Andy Rowell | Church Leadership Conversations

How to put ads on your blog

Update January 26, 2008:
In a month, I have made no money with Commission Junction, about $5 with Google Ads and $10 with Amazon Associates.

Update April 1, 2008:

I made no money with Commission Junction at all so I have removed the ads.  I made about $12 total with Google Ads and $26 with Amazon Associates.  I am removing everything but Amazon Associates.

Over the years I have tried to help people get started blogging.  Probably the number one reason to blog is that you learn a lot about yourself, much like journaling or reading a vocational discernment book like What Color Is Your Parachute?  I started out blogging about theology, current events, sports, and church leadership and later realized that I am most passionate about church leadership. 

Here is my latest experimentation in the blogosphere.  This week I have put up some ads.  I thought I would share with you, my faithful reader, what I have learned.  What I can't tell you is how much I'll make since I just put them up. 

Three reasons to put ads up on your blog or website. 
1.  Almost all publishers and media use ads. Almost every TV program, radio program, magazine and newspaper exist because of ads.  Using ads does not mean that you are compromising your integrity to sell ads.  The other financial options are to solicit donations like a Christian radio station or PBS or exist through subscriptions such as Consumer Reports.  Many bloggers also write books and thus hope that internet traffic will improve their book sales - many of the most well known church leadership blogs do this. 

2.  This is a reasonable way to sustain content production.  Google's revenue is almost exclusively from internet ads.  Did I mention I have a 2 year old and 3 month old and am a full-time doctoral student?  There is money to be made.  I don't click on internet ads.  You don't click on internet ads.  But clearly someone does.  Am I contributing to someone's excess spending by putting ads up on my site?  Does it bother Christianity Today or Christian Century  writers that they have ads?  Aren't ads a way to defray the costs very broadly to help the content provider (writers) make a living?  I'm happy to hear reasonable arguments in the comments against all advertising and marketing.  I'll listen to them with interest.

3.  You can try to market honestly.  People can choose not to click on the ads.  It is wrong to deceptively market something.  It is wrong to market bad things.  But links that take the person where they have chosen to go seem appropriate.  In other words, I think there are people who are interested in blogging with TypePad.  It is an excellent way to go.  I have provided a nice big link on the right side of the page.  If they end up going with TypePad, I get a commission.  That seems pretty straightforward.  I tell you below how you can choose what ads are put on your site which helps you market with more integrity. 

Here is the information behind my ads and how I put them up and what I get paid.

1.  TypePad. I have blogged using TypePad for 2 1/2 years now.  I have the "Plus" level.  It is very reliable and easy to use.  I have to say I love it.  I used to be on the Google-owned Blogger.  One of the problems with Blogger is that you cannot upload Word documents or pdf documents.  More recently some of my friends have chosen WordPress.com which is also free and allows you to upload files.  It is free but you only have 50 MB worth of space which can go quickly.  (For 5 GB of free storage try XDrive.  Omnidrive provides 1 GB.  You could link to files on XDrive or Omnidrive from your Blogger, Wordpress.com and TypePad account).  I required all of my students last year at Taylor University in one course to develop a WordPress.com blog.  See my post:Why to Try Blogging and How to Start and my other posts in my Blogging category about blogging.  Most of the people on My List of the 70 Best Church Leadership Blogs use TypePad.  Like I said, it is very easy to use and I explain below how it easy to integrate ads.   

If you have TypePad and want to put up an ad, go to  TypePad's home page and click on "Join the TypePad Affiliate Program."  That takes you to sign up with Commission Junction  Here is the commission: if people sign up for TypePad from the link: "$30 per subscriber (14 days from initial free trial) and $100 one-time bonus for 10 or more subscribers."

2.  Lenovo ThinkPad.  I also signed up on Commission Junction to advertise ThinkPad notebooks since I have a new T61.  It is a great laptop.  I ordered the specifications that Duke University Computer Store recommended.  Here are the specs I ended up with. 

Download Lenovo T61_specifications.pdf

Here is the commission: "start earning 3% commission on sales of all ThinkPad notebooks, ThinkCentre desktops and options and accessories sold through the program."

3.  Amazon.com. I signed up with Amazon Associates.  Thus, the book links are linked to my Amazon Associates account.  If someone buys something anywhere on Amazon.com after being directed there by one of my links, "You earn a referral rate of 4% on items shipped by Amazon or third-party sellers."   If you have TypePad, once you have a free Amazon Associates account, it is very easy to set up under "Profile."  Then you just do your book list on TypeLists.  The Amazon Associates site also has many other ways to put links on your blog to Amazon. 

4.  Google AdSense.  Sign up at Google AdSense.  Then you can put Google Ads on your site.  The difference here is that you are getting paid for the number of times the ads are viewed and the number of times they are clicked, not on commission.  "The program is free, and combines pay-per-click and pay-per-impression advertising - meaning you get paid for valid clicks on the ads on your site or search results pages as well as impressions on your content pages."  I also put a link to Google AdSense which pays me if some of you sign up for AdSense and end up making money through it.  Also I put a Google search on the left side of the page that allows you to search my site for posts you are interested in.  It also includes some ads that I get credit for if you click on them. 

Google ads are linked automatically to the site so that I have little choice what gets put there.  This is a bit scary.  (I have put my ads to the far bottom right for this reason).  One good thing though is that under Google AdSense, you can go to AdSense Setup and then go to Competitive Ad Filter and screen out ads you do not want shown.  I have done this once already after seeing an ad that I was embarrassed to see. 

Final advice about ads:

1.  Some of this takes a little bit of computer know-how. Basically though, on these sites (Commission Junction, Amazon, Google AdSense), you just click on the ads you want to show on your site, then they produce the html for the ad.  You just copy and paste this into your website and it works automatically.  In TypePad, you just put that html into a "Notes" TypeList.  I did this for all of the ads.

2.  Continue to make it easy for people to find your content.  If it is difficult to read your blog because of your ads, people won't want to come back to your site.  Try not to make it too busy.   The more ads you put in prominent positions, the more hits you will probably get.  But in the end, if people find your site off-putting, they won't come back.   Realize that most people are not as technologically savvy as you are and not as familiar with your site.  They will find your site confusing. 

3.  I think it would be great if more Christian organizations utilized internet advertising so that we could advertise them on our blogs.  For example, I would be happy to find on Google AdSense or Commission Junction organizations I already support like Taylor University, Regent College, Duke Divinity School, and World Vision so that I could promote organizations that I already support and also get a tiny cut.  Wouldn't that be win-win?  I know some would say that I should advertise those things without any compensation but wouldn't it be more fun to work together?  Wouldn't it be cool to have World Vision ads on all of our blogs but also to get a little compensation ourselves?  Or am I wrongheaded about that?  If you disagree, why don't you have advertisements already for World Vision on your site?  :-)

4.  I realize this is new territory for those of you who are pastors and professors and there may be implications for the institutions who employ you.  What will my church think?  Some of you are using your blogs as tools for communication from pastor to congregation (though it seems to me most of the pastor blogs are writing for other pastors).  Should I be making personal money off a church communication tool?  But in reality I think this is a similar situation to making money off books that pastors write.  All of these are issues you should discuss one on one with elders and superiors who are familiar with the medium of blogging and writing books and are able to give you good advice.  I wouldn't bring this up in the middle of an elders meeting without having some good discussion with some people behind the scenes first.  It could get needlessly ugly just because of misunderstanding.  A search online for blogging guidelines or policies for pastors will turn up some useful resources.  They will probably want to talk with you about how much time you are blogging / writing a book / articles  "on church time."  It would not be good to have someone blogging all day and not ministering to their congregation.  This is also related to the issue of outside speaking engagements.  If you are doing tons of youth retreats and getting paid for them and neglecting your youth group, that wouldn't be good.  Then again, some of that outside speaking / writing / blogging is appropriate and good and life-giving I think.  For those of you who are professors, the same rules likely apply though you may have to have in big letters: "this is a personal blog and the opinions don't reflect those of the university though I do want to be respectful and you are welcome to let me know if you are concerned about anything I've written!"  In all these situations, it may be appropriate to share a portion of what you have earned from speaking / blogging / writing (your "moonlighting" money) with your main employer.  These could be dicey issues but I think they are certainly negotiable.  Get outside advice and input from other pastors / professors who write, speak, and blog and they will be able to share with you good advice.   I hope these institutions will generally be glad that their pastors and professors which they don't pay all that well can find ways to make a few extra bucks.  No one is going to get rich doing any of this. 

Other resources:   

 See also Adam Cleaveland's post about putting ads on his POMOMUSINGS blog for the first time this week.  He has a huge readership. 

Leadership Journal's Out of Ur blog is another example to consider.

Secular marketing expert Seth Godin says today that the key to internet traffic is producing good content.  No short cuts.

Why to Try Blogging and How to Start

I am teaching my Christian Educational Ministries "Program and Curriculum Development" students how to blog tomorrow.  (I talked more about the books for this course here). 

They have already had to make comments on two different blogs because that is a good way to familiarize yourself with blogs.  (For inspiration, see my list of the Best 70 Church Leadership Blogs). 

Tomorrow we are meeting in a computer lab and they will all be setting up a blog on WordPress.  I have told them that they can set up a fake ministry blog or a personal blog. 

Here are three reasons I am teaching them to blog. 

1. Churches and ministries need websites and the blog is the easiest way to get a basic website going.  Even for one event they may want to be able to do this.   

2. I want these students to get over their fear of doing web design.  You don't know if you are good at it and like it until you try. 

3. Even if they don't do it the future, they need to be able to work well with designers and they will do that better if they have done it a bit themselves. 

Here are the basic instructions for them.

If you are new to blogging, this sequence of tasks may be a good quick way to try your hand at it.    

The screen photos are on the attached Microsoft Word handout here if you are interested.  Download WordPress_Blogging.doc 

My sample blog which I practiced with tonight is: http://ced352.wordpress.com/

1. Go to http://wordpress.com/
2. Click: Start a blog in seconds »
3. You need to figure out a Username and Email Address and click the legal box and then click gimme a blog. 
4. Then you need to come up with the url for your blog and the name of the blog and whether you want it to appear publicly or not.  The url will not be able to be changed but the blog name can be changed later.
5. Check your email for the confirmation email. 
6. Write a post.  Then click Publish.
7. Upload a post with a photo.   
8. Update your profile.  Change your password to something you will remember. 
9. Presentation.  Pick a new theme.
10. Presentation.  Do a Custom Image Header by uploading a photo.  You can only do this for some themes. 
11. Go to Manage . . . Pages . . . Edit your About page. 
12. Under Manage . . . Pages . . . Create a New Page

It literally took my students less than 10 minutes to get blogging.

Lots of people in the blogosphere are recommending the new book The Blogging Church by Brian Bailey (who has a blog here) and Terry Storch.  That is the best place to begin probably.   

Blogger is getting new features

I just wanted people to know that Blogger is getting new features.  They just announced this yesterday.  See Blogger Buzz: Blogger in Beta.  So if you are thinking about switching from Blogger, don't do it yet.  If you are thinking of starting a new blog, do it with Blogger. 

I switched from Blogger to TypePad for some of the features Blogger will now have!  (See my post here about that).  It seems Blogger will still be free and the version of TypePad I have costs $80 per year.  Blogger is owned by Google which is a pretty solid company to put your bets on.   

If you are interested in learning more about how I blog on TypePad, click the category "Blogging."  I try to keep the conversation mostly about Church Leadership but I do digress to explain a bit about blogging from time to time. 

How to Use Microsoft Word Documents to Write Blog Posts

I was always having problems writing blog posts in Microsoft Word and then pasting them into TypePad as a post.  I learned one thing to try.  Save a copy of your document in Microsoft Word as a "Web Page, Filtered."  This will get rid of a lot of that nasty Microsoft Word formatting that messes everything up.  Then paste it into your blog.

Be careful though that you have another copy of your document because you will lose all of the Microsoft Word formatting except for links.   

Here is Microsoft Office's article entitled About using filtered HTML

You can also try using this tool after you have filtered the HTML: http://www.textism.com/wordcleaner/

Note from later that night:

After reading the comment below, I couldn't resist downloading the Beta version of Office 2007 because you can blog with it.  Beta means it still has errors they are working out.  They say you should backup everything before using it.  It costs $1.50 and is good for free until Feb 1, 2007.  If you do get Office 2007 Beta, when it comes time to install it, click "Customize" and keep your previous version of Office.  This is what I did.  The big news with the new Microsoft Word is that the new documents will not be: .doc but rather .docx so you won't be able to open them in an older version of Word!  Yuck!   

Why and how I got www.andyrowell.net (my own domain name)

From now on I am going to be telling people to go to www.andyrowell.net for my blog rather than www.andyrowell.typepad.com though they will both actually point to the same webpage.  For example, I will have www.andyrowell.net on my email signature. 

Why I got my own domain name:

1. I think the advantage is that I will be able to keep andyrowell.net for as long as I keep paying for it.   I can change blog platforms or website providers and I can take www.andyrowell.net wherever I go.  For example, if I get tired of TypePad, I can just move andyrowell.net to another blog provider. 
2. It is also easy to remember for people: andyrowell.net. 
3. I found a couple of people who are using .net after their name (www.brianmclaren.net or www.laurenwinner.net) so I thought I would do that too.  (www.andyrowell.com was already taken by an investigative journalist who has written a book). 
4. I could have called gotten churchleadershipconversations.com  But that seemed kind of long to me and I thought perhaps my interests might morph over the years. 
5. I also thought this would be valuable experience.  For the next organization I'm involved in, I will know how to get our own website name.
6. Sorry if this seems egotistical to have my own website named after me.  I was driven to this because I had an old blog with a name even I couldn't remember: www.FirstMoveThyself.blogspot.com and there are a lot of other annoying, distracting, obscure, confusing, "cute," "clever," names for blogs out there.  See my list of blogs I check for a sampling.  I don't mind the names but I hate it when I have to look more than 2 seconds for the name of the author once I get to the site.   

How I got andyrowell.net

I bought the domain name andyrowell.net from GoDaddy.com I was sorry to use GoDaddy for my business because of their tasteless SuperBowl ads but TypePad has directions on how to set up a domain with them.  (For you TypePad users see: Domain Mapping with GoDaddy)  I felt like registering a domain was trying something "really technical" so I went with the most popular provider. 

Here is what I paid for at GoDaddy:

12001-1 .NET Domain Name Registration - 1 Year                $8.99 + $.25  = $9.24

7001-1 Private Registration Services - 1 Year                                        = $4.99

=

Total (US Dollars):                                                                             $14.23

This is a $14 experiment I suppose.

Note about too much blogging about blogging:
I admit I have had a number of recent posts about blogging.  It is really annoying when bloggers blog about blogging all the time.  But I'm trying to help people who are new to blogging by sharing the tricks I've learned.  It may save someone some pain and frustration.  Click on my category "Blogging" to the right to get all of my posts where I have talked about the tools I use for blogging.  Thanks for bearing with me.  I'm aware that in general I want to talk about church leadership on this blog.       

How I added a Google Search to My Blog

A couple of days ago I added a Google Search to my blog. 

Here are a couple of helpful links on how to do it:

1. For TypePad users: Adding Google Search to your Weblog 
2. How can I add a Google search box to my Web site?
3. Google Free

I ended up using #2. 

This was one of the biggest things I missed at Blogger.  (At the top of Blogspot.com blogs, you can search that blog which is great). 

How I Keep Up Reading Blogs

If you are  new to reading blogs, I will tell you more about why you might want to use a RSS_aggregator like NewsGator Online (Free version).

[Update: March 2008, I use Google Reader now]. 

Summary of what NewsGator does for me:

In the previous post I placed all the 44 church leadership blogs that I am currently "subscribed to."   You can scroll through them and see what's of interest to you. But there is an easier way.  I check my NewsGator Online (Free version) website each day and it gives me the headlines of all the new posts.  You can save stuff to read later in your "clippings."  After scanning them, I click "read all posts" so that only new ones show up next time.  Newsgator works well.  I recommend it.  It takes a few minutes to get set up but it is worth it once you start using it. 

Story of how I came to use NewsGator:

When I was first blogging, I went through and searched for like-minded blogs.  I looked on other people's blog rolls, etc.  I saved them all in a folder in my favorites.  Then I would browse through them once a month and see if there was anything of interest.  But I would end up re-reading things that I had already read.  And some people would not have posted anything new.  And sometimes the conversation was already over by the time I read the post.  A couple times, authors offered free books to the first people who would email so-and-so.  Well, I always missed that.

That is the great thing about having something like NewsGator.  (I'm happy to have other people recommend their newsreader if they recommend it).  Here is Wikipedia's explanation of what an aggregator is and here is a list of all of them available. 

Basically, with NewsGator, you just go and search for the blogs that you want to subscribe to.  So you put in "Jesus Creed" and Scot McKnight's Jesus Creed blog appears and you click "Subscribe."  Or you can simply paste in the URL (web address) of the blog and NewsGator finds the feed for it and subscribes you.  You can always unsubscribe.  Then whenever you open your NewsGator webpage, it will tell you the headlines of all the posts since you last checked it.

I recommend picking a few blogs and trying it.   

Note: I had subscribed to a bunch of news sites like CNN, NY Times, Fortune Magazine, etc. but they have too many posts each day so I decided not to subscribe to them.

The List of Church Leadership Blogs I Subscribe To

Below I have put the church leadership blogs that I currently "subscribe to."  I check my NewsGator Online (Free version) website each day and it gives me the headlines of all the new posts.   

If you are new to reading blogs, I will tell you more about why you might want to use a RSS_aggregator like NewsGator in the next post. 

I have not put many blogs on my permanent blogroll on the side of this page (only the firmly established Andrew Jones, Scot McKnight, and Out of Ur) because the blogs vary so much in quality and frequency but I thought I would share all of them here.  Some of the people I know personally, some I don't.  I have put a few quick notes below.      

I would be happy to hear your recommendations on others I/we should check out. 

Aaron Flores - theVoiz
Andrew Jones - TallSkinnyKiwi - emerging church leading blogger in New Zealand I think
Andy Rowell - Church Leadership Conversations - Me!
B.J. Woodworth - what's your wood worth? - I know BJ from Pittsburgh with Senior Capstone Trip.  He is a church planting pastor of an emerging church. 
Ben Witherington - NT Scholar at Asbury. 
Bill Arnold- Poet in Motion; image sound theology
Bill Kinnon - achievable leadership
Bob Robinson - Vanguard Church
Brian McLaren - well known author of a New Kind of Christian and A Generous Orthodoxy and an emerging church movement spokesman
Byron K. Borger - Hearts & Minds BookNotes - I know Byron from Senior Capstone Trip.  He is the owner of a great bookstore.  This is a great blog about books. 
C. Wes Daniels - gathering in light - Ph.D. student at Fuller under Ryan Bolger.  See Ryan's blog below. 
Chris Monroe - Paradoxology
Christianity Today at the Movies: Reviews
Christianity Today Magazine
Church Marketing Sucks - trying to improve church marketing but pointing out that much of it is typically not good.
Dan Kimball - Vintage Faith - author of Emerging Church and Emerging Worship
David Fitch - the great giveaway - author of new book The Great Giveaway
Doug Pagitt’s Blog - Emerging Church movement high profile person and author of Preaching Re-Imagined. 
Ed Cyzewski - inamirrordimly
Ed Young resources - CreativePastors - influential gigachurch pastor from Texas
emergent-us
emergingchurch.info
Gavin Richardson - Hit the Back Button to Move Fwd
Generous Orthodoxy ThinkTank
Harvard Business School Working Knowledge
J.R. Briggs - brokenstainedglass - friend from Taylor University who is a young adult pastor at a megachurch in the Philadelphia area.  He has also written a book. 
Jim Plueddemann - The Missionary Iconoclast - professor of missions at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
John Mark Rutter - Theological Ruminator - new pastor
Kem Meyer on Less Clutter & Noise - she has Granger Community Church connections.  I think she is an employee there. 
Kirk Bartha - from theocity to lovelocity - friend from Regent College who is a prophet, pray-er and preacher. 
Lauren Winner - superb author and infrequent blogger
Leadership Blog: Out of Ur

Leadership journal and resources for church leaders
Mark Waltz | ...because People Matter - author and a pastor at Granger Community Church
Michael Bird and Joel Willitts- Euangelion - New Testament scholar in Scotland and NT scholar at North Park University in Chicago
nextwave News
Rick Warren - wrote a couple of books
Ryan Bolger - TheBolgBlog - professor at Fuller Theological Seminary and author of Emerging Churches
Scot McKnight - Jesus Creed - professor of New Testament at North Park and prolific author
Scott Collins-Jones - SCJToday - I know Scot from Senior Capstone Trip in Philadelphia.  He is a Ph.D. student at Princeton Theological Seminary in theology and a PCUSA pastor in Philadelphia. 
Steve Taylor - e~mergent kiwi - author of Out of Bounds Church and lives in New Zealand
Tim Stevens - LeadingSmart - author and a pastor at Granger Community Church
Tony Jones - Theoblogy - author and Emergent Village coordinator
Tony Morgan | one of the simply strategic guys - author and a pastor at Granger Community Church

Why are pastors getting their heads cut off by photographers?

I was a bit worried because guys with not much hair were getting their heads cut off by photographers. 

For example:

Doug Pagitt, an emerging church leader, author and pastor of Solomon's Porch

Brian McLaren, an emerging church leader and author

Today I was encouraged to see a photo of Ed Young, pastor of Fellowship Church in Texas, with his head cut off.  As far as I know, he has great hair.  I guess there must not be a balding censorship conspiracy after all. 

How I created the header for my blog

I once read that bloggers love to write about blogging.  Yikes.  I don't want to do that . . . but I want to save people the headaches I went through teaching myself this stuff! 

The idea for the heading

I imitated the header from Mark Waltz's blog.  Mark was involved in retail before entering pastoring and wrote the book entitled First Impressions: Creating Wow Experiences at Your Church .  This spring I went with some of my students to Mark's First Impressions workshop at Granger Community Church).  I deduce from all of this that he should also be good at creating a good first impression with your website!

I got the picture of the coffee cup from stock.xchng which has quality photos for free. 

How I created the header in XnView:

I basically forged three photos (one of the coffee cup, one a black rectangle, and one of me) into one photo using the free photo editor XnView.  (I don't have PhotoShop but I would like to though if you want to send me the money).  Here is the XnView link to download it from download.com which is the very best, most reputable place to download free software. 

In XnView, I used their tools "Tools . . . Create Panorama" to forge the three photos together.  Then I did Image . . .Convert to Colours . . . 32 Colours (Adaptive) to help blur the colours together so that the black looks seamless.  It also gives a brushed look. 

Then I did "Image . . . Resize" to 8 inches long (or 576 pixels long).

Then I did "Image . . . Add Text" and added a word or phrase at a time.