How to Fix Common Church Email Mistakes

[Tom Pounder] Today we're going to talk about common email mistakes that your church can be making and how to fix them. Are you ready? Because it's time. [SPEAKER_00] You're listening to the Church Digital Sidekick Podcast, part of the TCD Podcast Network. [Tom Pounder] Hey heroes, my name is Tom Pounder and this is the Church Digital Sidekick Podcast. This is the podcast where I bring on ministry leaders and we talk about how you can do ministry more effectively in this very digital and online world. And today my friend Mark McDonald is back and Mark is known for being known for something and I've got all his links on the show notes so you want to make sure you connect with him on that but today we talk about a blog post that he wrote about common mistakes that churches make when they make emails and how to fix that and we talk about three specifically and then the other two you can go and read on his blog post but it's really encouraging because email is still a vital tool to get information out to your congregation or your church in some way. So what's the best way to do that? That's what we're going to talk about. But before we do that, I have a special announcement from Jeff Reed. Jeff's going to share with you this great opportunity for you and your church right now. [Jeff Reed] Hey, Sidekick fans, Jeff here from the Church Digital, Digital Church Network. And I'm bringing to you an incredible opportunity to help churches like yours connect with spiritual explorers digitally. Maybe you've heard of this thing that's called He Gets Us. You've seen their ads on the NFL games or all over social media or even physical billboards around town you see he gets us is a us-based ad campaign that'll connect people seeking spiritual answers with pastors and volunteers who have the answers to these questions and get them connected to your physical and or digital expression of church this is a great opportunity that will only expand as oh by the way he gets us is running several super bowl ads that's right he gets us has got two ads running on the super bowl imagine the potential reach that your church can be a part of By the way, for free. You see, that's right. You'll get 12 months of He Gets Us, 12 months of Spiritual Explorers delivered to your inbox, 12 months of the platform and the technology completely for free. For more information, go check out thechurch.digital. slash he gets us, thechurch.digital slash he gets us. And oh, by the way, if you got questions, you can text me, 484-324-8724. Number four, the church. All right, let's get you back here to the TCD Sidekick Podcast. [Tom Pounder] Thanks, Tom. Thanks, Jeff. That was awesome. And I hope that you and your church take advantage of this great opportunity that you have to partner with this great ministry. So check that out. I've got all the links in the show notes for you to click and learn more about that. It's at thechurch.digital. Again, just click on the show notes and find the link there. You'll find it perfectly. All right. So now let's get into our conversation with Mark McDonald talking about common mistakes that churches make on email and how to fix them. [Mark MacDonald] All right, with me right now is Mark McDonald. Mark, how are you? I'm doing really good. It's always fun just to meet up a little bit and just, I mean, everyone always doesn't know what happens just before we press record, but we always have a good time. [Tom Pounder] Yeah, you're, I mean, again, one of the things I'd really like about you, you're really easy to talk to. And so, I mean, just having a free flowing conversation before we hit the record button was really good. I'm in just such a better mood right now. [Mark MacDonald] Well, that's good. I don't think I've ever seen you smile this much. [Tom Pounder] Oh, good. That's always a good thing. That's always a good thing. All right. So, hey, Mark, I know you. We've known each other for a while. But some people on my podcast may not know who you are. So share with them a little bit about who you are and what you do. [Mark MacDonald] You know, it's just so crazy. I think every day I try to have an attitude of gratitude. And when I have my quiet time, oftentimes I think God just hears it over and over again. I can't believe that I get to do what I get to do. I'm a little kid from East Coast, Canada, and I serve an amazing king who allows me to work with churches. I guess the path that got me here was, You know, I'm a graphic designer by trade. That's what my degree is in. I started working for one of Eastern Canada's largest ad agencies, became senior creative director. And out of all of that, I just kept thinking the church needs to know this stuff and started working with churches, moved to North Carolina. and started, we kind of became the national voice of church communication, and started speaking at conferences. Out of that, I started writing articles, written over 800 magazine articles, and then I wrote a book called Be Known for Something, and it became an Amazon bestseller. And from that, started working with Florida Baptist Convention. They moved me to Jacksonville, Florida, And I love Florida. And as a Canadian, it's like I never want to go back to the weather that they're experiencing right now. And now I run an agency called Be Known for Something. And we work with all kinds of denominations. And I'm also executive director for Center for Church Communication, which is about 10,000 churches across the country. [Tom Pounder] So you probably sit on your hands pretty regularly with nothing to do, right? I mean, you've got nothing really going on. [Mark MacDonald] You know, every day, I'm a to-do list guy. I don't know, are you a to-do list guy? [Tom Pounder] I am, yeah. [Mark MacDonald] So I have, you know, I work with Things, which is an amazing app if you guys are interested in a to-do list app. But I'm also a little old school. I'm a whole bunch older than you. So I always have my... post-it notes which are almost embarrassing so i have my my master list over here on this computer on this monitor and and then every day i have okay so here are the five things that i absolutely have to get done today [Tom Pounder] That's awesome. Okay. That's cool to hear how you function on this. We're not going to talk about to do list today, but I do have to share with you. I go back and forth. I have a notepad that I write my to do list kind of for the week. I talk about do some things. And then I've learned to really because we're so digital these days, I've set up reminders on my iPhone. that kind of go over all my platforms, you know, with the Mac and iPad that just set up key reminders for key days so that I don't if I if I miss my notepad for some reason, I'll still have some kind of reoccurring things that I need to be focused on and not lose sight of. So that's really cool to see how you do. I love your the post-it notes. [Mark MacDonald] I have one Post-it note in front of me every day and it has the things that I have to get done. And there is a euphoria when I get to check off a Post-it note and it doesn't have that same feel like they need to gamify my digital list so that when I click off something like fireworks need to shoot across the screen. I'm all in it for the gratification. Like there just needs to be something that says you're the greatest person ever. [Tom Pounder] Yes. Yes. No, that, and I like that idea. Maybe you should create that app. [Mark MacDonald] Yeah, no. Okay. Somebody who's listening right now should create that app and maybe call it the Mark McDonald list. [Tom Pounder] Mark McDonald. There you go. There you go. Or list by Mark McDonald. [Mark MacDonald] Exactly. But, you know, being, you know, all about being known for something, I think, and because I am a to-do list guy, anyone who sees me at a conference, I usually, in my briefcase, That sounded very old. In my backpack, I usually have notepads and the notepads are to don't lists because as much as it's important for what we actually do, there's some things we just shouldn't do. And that's I do not develop apps. So that's on my to don't list. [Tom Pounder] There you go. There you go. I love that you hit briefcase. Now I just want to go down the rabbit hole of just all the old school stuff that we used to do. Because even though you are a little bit older than I am, not that much where I wouldn't know some of these things. I remember when my dad had the briefcase and he would take it into work. [Mark MacDonald] I remember when I had a Rolodex that I... I guess I remember I thought, okay, so my Palm Pilot allows me to have an address book. So maybe I should transcribe, oh my goodness, there's like a hundred things on my Rolodex. And I think my contact list now is like four or 5,000 people. So I'm glad that I switched to digital. Digital is the way. I'm glad we also don't have Palm Pilots. [Tom Pounder] God, I love my Palm Pilot though. My Palm Pilot was so, I loved it. Okay. Okay. Now people are probably going to get annoyed with us right now, but this would be good in offline conversation. Okay. So the reason why I have you on today is because we're going to talk about Google search. And we're going to talk about how that applies into our churches and our ministries, but just to kind of get the ball rolling a little bit, you know, we, most of us use Google basically every day and we're searching stuff. So why is it important for us to understand how Google search works? [Mark MacDonald] Wow. Mainly because as much as we probably understand it, but don't want to admit it, Google runs the world. I mean, like talk about old school stuff. I mean, it used to be if a church wanted to be known in their community. they had to have their yellow page ad or their yellow page listing. You know, the listing was free, but you can have an ad and everybody and their dog who wants to go to church will find you just by your ad. Yes. Well, Google is the new yellow pages. And I shouldn't even say the new yellow pages because yellow pages have long since died a very good death. thank the lord thank you i know because it was far too much money and then google when they first came out it was all about and we're doing this for free yeah but what we know is that it really wasn't free what they've done is they've put their tentacles out and they own so much information that uh that now they're kings yeah [Tom Pounder] Yeah, they're really all over the place. It's really funny because, again, you and I grew up when the internet really kind of came about. We knew the world before the internet. Now we know very well. And I would always just search on Google. Not Google, Yahoo. And then all my friends would be like, why are you using Yahoo? Just go to Google. It's so simple. It's so plain. And they give you all the right information. And I'm like, oh, OK. So now I use Google most of the time. [Mark MacDonald] Well, and you point out a really good thing. I mean, the thing that Google did, like you think AOL and Yahoo and MySpace and like all of that customization that it allowed you to do. And Google came out and said, we're going to be simple. We're going to be easy. There's going to be nothing else on the screen. It's just going to have that little bar and you're here for a search. Here's what we do search. And it was kind of like McDonald's when they came along and said, you know what? We're going to do hamburgers really well, but you got to do it the way we do hamburgers. And it just became a very simple system so that you can get what you're looking for. And you love our hamburgers. Dun, dun, dun. [Tom Pounder] I still go to McDonald's and I'll get the cheeseburger meal because I just like their cheeseburgers. But we digress, right? [Jeff Reed] Yes, we do digress. [Tom Pounder] Okay, so here's the deal. Okay, so say for my church or my ministry, there's that coveted first page of Google. Now, when you search something, you can get hundreds of pages of stuff, but really you want to be on the front page. Why do you want to be on the front page? [Mark MacDonald] well how many times do we search for something and ever go to the second page in fact i'll say to somebody so how many things are on the first page of google and they're like oh i don't know i don't even think i scroll to the bottom and and it's true i mean we don't even scroll to the bottom anymore that's why google uh allows you to buy your yellow page at our your google ad at the top and they put it at the top because and that's going to go to what we're going to talk about today The importance of the top. And so Google knows whatever's on top or whatever's on the first page is so much more important than anything else. So that is the coveted spot you want to when someone Googles for you, you need to be you need to master Google. And that's what we're going to talk about today. Mastering Google to the point that you get served on that first page. [Tom Pounder] are you saying that if i'm a church of under 100 or even 200 that i can still get on the front page the first page of google absolutely possibly absolutely okay so let's digress let's let's go into this do do i have to pay for it is it something i have to pay for [Mark MacDonald] So, yes, what we just talked about is if you absolutely, like you're, you know, if someone's Googling for you, whatever your keywords are, like when someone's there Googling and you're hoping that you get served on that first page, whether that's your community churches or your community denominational churches or I need God. And it's like, I would love to be there. Why is it always the big guys that are there? Well, you can kind of get around the whole amount of work and pay for it. So you can get, you can buy Google ads just Google ads and they will love to tell you how you can pay to buy certain keywords to say, if someone's searching for this, then you get put at the top. But I mean, it's a fair amount of money. And I think we've all been there. Like we all get spammed. I get spammed every day with these emails where people are, it's like, all you have to do is just pay us a thousand dollars a month and we'll guarantee that you're on the first page well i would i wouldn't do them go around them and just pay direct to google and you can get to the the top you know top of the first page of google [Tom Pounder] Okay, so that's one way to get on the kind of front page, the top, but there's an organic way too. There's stuff that you can be doing as a church. So let's talk about that. [Mark MacDonald] What can you- What do you mean, especially by saying organic? What big words you use? What do you mean by that? [Tom Pounder] Well, organic, I just attribute to as free. It's a free way. [Mark MacDonald] There's the word. There's the key word. No pastor is saying, how can I organically get on the first page? But if it's like, how can I get to the first page free? I think every seminary, there's a full course on how to get as much stuff for free as possible. [Tom Pounder] That's awesome. I got to go to seminary for that. Okay, so let's break it down. What is it, the stuff that you can do to optimize your site so that you do show up on Google search? [Mark MacDonald] Okay, so there's essentially just three things. And the only reason why I say three is because, again, that's another course in seminary that you have to break everything into three. There is a fourth one, though. So if we have a little bit of extra time at the end, I'd love to share with you that fourth one. But it's a little bit harder. and especially it's harder for for people who create content uh but let's talk about the three things first okay so so number one i mean we've already we've kind of shared a little bit back and forth it's about keywords so these keywords become king and you and I, we struggle staying on topic sometimes. I don't know whether anyone else has noticed that before. But this whole idea of staying on topic is, it would be like you saying, you know, I want to reach the world. I'm trying to think of any keyword for a sermon. Come up with a key. What's a really good sermon title that pops into your mind? There, I'm challenging you as a host. [Tom Pounder] How to Grow in My Faith. [Mark MacDonald] Oh, how to grow in your faith. I thought maybe because we're in February that you might've had love in there. [Tom Pounder] Oh, there you go. Yeah. Let's talk about love. Okay. Let's go. Let's go. [Mark MacDonald] Let's talk about love would be an awesome thing. So it's kind of like, you know, I, I'm a huge saddleback Rick Warren guy, you know, purpose driven was talk about old school writing that, I mean, that I read it in my mind exploded. It's like, he said it and that's really what I, I mean, be known for something is really just Reese retelling you at purpose driven. Um, and the, the thing is, is that I, I finally made the Mecca tour to California and I got to go to saddleback and I was like, Oh man, I'm going to hear purpose driven. I'm purpose, purpose, purpose, purpose. Like that's what I was searching for. And then I went and he talked about weight loss that day. and i thought i'm here for purpose like you could have at least tied you can be purposeful longer if you don't weigh as much like i mean like he could have tied it together somehow but in the same sense like if if here we are around you know valentine's day and love and if let's talk about love it would be like you saying let's talk about love and then people in your community going wow, I wonder what the church would have to say about love. And then arriving and then you not staying on topic. So Google is really, really interested in people understanding what people are searching for and then staying on topic. And what I struggle with, even on our website, beknownforsomething.com, I mean, it's hard for me, like I'll start a page and then I'll go, oh, but I should go, and then I, oh, I probably should talk about, and I get off topic. And what Google says is that understand your keyword and stay on topic. That's the number one thing. It's like, you've got to come up with, for every page, you need to have a keyword. And when I say a keyword, and this is my frustration of Spellcheck. Spellcheck likes keywords, but key phrases, they don't like that. They do it as a two words. So I always have to auto correct and then like change it. But it's really a key phrase. So a keyword is no longer, like it's really hard to own. Like if you decided, you know what love we're gonna be all about love and you try to own love you're not gonna be able to own it so Google says so you need to have what they call long tail keywords so it's like you have love there but what kind of love like what like is this you know, Christian love? Is this biblical love? Is this love? I don't know. You could come up with it, whatever. So every page of your website that you want to be discovered in the community or in your congregation, you have to know your key phrase and that phrase should never be more than four or five words if i was going to blue shirts it's like i could try to own shirts but blue shirts adding a tail to it allows me to have um a little bit more of an opportunity to own it but if i said men's blue shirts then all of a sudden that the group of people looking for it uh it gets smaller and smaller so that i can really target and you target through the key phrase and then those key phrases and i i'm sorry i i can almost see you trying to ask a question in between did you have a question for me no no no go keep on going keep on going so those key phrases you google just wants to say okay you can't say this page is all about this key phrase and then not use it yeah so we've all been there where we've googled something and then you get to the page and it's like where the heck is like where's the word that i was just searching for and like i sometimes find myself it's like there's and then it's like oh i can search command f and then it brings up the find window and you search for it and it's like it's used once and it's like so so they actually want you to use it and so those that four or five word key phrase needs to be used intact at least two to three times on that page. And therein lies half the battle is that it's got to be used in such a way so that it feels natural and it doesn't feel like you're just repeating it over and over and over again. But people who create sermons know how to do that and they do it really well. [Tom Pounder] Well, and one of the things I think about when, as you're talking about key phrases, if someone doesn't know what we're talking about, like, how do we make sure that it gets lined up and everything like that? I know our church uses WordPress, and I actually am very comfortable with WordPress. It's one of the... uh bigger ones out there for sites and you can download a plugin called yoast seo which will allow you to type in your key word or key phrase and then it will check for you so you don't have to worry about it and then they'll tell you before you publish the page whether or not it's a good thing or not [Mark MacDonald] see and you dropped our keyword of the day it's a free wordpress plugin so free wordpress plugin will get more attention than oh yeah how much do i have to pay for that yeah yoast is an amazing plug-in because what we're talking about today all it does is it just tells you did you do it or didn't you do it right and so what it does is it puts a green light a yellow light or a red light if you get a red light that means you suck at everything this content will not be discoverable by anybody and and then if you when you you know you get a few of the things right and it gives you a yellow and that's where the drive of gamification comes where i'm like i gotta get the green light and like Everybody in my office knows when I get the green light is like, I got the green light because I struggle trying to get all of these things right. [Tom Pounder] No, you're exactly right. I'm like that too. When I get done writing a piece of content on WordPress, and i see that the light is still red i am like racking my brain i'm like okay i just and then i switch it to yellow and then i'm like okay i'm closer and then i when i get the when i get the green light it is like oh my gosh this is great i'm ready to go now the tom pounder podcast is brought to you today by yoast no we're not paid by yoast we love yoast because uh well we've become evangelists for it mainly because it keeps us [Mark MacDonald] on track and it keeps us centered so that we understand what google is looking for and that's what you know we're going to talk about you know there's three or possibly four of the things that yoast will keep you on track yeah okay so you you highlighted the one that was about keywords and key phrases what's the second one Yeah, the second one, so there's hidden stuff that Google gets to see, and it's called metadata. And we've talked about the metaverse to the nth degree because Facebook brought meta to the surface. So it's kind of like the... behind the scenes digital glue that holds everything together. Well, there's a metaverse, there's a metadata area that's on your website where you have that secret wink wink with Google and you've got to make sure that you've created a really good short paragraph. In fact, here's the key to this is that keep it less than 155 characters. We're not talking words here and it's not a lot. And what you want to do anytime you get to see it every time that you Google something. So when you Google something and you are looking for Christian love or what the church says about love or whatever, all you need is love all the songs popping through my mind whatever you're googling when it gives you those search results there's always that little paragraph right underneath the link and that sometimes you don't see like you'll get to it and it's like no i wanted what was in the paragraph but it's not there on the page well that's because it's part of the metaverse so the the meta data has been somebody has shown control that not only do i know my key phrase but i've used my key phrase two to three times and you know what we talked about about being at the top of the page it also should be used in the first paragraph they'll give you bonus points if you put it at the beginning of the first paragraph and you've probably used it in the headline so that when you've Googled it, you get the link that you're gonna be using and that link probably uses the thing that someone's just searched for and then you see it in that metadata area and that metadata area just needs to be very actionable. It can't be, Whereas like the philosophical understanding of blah, blah, blah. Oh, this is like click here in order to get your book. Like, I mean, it just needs to be very action oriented. And that metadata is very important because it does show up in your Google search. [Tom Pounder] I like how you said it's very, it needs to be very action oriented. And so again, a lot of what we do with church communication stuff or any kind of communications is we want them to be pointing them to do something with that. And so the fact that you just highlighted it should be action oriented is a really good tip there. [Mark MacDonald] absolutely and the thing is is that the more you stay on track for something that somebody's looking for and the more you use it on your actual content and in the metadata you just slowly rise to the top of google because google knows i can count on this link delivering what you're looking for yeah [Tom Pounder] Well, it's really interesting, too, now that you're saying some of the stuff. You know Jay Cranda, right, from Saddleback? [Mark MacDonald] Yes. [Tom Pounder] Yeah. So Jay, one of the big online ministers, and he's been doing this for a really long time. One of the OGs, I like to say. But he actually tweeted something out fairly recently about how he was searching for something on Google. And actually, one of my things came up. and it was something i did years ago and about how to create an online bible study with you version but again it popped up towards the very beginning because of how i used yoast seo to write on the metadata and also using the keywords because what my keywords was what exactly he was searching for [Mark MacDonald] And oh my goodness, so that's like the fifth thing. So this is like a really bonus bonus. But the fifth thing is longevity. So the more it's there and the dates say that it's been there for quite some time, that gives you a little bit more power to rise to the top. So if you're just starting this, Do not lose hope, my fellow brethren and sister, and you will eventually have longevity to get there, but it might take some time. And the problem is, is that if you're doing this correctly, it's a lot of work and it takes a lot of time. I waited a little long, a little farther into this to actually talk about this, but it's free. and the thing is is that you just have to work hard at it stay on topic stay on key phrase and then and then allow it to just chill there and if it's a keyword that people are looking for on a regular basis [Tom Pounder] and you've had content up there for a while uh google knows that it's it's going to be deliverable and you'll just slowly make your way to the top yeah i think it's awesome okay so you've given us some really good tips so far uh whether it's two or three of them so far because you included that fifth bonus one you know we won't go there but let's let's talk about the third one [Mark MacDonald] Okay. Yes. We'll ignore that fifth bonus bonus. So the third one is just play nice with the internet. So just connect yourself. So it used to be that Google would serve people to your homepage. And then what they found out was that People don't want to take the time to figure out how to get from the homepage to the right content. So Google went, oh yeah, that's stupid. Why would we create keywords for a whole website when it's really the individual page? So that's why every individual page needs to have its own unique key phrase. Then, when people are looking for information, they go direct to that inside page. Oftentimes, people don't even get to the homepage unless they want to back out of it. It's like, this is really good content, so I need to go back to the homepage. But most people don't do that anymore. So what they want you to do is, okay, so if you are really good at what you do, you should lead them around your web page or website by using links. And those links need, I'm amazed at how many, I'm working with a church right now. I called up their website yesterday. We walked through it. And I said, so this page has no links on it. And they're like, yeah, well, we pretty much say it all. It's like, really? So everything that anyone would ever need to know is right here. Or since you know your content so well, lead them to another place. It would be like somebody knocking on the front door of your church. You unlock the door. You say, yes, can I help you? And they say, yes, I'm thinking about bringing my kids here. So you go, okay, do not look at anything else while we walk through the church. I'm going to show you the kids ministry. No, no, don't look. Don't look over there. We're in the kids ministry. Here's the kids ministry. And then we just stand there. like we all know it's like okay well if they're a parent they might need some help what about our adult ministries did you know you can come to a church service did you know you so it's like you know everything that's going on or you should and you need to link to some of those other things so those are called internal links and you want to have on every page two to three internal links And then because you're a really, really good internet dweller, you probably want to have one external link on every page. [Tom Pounder] Again, just highlight real quick for me. What's an internal link and what's an external link? [Mark MacDonald] Yeah. Internal link is connect with other content that's on your URL, like on your website, in your domain. So, you know, I'm the king of my domain. I understand everything that's in my website. So you're probably thinking, if you're talking about kids, you probably want to know about our security. Here's a link to our security. Don't put it all on your page because then you get too much content on your page. Instead, you want to link to other things internally within your URL. But you also want to have one external link, if at all possible. [Tom Pounder] yeah no that's awesome and again as you're explaining this stuff it makes me think about like facebook facebook wants you to stay on their their site once you're on their site they want you to say so you know if you upload a video uh on facebook to youtube facebook's not going to promote that so much but if you upload that natively to facebook they're going to love it and they're going to because it keeps them on their site and again like what you're explaining you want to keep them on your site because they may not go back to the homepage and discover things so again if it's something about children's ministry have that thing about security or student ministry because maybe they have some a teenager that is in uh student ministry you want to keep them going in that thing and i think that's really important uh to highlight because again the more they can learn about your church the more comfortable they're going to feel about your church more likely they're going to come and visit your church [Mark MacDonald] Well, and we've all been there. We Google something. Google delivers you to that page that you're looking for, and then you get lost in the website. It's like oftentimes I'll find myself saying, what was I here for again? Yes. Amazon is one of those things. I'll Google Amazon. I need a new bathroom fan right now. So I was looking for bathroom fans. I ended up buying toothpaste dispensers. And it was like, wow, there, I got what I... oh man, I didn't even order my bathroom fan. Like, I mean, it's just, it's so crazy. And that's what Google, they know a good website, you'll get lost in the website because if you're really good at this key phrase, you're probably good at other key phrases and then it will attract the same audience for various needs. [Tom Pounder] yeah i think that's awesome that's great you've given some great tips here now i'm very curious about this fourth one that you were kind of teasing early on what is this fourth one that you can share with us on okay so really quick you need to use signal words and signal words s-i-g-n-a-l signal words [Mark MacDonald] i am awful at signal words i have not used one signal well i kind of use the signal word during our podcast but pastors are really good at signal words when it's like so today initially we need to discuss so initially is a signal word what it says is i'm setting up a framework for understanding all of this content. So initially, or foundationally, or the first thing that we need to do, our one, two, and three, and four bonus, and five bonus bonus, like all of that stuff are signal words. So along the way, if you say, so secondly, thirdly fourthly and every pastor loves this so finally yes or in conclusion what that means is that we're about a third of the way through the service that's right that is right but what it what it says to Google is if I scan a page and I see signal words it means that you know how to layout content so that someone can can take that scan ability and quickly be able to not read all the content but get it as fast as possible and that's what Google just knows everyone wants to get what they're looking for as quickly as possible and signal words will allow you to do it if I mean, it's just tough. I don't write that way. So I usually write content and then go back and add all the signal words. And if you just Google, Google signal words, it will tell you all of the consequentially or initially or firstly, like all of those things. foundationally or in conclusion or at the end like all of those things just need to be added in and weirdly enough i always think it's just adding a complexity to what i'm writing like i just would rather just tell them yeah and and watch when you go to really good websites they use them and we just ignore them now like it's just just like we ignore when a pastor says in conclusion yeah [Tom Pounder] Well, this is really informative because I did not know about signal words. And so this is now I'm going to go back and rewrite some content. So but seriously, I think that's really important. And I think as you're telling me this stuff, I'm like, OK, so. we naturally we just probably don't think about this as we're talking and as we're writing but if like what we say is if you just write your content go and check out what some signal words are and then place them are there a minimum number you should have or [Mark MacDonald] Google wants to see signal words in place so that it's enough that it feels organized. So if it's a small amount of content, then you probably don't need that many. But leading the first or second word with a signal word of a paragraph Like that just all of a sudden, you know, they're looking for scan ability. So when they're when you're looking down across the content, just very quickly, you'll be able to know what skeleton that organizational outline is of the of the page. [Tom Pounder] That's really good. That's really informative. I think of it too on the lines of, you know, a lot of my blog posts I'll write, like I'll use bullet points because I think a lot of times people read with scannability. And so I think having these signal words, if you're skimming through the article, you can look through in conclusion or secondly or thirdly, I think that helps the reader and then it helps your SEO. [Mark MacDonald] absolutely it's kind of like where am i in the middle of all of this yeah and it's why we do it in sermons i mean when when we deliver a sermon or a large amount of content oftentimes it's like to give people hope like we're almost there yeah Obviously, you've lived for the bonus of this podcast. I feel fulfilled because I've actually given you something that you didn't know, which never happens. Maybe the title of this needs to be Free Things But Wait for the Bonus. writing that down right now it needs to be free seo i don't know like you just have to keep think so what would like this is a really practical way to to implement everything we just talked about so what would people be googling that this is a really good podcast for and then come up with the key phrase add your long tail to it and then then how do I work that into the actual title and then once you've worked it into the title okay so how can we work it into the metadata if you're gonna post this on YouTube which a lot of people are probably watching this on YouTube and in the non-metadata, which is the actual title descriptions. How many times do you use it? If there's a couple of paragraphs, do you have a couple of signal words there? And then you just want to make sure that there's some links. It's like, how do you subscribe? Subscribe right there to this gentleman's podcast. He's the greatest ever. [Tom Pounder] and and the thing is is that you also want to have some external links too oh be known for something.com is the way that you would probably get a hold of me yeah okay this is awesome i i love this i and that's why i love talking to you because you're very practical and you talk in really good terms of what we can understand and directly apply and so these give some people some really good um opportunities here to make some quick even they can go back to old content and just re-change some things and see how that impacts your optimization in the analytics and stuff um as we kind of wrap up though any final thoughts any other free type of insights you can share with us [Mark MacDonald] Well, exactly what you just talked about. Okay, so here's what we do. We watch our Google Analytics. We always know what the top pages are and we know what the top posts are. Our number one top post is always the exact same one that has nothing to do with anything that we do, but it's about church. aquariums like i mean seriously i know there's a keyword but obviously people are looking for church aquariums or church with the aquarium i think there's a big church in texas that has a monster aquarium it's the uh it's the largest um what is the largest non-public or privately owned aquarium whatever anyway so anyway people are looking for it so it's always our number one post What that information does is, okay, so that's what people are appealing to. It has nothing to do with what we actually do. So I went into it and then added some really key links to say, so here's why this aquarium works. It works as a thread to what they are known for. and if you're interested in a thread so i just added some salesy oriented stuff into it added some links added some external links so that if people are looking you know possibly for a a great aquarium show there's a discovery channel show about aquariums so i i link to it so all of that stuff gets put into it but what you just said about go back to old stuff like things that are really important that aren't rising to the top um go back in and change them. And that actually helps with Google as well because the more you change and update and add new stuff to your posts and pages, it actually, Google goes, oh, well, they're keeping up with their stuff and they're making sure that it's the correct information. So that all works as well. [Tom Pounder] That's awesome. That's very encouraging. So I expect a lot of people to be going back to old content, myself included, and adding some different things to this. Mark, it's always great having you on the podcast. Always great talking to you. Tons of insights. If someone wants to connect with you, how can someone connect with you? Again, give me your website again, too. And also the information about your book, because I bet you your book would be really applicable as well. [Mark MacDonald] Well, I mean, it is on Amazon. You can get it there. If you're thinking about reading through this book, because it has like a workbook section at the end, it's like before you go to the next chapter, make sure you understand this for your church. I mean, if you want to go to benownbook.com, you can actually get some packages. So it's like if you want to order several at a time, you'll get a break in the price, and Amazon does not offer that. but also be known for something, beknownforsomething.com, and you click on the book tab, it'll take you to the same place. And then if you're looking for me, you can either look for Mark MacDonald with an M-A-C in there, or look for MarkMac1023, and I'm on virtually all the social media platforms. I really would love to talk to you and help you in whatever your church is going through on the communication side. [Tom Pounder] There's a lot of know-it-alls out there in the communication side and Mark knows a lot, but he's a very humble man and very great person to talk to. So I would highly recommend if you're looking for someone to connect with, connect with Mark immediately. Again, he's on Twitter all the time because I'm on Twitter and I see him post and stuff. So connect with him there. I'll have all his links on the show notes. So make sure you take a next step and really connect with him today. Mark, as always, it's great talking to you. So thanks so much for being on the podcast. Thanks for having me, Tom. All right, so what did you think of the conversation? What did you think about what Mark had to share? What are some things that you learned about email and how you can improve it in your congregation, in your church or ministry setting? I would love for you to continue this conversation online. You can either hit me up by putting a comment on the comment section. You can email me, tomatthechurch.digital, Or you can get on Twitter. You can talk to both Mark and I. My Twitter handle is at TAPounder. I would love to carry this conversation on so we can learn more about emailing tips and tricks and ideas so that we can be reaching more people with our message every time we send out an email. So go and continue this conversation online. I'd love to talk to you a little bit more about it. And same with Mark. He would love to talk to you as well. All right, heroes, well, that wraps up for another episode of the Church Digital Psychic Podcast. Thanks so much for being with me today. As always, if you enjoyed the podcast, definitely subscribe to it. It's on YouTube. It's on Apple. It's on Google. It's on all the other platforms where you get your podcasts. So subscribe to it there. It's even in the show notes. You can just click on it and subscribe. And we'd love for you to get these every time we send out a new podcast. All right, heroes, well, I hope you have a great rest of your day, a great rest of your week. And until next time, have a great one.