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    ThuThursdayJunJune23rd2011 Pricing Update
    Posted Thursday, June 23 2011 @ 12 PM
    On June 16th, we unveiled a new pricing structure for our Church CMS for ministry and church websites. Instead of basing our services on the size of your average weekly attendance, we are using a more industry standard price per administrator model.

    In an upcoming release, we will provide the primary contact of your website with access to a new Account Settings control panel. It will provide an intuitive way to review and update who has administrative access, and much more. We will notify you once this new control panel is in place.

    For those customers whose prices will be lowered, rest assured that we will be contacting you in the next 30 - 60 days informing you of your reduced rate.

    We encourage you to check out our new pricing page for it will not only show you all of the features that you are getting for your monthly subscription fee, but also inform you of our new services like helping you manage your church website, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) assistance and our newly designed Premium Skins which can be purchased for a one time cost of only $75.

    Please review the following frequently asked questions section below if you have any further questions.

    Sincerely,
    Dave McCall and Travis Hickox

    What classifies someone as an Administrator?
    Anyone who has any kind of Administrative access to your website.

    Are Small Group Leaders Administrators?
    No.

    Will my monthly fee be changed?
    Not yet. Your monthly fee will be adjusted once we have implemented the new Account Settings control panel. This will provide you with a way to adjust who has administrative access, tie multiple website accounts together as well as add your credit card for recurring monthly billing.

    What is the time frame for my prices to change?
    It could take a few months. We will be contacting those customers whose prices will be reduced within the next 30 - 60 days. For customers whose price will increase based on their administrative needs, we want to be sensitive to that. After the Account Settings control panel has been implemented, we will provide you with a 6 month grace period before adjusting your price.

    My question isn't here. How do I contact you?
    Please go to http://support.iministries.org and create a ticket.
    TueTuesdayAugAugust31st2010 Fresh New Look
    Posted Tuesday, August 31 2010 @ 9 AM

    Did you know that you don't need to switch Church CMS providers to get a new look for your church or ministry website?

    When you first created your account with us, the idea of being able to change your websites look and feel in the future was a very attractive feature to you. Today we are contacting you to let you know that we are offering a 10% discount on our custom designs as well as informing you of our new Premium skins.

    Custom Skins

    Our church website CMS gives you great flexibility. We can create a new design for you and "wrap" it around your existing website. What this means to you?
    • Huge time savings. Once the design has been implemented, all of the pages on your website will get wrapped in the new design.
    • Very cost affective. You understand and like the tools you use, you just want to your website to look better.
    • Less administrative hassle. Your staff will be happy to know that they don't need to learn how to use a new CMS to update your website.
    • Retain your links! One key component of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is link building. By using the same CMS, you will keep all of the links that have been captured by Google, Yahoo, Bing and other search engines.

    Premium Skins

    Right before the summer of 2010, we rolled out a new service which we dubbed Premium. This new service gives you the ability to select a better looking design for your church website for only $75! It has been well received as several customers have already made the switch.

    Antioch Sinai Malta Joppa Elah
    By clicking on any of the above images, you will be taken to a website that already has the design applied to it.

    One final thought

    If you sign up for a new custom skin with in the next 30 days, we will give you a 10% discount! That is a savings of $310.

    Committed to providing you with a great ministry/church website.
    Dave McCall and Travis Hickox
    TueTuesdayAugAugust24th2010 E-Mail Issues - What Happened?!? + Google Apps
    Posted Tuesday, August 24 2010 @ 9 AM
    Greetings.

    First of all...

    We are incredibly sorry that your e-mail was disrupted, specifically on August 16th and 17th. The reason for this issue was because a customer fell prey to a phishing scam which asked them for their e-mail user name and password. After providing the spammer with their credentials, the spammer, or group of spammers, began sending out tens of thousands of messages per hour. After discovering who accidentally caused the problem, we were able to stop the attack.

    Secondly...

    While the user has issued a very heart felt apology, this gives us a very strong platform to provide the following two tips.
    1. Change your password
      Maybe this is a point in your life when you want to get "nerdy". It's ok, we will support you. :-) May we suggest you go Leet Style because it is harder to crack? Here is an example...The Rock would equal Th3r0Ck!. Adding special characters like an exclamation point, changing the letter(s) that you capitalize and numbers can really increase the strength of your password. Here are the steps you need to take to quickly change your e-mail password.
    2. Don't give out your user name and password.
      Please don't think that this couldn't happen to you for we all know that pride comes before a fall. Your digital presence needs to be protected. Think twice before handing over your "identity".

    Thirdly...

    Because of this, we have upgraded our mail server which provides several enhancements. One very noticeable one is webmail. You should check it out...you know, because you are going to change your e-mail password and that is where you do it. :-)

    Fourth...ly

    Before this issue even happened, we were going to announce that if you would like to switch over to using Google Apps, you most certainly can. To begin the process, simply fill out our form and we will contact you. Before you make the jump, be aware that you will need to provide us with your 501(3)(c) number, and we can get you running on Google apps for free!

    In closing...

    Thank you for taking the time to read this e-mail and taking action on our guidance. Again, we are sorry that this situation has happened and caused everyone so much grief. We would like to add that we are very thankful to those who encouraged us during this stressful time.

    Sincerely,
    Dave McCall and Travis Hickox
    MonMondayAugAugust9th2010 Discontinued Site Watcher Feature
    Posted Monday, August 09 2010 @ 1 PM
    Well over a year ago, we made it possible to track your web site through Google Analyitcs. Thanks to these free, accurate, and expansive tools, we have decided to no longer support the Site Watcher feature that is found in your websites Site Controls. This page will no longer be accessible after September 1, 2010.

    To learn more about using Google Analytics, which again is free and very easy-to-use, please see our How do I set up Google Analytics? help page. If you have any questions, please feel free to post comments to that help file.
    ThuThursdayAprApril22nd2010 Mid-April 2010 Updates
    Posted Thursday, April 22 2010 @ 3 PM
    Another release is successfully in place. While our last two release have been very exciting with the addition of Locations, Custom CSS, Widget Manager, the ever popular Flash Rotator, Authorize.net integration and even Fellowship One integration, this release focused on bug fixes.

    Events

    Add to Calendar
    When "Add to Calendar" was clicked, the event information wasn't accurate. Recurring events imported the end date incorrectly as it would omit the last day. Also, if the location field was added to the event, it would not display properly in your calendar.

    Event Registrations
    When a user received their Event Registration e-mail, the email address at bottom was showing "strUserEmail". We also corrected an issue that was happening when someone would register a group of people to an event that was about to reach its capacity limit. Don't let your eyes glaze over...this is what this means. :-) If there were already 9 people registered for an event that could only except 10, you could register a group of 2 or more and the event would still accept your registration. This can no longer happen. We also fixed a random typo in event registration email.

    Calendar
    We fixed a bug with the calendar print-view link.

    Other

    Progress Indicator
    If you have upgraded to the latest version of Firefox, the uploader button that appears on Photo Gallery Add, Blog Entry Edit and Content Edit became unusable. We have added a new progress message to several pages. We will admit that it isn't a perfect replacement for the old progress indicator as it does not actually show progress, but it does communicate that something is in fact happening.

    Rotator
    Upon saving a rotator in a Ministry, you would be brought back to the site level rotators instead of your ministry rotators.

    Help Videos
    We have been working on a new batch of help videos and more are on the way. It would be in your best interest to either cycle through all of the videos that we currently have or visit this forum that has all of our help videos.
    TueTuesdayMarMarch16th2010 March 2010 Updates
    Posted Tuesday, March 16 2010 @ 9 AM
    We have another release in place! While the last release had some fun stuff like Locations and some powerful stuff like the Custom CSS, this release has even more.

    New Payment Gateway to Accept Online Payments
    If you are contemplating the idea of excepting donations and/or payments online through your website, we have now integrated with Authorize.net. Since 1996, Authorize.Net has been a leading provider of payment gateway services, managing the submission of payment transactions to the processing networks on behalf of merchant customers. All iMinistries websites are now integrated with Authorize.net. For a detailed explanation of the advantages of using an Authorize.Net merchant or gateway over PayPal or Google Checkout, check authorize.net/advantage.


    Rotator Feature
    Manage your own rotating banner easily with this new feature. Upload your banner images, make them link to pages on your website, and drag and drop them into any order you prefer. Adding and removing banners has never been easier with our Rotator Administration. Learn more about how to create your own rotating headers and ads.


    Fellowship One
    We are now integrated with Fellowship One Technologies, the web-based church management and database software. This integration allows you to:
    • embed event registration forms created in Fellowship One on your iMinistries website
    • sync your My Church user accounts with your Fellowship One people records
    • allow your leaders to manage their Fellowship One created small groups from your iMinistries website
    • display contribution records tracked in Fellowship One on user's My Church profile
    Learn more about Fellowship One.


    Other New Features and/or Corrections
    In every release, we always do a lot more than what we outline. While we love what we do very much, we don't believe that you care nearly as much as what we do. However, we have decided to inform those of you who are intrigued by what we do as we add/correct/touch going forward in all future release notes. Enjoy!
    • Beginner mode fixed in Internet Explorer.
    • Removed Beginner Mode for Dialogs (Widget Manager).
    • Fixed an issue with the secure sites when accessed directly.
    • Rotator Admin fixed in Internet Explorer.
    • New streamlined Site Preferences pages.
    • Allowing for the menu labels to be changed separate from content title for SEO purposes.
    • Added SSL-security to event rosters, user administration and prayer requests.
    • Fixed an issue with short URLs (s.aspx) when extra parameters are added to URL.
    • Fixed embedded RSS feeds, closing the row div.
    • Fixed a handful of infrequently occurring errors.
    • Changed blogs so that a blog can’t be embedded within a blog.
    • Removed the flex field ceiling of 4000 characters.
    WedWednesdayFebFebruary10th2010 February 2010 Updates
    Posted Wednesday, February 10 2010 @ 1 PM
    January and early February saw some new developments in our system. In January we fixed a few bugs and introduced a new way to sort Staff, Product Categories, and Products. In February we introduced new features that are very interesting and exciting. The first few that we can discuss are outlined below. In our next release announcement we will be introducing some "flashier" features which should really excite everyone.

    Locations
    Have multiple ministry locations? Type in your locations and this new page will display an interactive Google map marking each location. Fully customize the size, zoom level, and starting location for your map. To learn how you can add your very own interactive map to your site and/or menu, review this Locations help file.



    Custom CSS
    For our more technically inclined clients--customization of your skin is now in your hands. You can paste or write CSS into your Site Preferences and make small or large changes to your site's skin.



    RSS
    You can now add other websites' RSS feeds into pages on your website. Have a blog on Wordpress that you want to ingrate into your iMinistries website? Just use the RSS widget to pull your blog entries into your site.



    Sorting of Staff
    Now you can drag and drop staff when you wish to change the order in which they appear on your site. This is an improvement over the previous way of re-ordering (clicking up and down arrows).

    Sorting of Products
    You can now also drag and drop products when you organize them in Product Administration. Also, when you add Product Subcategories, they now show up in your website's menu.
    ThuThursdayNovNovember19th2009 Release Notes - September and November 2009
    Posted Thursday, November 19 2009 @ 9 AM
    Since September we completed the first of two releases we worked on this fall. We recently just finished our second release, and implemented its upgrades late in the early morning of November 19. You will want to read about all of these, because there are a few that might really excite you. Here are the changes you will see going forward:
    1. As of early this morning, all URLs are now Search Engine Friendly. Each page's URL includes the page title for more effective search engine results. This may not seem like much. Who cares what the URL says? Google and Bing do. The words in the URL help determine where your pages are ranked. This is just one more step to making your site more search engine friendly.


      		2.
      Previous URL
      		New URL

    2. Widgets can be added from the Editor. For some time we have supported the ability for you to add "smart tags" to pages that will bring content from one part of your site to another. This would allow you to show a listing of events or blog entries within a news article or content page.

      Well, we wanted to make that even easier for you. So we're pleased to introduce our Widget Gallery, where you can build these smart tags from a simple interface. Plus we've added to what you can add. You can now embed news articles, events, blogs, Twitter feeds, Flickr slide shows, Vimeo videos, YouTube videos, and Google Maps into virtually any page on your site. For more examples of widgets, see our Widgets page.

      Look for the Widget button on the editor toolbar and try it for yourself.

    3. iMinistries goes social. In this release we added a preference called "Share this page." When enabled via Site Preferences, a "Share" link will be added to the top of pages throughout the site which make it easier for users of your site to add links to Facebook, Twitter, and Delicious. Incoming links are good for search engine optimization, but even better for connecting new people with your church or ministry.

    4. Not only can you add Meta Tags for your whole site via Site Preferences, you can also add a specialized Description and Keywords for each page on your website via the SEO tag. These SEO tags help you add keywords and descriptions to your pages to help hone the message that search engines hear. These are for those of you who wish to really optimize pages for search engines.




    5. Scripture references generate verse "pop ups" when hovered over. You can set your desired translation in Site Preferences. Every time you type a scripture reference on your site, it will automatically generate a verse bubble. Just hover over the verse.



    6. Form Fields descriptions no longer automatically insert colons


    7. When you enable the Hide from search option on your pages via the Display tab, it places a "nobots" meta tag which will also hide it from Google, not just your own website's search feature. While enabling this feature should help keep pages off of Google, it is still your responsibility to manage.



    8. If you have a horizontal menu, regardless of your screen resolution or screen size, the sub menu items can expand down instead of of up. If you see that it doesn't, please submit a ticket to  stating such.



    9. While our old SSL certificate was secure, we recently purchased and installed a new SSL certificate that is more widely accepted by Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. This should remedy any notifications of a non-valid security certificate.

    10. You can now change the separator that appears between the breadcrumbs on your website. Visit Site Preferences to update what character appears between links.
    TueTuesdayNovNovember17th2009 Confused About SEO and SEM?
    Posted Tuesday, November 17 2009 @ 10 AM
    SEO Blocks

    We want you to be found!

    In addition to providing you with our Content Management System (CMS), designed specifically for ministry and church websites, we also offer Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) services.

    The goal is to improve your website so you are more easily found by search engines, making you the first page on Google, Yahoo, and Bing search results. The result is an increase in exposure and Web traffic with the ultimate goal of getting more people to visit your church or ministry in person.

    Our Methods

    • On-site Optimization including proper code, keywords, and 13 other checkpoints that iMinistries will implement.
    • Full review of copy making sure keywords and key phrases are used wherever possible.
    • Building of page rank through inbound links.

    Deliverables / Results

    After the first month, and each quarter thereafter, your ministry will be given the following reports:
    • Search Engine rankings of desired search terms. Example: “keyword phrase one” ranks No. 88 in Google.
    • General Web traffic reports including page views, visits, geographic location of visitors, top referrers, and more.
    • A detailed listing of all online marketing done on its behalf. Includes Web site name, date and format of promotion.

    Basic - $50/month

    Plus - $90/month

    Premium - $150/month
    • 15-point on-site optimization
    • 2 hours/month of off-site link building and other promotion.
    • Off-site marketing recommendations.
    • 15-point on-site optimization
    • 5 hours/month of off-site link building and other promotion.
    • Local church competitive analysis.
    • Off-site marketing recommendations.
    • 15-point on-site optimization
    • 10 hours/month of off-site link building and other promotion.
    • Local church competitive analysis.
    • Off-site marketing recommendations.
    • Writing of two press releases per year. Submitted to up to five local newspapers, radio and television stations.
    Search Engine Optimization Sign Up Form


    Sign Up Now!

    To begin this journey you will need to complete this form about your SEO needs and desires.
    Once completed, someone will contact you shortly.
    ThuThursdayNovNovember12th2009 Future Announcements
    Posted Thursday, November 12 2009 @ 4 PM
    While we don't want to encourage time to move any faster than what it already is, we do want to inform you that we will be sending several updates over the next month. Because of that, we want to be the first to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving! We are very grateful to the Lord for his continued and abundant provisions and to all of you, our clients. We know your time is valuable, so we will get right down to it.

    We are going to be sending you several updates over the next month and we want you to know a couple of things about them.
    1. This is not going to be the new "norm."
      Please do not unsubscribe from our distribution list because you get three of four messages from us in a month. We hate SPAM and do not want to be categorized as a company that sends out too many pieces of communication. We feel that the information in these updates are going to be a benefit to you and your ministry. If not now, maybe in the future.
    2. Do everyone a favor and read what we are sending.
      This form of communication is our only way to get in front of you and we really do try our best to manage the frequency in which we e-mail you with updates. Again, if what we are informing you about does not interest you now, keep it for reading later. You might want help in six months or someone from your leadership team might request something. If you have it on hand, you can reference it.

    Sincerely,
    Dave McCall and Travis Hickox
    iMinistries, Inc.
    FriFridayJulJuly17th2009 Release Notes - July 2009
    Posted Friday, July 17 2009 @ 9 AM
    Good morning,

    We have successfully implemented another release and here are the things that will affect you.

    New Features


    Beginner Mode
    We continue to develop more ways for you to understand how to administrate your iMinistries website. Our latest development is the "Beginner Mode." To enable "Beginner Mode," visit your Site Administration. There you will find a button to activate help tips on most pages.



    We don't want this feature to be annoying, so we have made it so that you can take tours of pages only after you enable "Beginner Mode." We hope this will keep it less obtrusive but still very informative when you need additional help. Try it out today!

    Twitter
    You can now add your Twitter status to your website very easily. Following the instructions found in this help file will instruct you on how to place your Twitter status on your website as an Ad. You can create Site Level or Ministry Level ads which extends the flexibility of this new feature. Your church can have a Site Level ad for major updates, and individual ministries can have their own ads, and it will only appear in their section of the website.  You can also ad your status to more than just Ads.  Blog entries, News items as well as Blank Pages.

    The tag that you will use is .  Be sure to replace the TWITTERID with your own and not iMinistries.

    If you aren't following iMinistries on Twitter yet, please do so today!

    Smart Tags
    You can now embed news, events, blogs and photo galleries within a page by adding simple "smart tags" in the editor. For example, you can add the following:


    1. This will display five news items that have the News Category of 15. You can add a News Category by visiting Site Controls > Site Preferences and clicking on the News Category Administration link at the bottom of the screen. Some examples of categories are "General News" and "Current Series."



    2. Similar to the above example, this tag will show the last five event items that are within the next 90 days that are from the organization 1234.  Remember that the Organization ID is the Ministry ID.



    3. This will display the latest five entries of Blog ID 20. The simplest way to identify your Blog ID is to go to your blog and look at the URL bar. In the example below, this blog has an ID of 86238.


    4. photos


      You can now show your photos from any photo gallery that you create on your website right inside of any news article or blog entry!  Simply use the code above, replacing the GalleryID with your own unique Photo Gallery ID, and the gallery will be placed inside of your article.  You can switch any of the attributes to TRUE or FALSE depending on the desired look you are going for.  To see an example of how this can look, check out this news item on our demonstration website.



    5. This will display five items of Product Category 20. Use the above method to find your product ID.
    Forms
    In this release, we continued to expand upon the functionality of our forms. In a previous release, we made it so that you could secure your forms for privacy.  We have now made it so that your forms will automatically save every three minutes. If a user doesn't see that happening, they can also click on the Save button that appears next to the submit button which will allow them to come back to it later.

    Bug Fixes



    Browser Issues
    Both Chrome and Safari 4 browsers were causing major user issues. Anywhere the Editor saw HTML, it would replace it with dollar signs and zeros. We have updated our Editor and these issues no longer occur.

    Thanks for reading. Please pass the word along to fellow administrators and co-workers to subscribe to this newsletter to keep up to date on important announcements. We also want to encourage you to follow us on Twitter if you have an account. Our username is iMinistries. As always, thank you for your continued business. We hope that these new features make running your website even easier than what it was before.

    Sincerely,
    Dave McCall and Travis Hickox
    iMinistries, Inc.
    WedWednesdayJulJuly1st2009 Partnership: iMinistries and Baron3
    Posted Wednesday, July 01 2009 @ 3 PM
    Hello All,

    We are happy to announce our partnership on an ongoing basis with Baron3 Visual Communications. Baron3 is a design firm which offers a variety of services and are ministry-focused.

    If you need help with any number of design projects like: your identity and branding, print projects, website design, or environmental projects, Baron3 can deliver. In the past, they have revamped the look and identity of Judson University and their promotional materials, and some other big names in ministry.

    Because we have worked with Baron3 for several years now, it is easy for us to tout their professionalism, creativity, and quality of product. We encourage you to take a minute to review some of the custom designed websites that they have put together for our clients.

    If you would like to take your website to the next level, please contact us and we would be happy to set up a consultation between you and Baron3!
    WedWednesdayJunJune17th2009 Twitter and New Skins
    Posted Wednesday, June 17 2009 @ 3 PM
    Greetings,

    Twitter

    You might have heard about the new networking application sweeping the nation. But if you haven't heard of Twitter over the past couple of months, the basic gist of it is this:
    Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co-workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?
    In our next release, you will be able to place your Twitter status on your website either on a page, or as we envision it, an ad. Your church can post their status about church-wide news and events (church picnics, summer concerts in the park, church cancellations due to weather, guest speaker updates, etc.) and your individual ministries can do the same.

    When you update your status through the Twitter website, a downloaded application like Nambu or Tweetdeck or your mobile device, your iMinistries website will reflect the changes as well.

    Visit our website to see how we are using Twitter and become a follower of us today! You will be kept up-to-date about new features, application and administration hints and assistance, new releases, bug fixes, and much much more


    Free Skins

    If you have a desire to freshen up your website this summer, you can do so for free.  At any time you can change your skin by visiting your website's Site Preferences area.  The latest three skins can be found on our demo websites below:

    Simple

    		 Outdoor



    Colourise

    		  
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