{"id":186,"date":"2012-10-03T11:24:49","date_gmt":"2012-10-03T10:24:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.websites4christians.com\/our-blog\/?p=186"},"modified":"2012-10-03T13:55:56","modified_gmt":"2012-10-03T12:55:56","slug":"82-days-to-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/websites4christians.com\/our-blog\/82-days-to-christmas.html","title":{"rendered":"82 days to Christmas!!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Well in the UK we’re moving into the final season of the year – Autumn.\u00a0 It’s a great time of year.\u00a0 The colours are fantastic and (aside from the rain) things generally look really beautiful.\u00a0 As we move into the last three months of the year I think it’s a great time for people to dust down their websites, social media etc and start to get ready for Christmas.<\/p>\n

Now is the time to get everything ready so that you’ll have a great website ready for Christmas.\u00a0 I know it might seem like a long time but in practise these days will vanish very quickly.\u00a0 Time has a habit of sneaking past while you’re not looking.\u00a0 So here’s 5 things you can think of that might be worth a look:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 Add that photo gallery you’ve always talked about<\/strong><\/p>\n

People love pics!\u00a0 Pics and video are just the thing for people that are tired and don’t want to read but do want something to do.\u00a0 Remember that a picture is worth a thousand words and happy pics of your activities really bring your organisation to life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2. Set up an on line course<\/strong><\/p>\n

This might sound hard but in practise it’s pretty straightforward.\u00a0 Write the material and put in place an auto emailer.\u00a0 This sends out the material to the subscribed people at a timing of your choice, once a day, once a week, once a month etc.\u00a0 An easy way to give your visitors something positive to do.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

3. Write some more content<\/strong><\/p>\n

When was the last time you added material to the site?\u00a0 Was it interesting?\u00a0 Did you get feedback on it?\u00a0 Write something now (well finish this post first).\u00a0 It doesn’t have to be too thoughtful but tell people what’s going on and they’ll be interested.\u00a0 Tell them consistently too.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

4. Change the colour scheme<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is a simple and quick way to refresh the site.\u00a0 Just change the colours.\u00a0 If your site has been set up properly this should be pretty trivial to do.\u00a0 You’ll\u00a0 spend more hours in the design than in the coding.\u00a0 You should (or your web designer should) be able to create a new design in a few hours.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

5. Send out a newsletter<\/strong><\/p>\n

This doesn’t have to be anything too fancy, just something to tell folks what’s going on with you.\u00a0 Don’t despair if you don’t get any feedback from it.\u00a0 Surveys show that on average you’ll get only 2 responses per year per thousand people.\u00a0 But people do read them and are interested so keep going.<\/p>\n

Well that’s five things you can do in the lead up to Christmas.\u00a0 There is a lot there but you know if you’re building and maintaining a Christian Website then then they are definitely the right kind of thing to be thinking about.\u00a0 If you’ve a shop it’ll be different stuff but for a Christian organisation then this is the right kind of thing.<\/p>\n

One final thought I have is not to try to do all of the above if you don’t have the people.\u00a0 Each of these areas takes time.\u00a0 They aren’t something that you’ll complete quickly.\u00a0 Most of them need thought and then resource to make them happen.\u00a0 There is no point in a newsletter unless you can keep it going through the year.\u00a0 So think about what is worth doing and pick the ones you can.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Alan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well in the UK we’re moving into the final season of the year – Autumn.\u00a0 It’s a great time of year.\u00a0 The colours are fantastic and (aside from the rain) things generally look really beautiful.\u00a0 As we move into the last three months of the year I think it’s a great time for people to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/websites4christians.com\/our-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/websites4christians.com\/our-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/websites4christians.com\/our-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/websites4christians.com\/our-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/websites4christians.com\/our-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/websites4christians.com\/our-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":189,"href":"https:\/\/websites4christians.com\/our-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186\/revisions\/189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/websites4christians.com\/our-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/websites4christians.com\/our-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/websites4christians.com\/our-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}