Tag: presbyterian.ca

Catching Up

It’s been a busy two weeks or so – so here are a few quick items that I’ve been meaning to pass along:

PCConnect-TV is Coming!
The Communications team has been busily preparing for the launch of PCConnect-TV, the new weekly video series being produced by the Communications Office to showcase the life and work of The PCC across Canada and around the world. The first episode is scheduled to air on Youtube and at Presbyterian.ca on April 10th.

An Innovative Church Blog
Rev. John Borthwick of St. Andrew’s, Guelph is the interim moderator for Knox Crieff and has taken an interesting approach to documenting the search process – he’s blogging it! I haven’t had a chance to talk to John about the hows and whys yet, but I hope to get an episode of the BeingPresbyterian Podcast out of it. :)

More Innovation – Write your own Job Description!
The folks at St. John’s, Toronto have taken an interesting approach to their search for a new Family Outreach and Christian Education Worker. As was reported in PCConnect-Daily today, the congregation is inviting applicants to write their own job descriptions within the parameters of stated goals and objectives. The chair of the search committee, Laurie McGugan, said that this unique approach was inspired by her committee’s reading of Christianity for the Rest of Us.

More to come soon!

: Events,General,People
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Website Traffic Update

Every once in a while, I’ll be sharing some statistics about the Presbyterian.ca website and its visitors. In this post, I wanted to share a little bit about the differences between our international and domestic traffic.

In the last quarter of 2008 (Oct-Dec) the website at Presbyterian.ca was visited 60,000 times from 153 countries! Of those 153 countries, we had visits from 105 from 124 at least three times.

International traffic made up 17% of visitors to Presbyterian.ca. Here are some interesting tidbits about our international visitors:

  • the top 5 countries were: United States, United Kingdom, Australia, India, Ireland
  • 105 countries sent at least 3 visits each
  • 11 countries sent more than 100 visits each
  • 56% of international visits originated from Google
  • the most visited page (besides the home page) was the Resources page
  • 85% of international visits were “new visitors”
  • international visitors spent an average of just over 2 minutes on the site

The vast majority of visitors to Presbyterian.ca, not surprisingly, visit from somewhere in Canada:

  • visitors came from 353 cities across Canada
  • the top 5 cities were: Toronto, Ottawa, Kitchener, Edmonton, Vancouver
  • 36% of Canadian traffic originated from Google
  • the most visited page (besides the home page) was the Resources page
  • 37% of international visits were “new visitors”
  • Canadian visitors spent an average of just over 3 minutes on the site

There’s not a lot we can conclude from these numbers but it is useful to be aware of the differences (and similarities) of these two groups.

Stay tuned for more traffic stats in a few weeks.

: General
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Specialized Ministry in the PCC

I had the pleasure this morning of speaking to a group representing the various specialized ministries in Canada.  The group is comprised of staff from church camps, native ministries, urban ministries and others. The discussion was primarily about the the denominational website at presbyterian.ca which gave me a great opportunity to hear the concerns of a group that is sometimes missed.

A photo of the group is below.  If you have any questions about the various specialized ministries operating within the PCC, please ask in the comments below and I’ll do my best to get your questions answered.

specializedministry

Update: If you were at the conference today, please leave a comment below describing your ministry.

: Events,People
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PCC Website Gets a Makeover

Yesterday we made some changes to the PCC denominational website at Presbyterian.ca. Most obvious is a completely new home page layout that we hope will make it easier for our visitors to find the information & resources they are looking for – and discover new things that they don’t even realize exist! We also made some significant changes to the navigation structure for similar reasons.

The feature I’m most excited about is something we’re calling SnapShots. This relatively large area in the upper-right quadrant of the home page is intended to offer glimpses into the denomination at the congregational and agency program level – the grassroots. Photos in the SnapShots area are randomly selected from a collection of photos of church buildings, congregations and Presbyterians in action. If you have a photo that you think would be appropriate for SnapShots, please send it along to me at pccweb@presbyterian.ca.

As pleased as I am with this makeover, I can’t take much of the credit. Most of the work was done long before I arrived at 50 Wynford. The Life & Mission Agency’s internal web strategy team deserve the bulk of the credit for guiding this process over the course of the summer. My thanks to Alex MacDonald, Karen Plater, Anne Phillips, Matt Donnelly and Peter Johnson for their work and continued support.

The website refresh, and SnapShots in particular, are representative of a very real desire for the communications activities of the PCC to encompass the entire denomination. Presbyterian.ca is the website for the denomination, not just 50 Wynford, and I am committed to extending that philosophy to the broader communications strategy for the Life & Mission Agency.

I welcome and encourage your feedback on the changes to Presbyterian.ca – and there are more changes to come over the next several weeks… stay tuned!

: General
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Traffic Patterns at Presbyterian.ca

Yesterday I gave a brief presentation to the staff at the Presbyterian national office about upcoming changes to the denomination website - more on that later. I started with a few interesting numbers related to our web traffic which I thought I’d quickly share here. These numbers represent traffic from the end of July through yesterday, October 20th, 2008.

  • the site has been visited just over 53,000 times.
  • almost half of the visitors (48%) came to the site directly, meaning a bookmark, an email link, or typing in the address.
    • Of those, over 80% landed first on the home page
  • The next largest group of visitors (31%) came to the site via Google.
    • Of those, 38% again landed first on the home page.
  • Overall, more than 60% of our visitors reach the homepage first.

The point of those numbers was to emphasize the importance of the homepage of this site in particular. A refreshed homepage will go live this week – perhaps as early as today – that I hope will help folks find what they’re looking for more easily at presbyterian.ca.

: General
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