only once this time)

VERSE 3 (same as verse 2)

PRE-CHORUS

CHORUS X 2

Back to INTRO PART II again (also only once)

BRIDGE

In the bridge, Guitar II has some delay effects that I haven’t figured out.

But here’s Guitar I…

Guitar I

e|————————————————————————–|

B|————————————————————————–|

G|————————–4———————————4————-|

D|——————–6–4–4—————————6–4–4————-|

A|——————–6–4–2—————————6–4–2————-|

E|——————–4–2——————————4–2—————-|

G# F# B G# F# B

and then just one strum each…

e|————————————————————————–|

B|————————————————————————–|

G|—-4——–8—————–9——–4——–8—————–9——|

D|—-4-X-1—-8-X-1—-6——–9-X-1—-4-X-1—-8-X-1—-6——–9-X-1–|

A|—-2——–6——–6-X-1—-7——–2——–6——–6-X-1—-7——|

E|———————-4———————————–4—————|

B D# G# E B D# G# E

Back to the CHORUS two more times but the second one is special like this:

Special CHORUS

Guitar I

e|————————————————————————–|

B|————————————————————————–|

G|—-4-4———8—————9-4-4———–8————————-|

D|—-4-4———8-6-6———–9-4-4———–8-6-6———————|

A|—-2-2———6-6-6———–7-2-2———–6-6-6———————|

E|——————4-4—————————–4-4———————|

B D# G# E B D# G#

Guitar II

e|————-11——–12———11————————————–|

B|—-12-12——-9-9——12-12——-9-keep strumming and bend a half step|

G|————————————————————————–|

D|————————————————————————–|

A|————————————————————————–|

E|————————————————————————–|

CHORUS X 1 again

Then end on this

Either or both guitars…

(the last chorus)

e|————————————————————————–|

B|————————————————————————–|

G|—-4——–8—————–9—9—9—4——————————|

D|—-4——–8——–6——–9—9—9—4——————————|

A|—-2——–6——–6——–7—7—7—2——————————|

E|———————-4—————————————————|

B D# G# E E E B

6 Tips on Image SEO

Images as an asset for organic search results and search engine optimization are often overlooked. Images can drive traffic through image search as well as inclusion in universal search results.

There are actually several dimensions to image optimization that involves better placement in search results, optimization for user experience and in some cases, optimization for easier sharing of images on the social web.

For image SEO, it can be helpful to think of optimizing images like optimizing a tiny webpage within your page. Things like url structure, anchor text and descriptive tagging are factors for optimizing images for search engines, just like regular webpages.

Here are a few tips for optimizing your images to improve their performance on the page and in search.

1. Find the right images

Finding the right kind of image is incredibly important. Great images can add another dimension to an article or page that can encourage people to share the page and create some great backlinks. Research shows that while text is still the first thing seen on the page, the image is what sells the page.

Here are some of the best places to actually find images:

• Flickr – Probably the de facto service for finding free images. They have a really useful creative commons search as well. Skellie has an excellent article on how to find Flickr images.
• stock.xchng – Weird name, but a ton of royalty-free stock images.
• iStockPhoto – Large selection of stock photos that you can buy.

You can also use Google Images to find images for your site, as long as you search with the proper licensing. (They allow you to search Creative Commons and other public licenses.) But you have to be very careful when using images, as if you don’t have the permission to reuse it, companies and sites can take legal action against you.

The general rule of thumb is this: if the image isn’t Creative Common licensed or you didn’t buy or create it, don’t post it.

2. Use the keyword(s) in the file name

Just like keywords in post urls are important for pages, the same is true for images. Using keyword-rich words in your image filename is important for helping search engines determine relevancy. For example, the image above was originally named “iStock_000004221245XSmall.jpg” which doesn’t add much information about this web page. It has been renamed to “image-optimization.jpg”. Of course, most images that are not simply decorative like the one above are literal and connected to the content of the page such as a photo of a product. If the above image were used in an article about eye color, then the file name should reflect that.

Google suggests that you should place your images in one folder on your site, mydomain.com/images versus placing them in random folders throughout the site. Another suggestion from Google related to file names or URLs of images is to make sure you use common image filetypes such as JPEG, GIF, PNG, and BMP.

3. Create descriptive alt text

Alt text or tags are another way that search engines help determine what your image is about. Unlike traditional web content, search engines can’t determine the text content of an image. (Search spiders are pretty smart, but as far as I know they haven’t developed eyes yet.) As a result, search engines need to rely on captions around the image, alt text, file names and other surrounding text. Adding descriptive text in the alt tag helps the search engines determine what the content of the image is.

If an image is used as navigation, ie as a link to another page, be sure to use alt text that is meaningful to the content of the page being linked to.

4. The right anchor text

Anchor text is another important factor in image SEO. If you decide to link to images with text, your anchor text can play a role in how your image is ranked for keywords. Use descriptive anchor text that describes the image. For example, linking to an image using a generic term like “image” or “photo” or a file name that doesn’t use keywords doesn’t give search engines much meaningful information on what the image is about. Linking to an image with keywords is helpful to search engines as well as people visiting your site.

5. Make sure the image matches the content

The content surrounding the image should be related to all of the things that you’ve optimized thus far: anchor tags, image url, alt tags. When these things align, it helps search engines confirm that you’re not spamming and that the image is of higher quality and relevant.

6. Don’t stuff

This goes for all kinds of SEO, but we’ll say it again just for clarity: don’t keyword stuff when filling out things like image alt text. Your alt text, captions and file names should be short and descriptive, not a long list of keywords. Remember to optimize images for your website visitors. Image SEO is as much about user experience as it is about achieving better search engine rankings.

Additional Resources on Image SEO:

Get up-to-date on Image Search – Video of a presentation by Peter Linsley, Product Manager at Google offering insights into how image search is used, how it works, and how webmasters can optimize their pages for image searchers.

Google Webmaster Central Advice in Images – Following these best practices (as well as webmaster guidelines) will increase the likelihood that your images will be returned in image search results.

If you want to check many of these image SEO tips on your web pages, try this handyimage SEO tool.