Blog
Generosity
5 Ways to Optimize Your Online Giving Page

5 Ways to Optimize Your Online Giving Page

This week on Tithe.ly TV, Dean Sweetman and Frank Barry are joined by Russ Cantu, founder and CEO of Catalyst Creative.

CHURCH TECH PODCAST
Tithely media icon
TV
Modern Church leader
Category
Generosity
Publish date
October 17, 2018
Author

This week on Tithe.ly TV, Dean Sweetman and Frank Barry are joined by Russ Cantu, founder and CEO of Catalyst Creative.

During their conversation, they discuss:

  • Common church website mistakes
  • How to make sure your church’s website can be found online
  • 3 things your church website must do
  • Must-know facts on how people view your church’s website
  • Proven strategies to increase your online giving
  • How to optimize your church’s online giving page

Resources

Here are the resources mentioned during the show or in the comments:

AUTHOR

This week on Tithe.ly TV, Dean Sweetman and Frank Barry are joined by Russ Cantu, founder and CEO of Catalyst Creative.

During their conversation, they discuss:

  • Common church website mistakes
  • How to make sure your church’s website can be found online
  • 3 things your church website must do
  • Must-know facts on how people view your church’s website
  • Proven strategies to increase your online giving
  • How to optimize your church’s online giving page

Resources

Here are the resources mentioned during the show or in the comments:

podcast transcript

(Scroll for more)
AUTHOR

This week on Tithe.ly TV, Dean Sweetman and Frank Barry are joined by Russ Cantu, founder and CEO of Catalyst Creative.

During their conversation, they discuss:

  • Common church website mistakes
  • How to make sure your church’s website can be found online
  • 3 things your church website must do
  • Must-know facts on how people view your church’s website
  • Proven strategies to increase your online giving
  • How to optimize your church’s online giving page

Resources

Here are the resources mentioned during the show or in the comments:

VIDEO transcript

(Scroll for more)

Dean Sweetman:  Good day, Dean Sweetman here, along with Frank Barry. Welcome to Tithe.ly TV. It's great to see you guys, good to be here.

Frank Barry:    It's awesome to be here. Every episode, we sort out the tech issues. Thanks for bearing with us.

Dean Sweetman:  I know, we're amateurs trying to act professional.

Frank Barry:    That's right.

Dean Sweetman:  So we're here in San Diego.

Frank Barry:    Yes, hometown!

Dean Sweetman:  Your hometown, I'm just off the road, but we're here at Sticky Teams with North Coach Church, a phenomenal customer of ours. I think in a couple of weeks, you're gonna see a recorded show that we did with Chris Brown-

Frank Barry:    That's right.

Dean Sweetman:  And Mark Clark from Village Church in Vancouver that is absolutely- I ended up on the floor, rolling around laughing so bad, so that's the review for that. Today we're with Russ Cantu-

Frank Barry:    Chris was supposed to be here.

Dean Sweetman:  Oh yeah that was the deal.

Frank Barry:    Right. [crosstalk 00:02:48] you might have seen, the promos for Chris, but Chris is actually speaking on stage right now at Sticky Team, so he couldn't make it.

Dean Sweetman:  Not our fault.

Frank Barry:    No our fault, but-

Dean Sweetman:  We're organized.

Frank Barry:    Kind of.

Dean Sweetman:  Kind of.

Frank Barry:    Russ was also gonna get interviewed so now Russ is taking this spot, Russ is awesome [inaudible 00:03:04]

Dean Sweetman:  Mate.

Russ Cantu:     It's good to be here. Dude, thanks for coming to my home church. I live down the street, this is legit.

Dean Sweetman:  It's perfect. We've known you for a couple of years.

Russ Cantu:     Totally

Dean Sweetman:  We kept bumping into you in different stuff.

Frank Barry:    Mmmhmm.

Dean Sweetman:  Russ, we'll tell you he has a phenomenal business. But he really is...

Russ Cantu:     Thanks

Dean Sweetman:  Is what I would consider, the church website expert guy.

Frank Barry:    Digital, media, digital presence.

Russ Cantu:     We kick butt online.

Frank Barry:    There it is.

Russ Cantu:     That's really what it is. That's our mission statement

Frank Barry:    Helping churches kick butt online.

Dean Sweetman:  And obviously churches the gamut of church websites is uh, much [crosstalk 00:03:37]

Russ Cantu:     Dude, it's all over the place.

Dean Sweetman:  From the brutalness of you know, to awesome. So we kinda wanna talk about, um, that whole kinda area.

Frank Barry:    Yeah, and weave it into online giving, [crosstalk 00:03:51] like really honing into online giving.

Dean Sweetman:  Best practices and all that good stuff.

Russ Cantu:     Yeah, so honestly lets just kind of go with what we were talking about earlier. Dean, your biggest frustration is, I wanna go to your freaking church.

Dean Sweetman:  Yeah.

Russ Cantu:     And I land on your website and I don't even know.[crosstalk 00:04:01] Like where are you?

Dean Sweetman:  I can't find the address.

Russ Cantu:     You have to scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll. Honestly, it's the same [crosstalk 00:04:07]

Frank Barry:    Or you can't find it at all.

Russ Cantu:     Yeah, or you can't find it at all. It's nowhere even on there. Like, where's the contact page? Under the about menu, but three steps, they're like just. It's ridiculous. It's the same thing with like, giving.

Dean Sweetman:  Yeah.

Russ Cantu:     People that go to your website, they just wanna give.

Dean Sweetman:  They want to get in and out.

Russ Cantu:     In and out, in like in 30 seconds or less. [inaudible 00:04:28][crosstalk 00:04:28]

Frank Barry:    So what do good churches do[crosstalk 00:04:27] when it comes to the, because I think those two main things and there's more, right?

Russ Cantu:     There're tons more. Tons more.

Frank Barry:    So step one, you want to get people to your church.

Russ Cantu:     Absolutely, so. [crosstalk 00:04:38]

Frank Barry:    How do you make that.

Russ Cantu:     So, there's two rules that we always play with, and so. The first one is a screenshot rule, which says kinda what your underlining statement is. If its not on the screen right away, telling them, get here for our weekend services, click this button, this is how. They're done. Like 70 percent of people don't scroll below that.

Russ Cantu:     So if you can't tell them that stuff right there, you're hosed.

Frank Barry:    In the very top section.

Russ Cantu:     Top, that hero section, [crosstalk 00:05:02]

Dean Sweetman:  Above the fold.

Frank Barry:    How to find us, or [crosstalk 00:05:05]

Russ Cantu:     On the phone, on the desktop, whatever it is.

Frank Barry:    Come this weekend, or something that's like.

Russ Cantu:     It's gotta be, we're an amazing church, you belong here. Click this button, we'll take you. That's what that section is about.

Frank Barry:    That's easy. Yeah.

Russ Cantu:     And then 92 percent of clicks on all church websites are through that menu. So, if your menu is not clear, if it doesn't have- new here, plan a visit, or [crosstalk 00:05:23]

Frank Barry:    Menu meaning...

Russ Cantu:     Menu meaning your about, your staff[crosstalk 00:05:25]

Frank Barry:    Just because we might have a bunch of folks that know websites or not. So...

Russ Cantu:     It's the top thing, that says this is how you do what you want to do on this. Ministries, contact, giving, all that. If it's not there, people aren't, they're not going to hunt around. Like, you have two minutes. You have two minutes.

Dean Sweetman:  That goes a little bit to like, the groups of people that are looking at your website.

Russ Cantu:     Yeah.

Dean Sweetman:  So Let's say that I'm new to the community, and I'm googling church, boom that's what I do.

Frank Barry:    Church's in Vista California.

Dean Sweetman:  Boom, there ya go, then up they come and I'm gonna click. That is, I don't know what the percentages are, you might know. People visiting your church, it's gonna be a high percentage that go to the website before they go to the church.

Russ Cantu:     Yeah, its 60 percent.

Dean Sweetman:  Boom.

Russ Cantu:     So 60 percent go to your website before they even step through the doors of your church.[crosstalk 00:06:07]

Dean Sweetman:  On the campus here this is a little off the beaten track.

Russ Cantu:     Yeah.

Dean Sweetman:  So they're gonna search for the church, find where it is and then come and visit.

Frank Barry:    Right.

Russ Cantu:     Well, yeah, but now with like Google, if you don't have your SEO dialed in, your search engine optimization. If you don't have your contact page dialed in, with your menu and with your call to action, that says service times at this time and place. Here's your map. Like, Google is not even going to get you to there, your website. [crosstalk 00:06:31] It's just going to serve up on snippets.

Frank Barry:    What's one of the most common searches for people trying to find a church?

Russ Cantu:     Yeah, it's honestly, its just as soon as you type in the word church, because Google it auto fills everything for you. So if your SEO is not dialed in with the content for church and whatever people's affinity it is. So like kids, church, kids, marriage is sucking right now. If its not contextually aware, Google is going to look at you and go, no I'm sorry, we're ranking you down. But this other church, they at least have this stuff dialed in so we're going to rank you up.

Frank Barry:    What about local search? [crosstalk 00:07:05] Like church, I'm typing in church and I'm sitting in my you know home in Vista. And I type in church, or maybe churches near me.

Russ Cantu:     No, so that used to be a SEO rule but now its all contextually aware. So, if this is like North Coast, if they're, if they want to reach married couples, but they're not doing it good, good job on Google. But a church two miles down the road is... Google is self aware enough that they're gonna pop that church down the road up, even if you're sitting in the parking lot.

Dean Sweetman:  That's amazing.

Russ Cantu:     So, it's all contextually aware, so if you don't have this stuff dialed in. [crosstalk 00:07:41] Sorry you've lost.

Dean Sweetman:  So that goes to keywords that are baked into your site you gotta have that dialed in now, to rank on those searches.

Russ Cantu:     Well, Google is tracking you, like they're integrated and if you have iOS. [crosstalk 00:07:46]

Dean Sweetman:  Which is kind of scary.

Frank Barry:    They know we're here.

Russ Cantu:     They know you're here we're using Facebook live, we're going through [inaudible 00:07:54][crosstalk 00:07:54]

Frank Barry:    Facebook knows we're here. Everyone knows we're here.

Russ Cantu:     Everything, it's all tracking you and so they have your entire search history for everything. So it's so aware that it's serving you what you want before you even know it.

Frank Barry:    Scary.

Dean Sweetman:  Like it or not that's what's going on.

Russ Cantu:     But it's cool because if you know your audience and you know what you're killing it at. This, it gets really easy.

Frank Barry:    Yeah, right. But even for like local search, like to the point of like, having your address, making it easy for people to find you. Like you have to make it so that Google finds it easy to find you as well. Right? And doing the right things on your website, so that if people are looking for churches in the area, Google knows you exist. [crosstalk 00:08:33] And they know where your location is at.

Russ Cantu:     There's a couple things on that, so the first one is obviously you need to have a Google Business account. That needs to be tied in with your website. And if you're not doing that you're already hosed.

Dean Sweetman:  Does that cost?

Russ Cantu:     No it's free.

Dean Sweetman:  So every church should have a Google Business account, I'm guessing that's where the address, so when people start typing [crosstalk 00:08:46] it pops up on the maps.

Russ Cantu:     It all pops up and it helps things. But it says, kind of like Twitter, you're Twitter verified. You're Google verified.

Dean Sweetman:  Got it, Right.

Frank Barry:    You're a legit business if you went to church.

Russ Cantu:     Yeah, but every church get access to Google Ngram. So if you're a 501c3 you get ten grand of free advertising a month.

Dean Sweetman:  That's right.

Russ Cantu:     So you can just kill it with your affinity targeting, and kids, and married couples and singles.

Dean Sweetman:  Talk about that for, expand on that. You get ten grand worth of free search.

Russ Cantu:     Ten grand worth of free search. So you have a two dollar click limit. But that just means you're not going to compete with North Coast, most people can't. You can't beat with the traffic and that's like seven dollars, eight dollars a click.

Dean Sweetman:  Right.

Russ Cantu:     But, every church that's maybe down the street, you're better at this then North Coast. North Coast doesn't really focus on it. Well, focus on this, do this in advertising, two dollars a click and you're going to kill North Coast at that one thing that you're better at. Like praise Jesus.

Frank Barry:    Or churches in a certain neighborhood, right? So North Coast might be churches in Vista or your other locations, but you're not in every location, right?

Russ Cantu:     Nope, not yet.

Frank Barry:    But there's gonna be churches, yeah not yet. But you know there're tons of sort of like suburbs or pockets or areas, so you can still optimize for like that five mile radius type of thing. Right? And try to get known by Google for like your spot.

Russ Cantu:     Yeah, it's just when it comes to locations its harder now, because people live, dude just think about[crosstalk 00:10:09]

Frank Barry:    Farther away, yeah.

Russ Cantu:     Yeah there is a 20 minute window. It's not about 20 miles, cause 20 miles here in SoCal, could be 20 minutes or could be three hours. Who knows? [crosstalk 00:10:17] You live in L.A. [inaudible 00:10:18]

Frank Barry:    If you're close to the freeway 20 minutes. [crosstalk 00:10:18]

Dean Sweetman:  Tell me about it. It takes an hour and a half to go ten miles downtown.

Frank Barry:    Brutal.

Russ Cantu:     So that's where Google is like in the past, it used to be churches near me. But now they're so contextually aware that its less on that local search and more about the local search within context according to we have your whole life in the palm of your hand.

Frank Barry:    Right.

Dean Sweetman:  Wow.

Russ Cantu:     So that's that whole dynamic at play.

Dean Sweetman:  So that's very much, here's my website and this is what I'm gonna do to optimize it for a visitor. [crosstalk 00:10:46] That's that size right?

Russ Cantu:     Yeah, so that's the Google thing, that's the Google side.

Dean Sweetman:  And I'm gonna make it easy for people to find the church, when it's on, it drives me, first thing I do and I look at a lot of websites. You know, it's our business to look at websites.

Frank Barry:    Every time a church signs up for Tithe.ly we come across their website.

Dean Sweetman:  You know, we're going to get to the next phase in a minute, like on the giving stuff. But that first thing is so frustrating and big churches. And they think that I know them, because they're big. But, I don't know them and if I'm just new into town. I don't know from Adam what's going on. [crosstalk 00:11:15]

Frank Barry:    Right, what churches to check out.

Dean Sweetman:  So I go do my thing and I'm, there was one the other day, I'm like literally five minutes and I gave up.

Russ Cantu:     So you're like double what a normal user [inaudible 00:11:27][crosstalk 00:11:27]

Dean Sweetman:  Yeah no, I'm in the business.

Frank Barry:    Or triple or yeah. [crosstalk 00:11:28]

Dean Sweetman:  So I'm going and it was three menus down in the about and it wasn't in the about it was like two more in.

Russ Cantu:     Yeah if it's not, so if its not under your hero, that initial screenshot that we said [crosstalk 00:11:41] if it's not in your menu, so you're at 70 percent then you're at 92 percent, is it at least at the footer?

Dean Sweetman:  It was at, that's exactly, that's where I got the third.

Frank Barry:    That's the third spot you know to look, right? [crosstalk 00:11:50]

Russ Cantu:     Those are the three and those are the three things that Google looks at to. So if its not there, dude, it's not anywhere. Like you just lost it. So three pages, three clicks, three minutes.

Frank Barry:    Brutal.

Dean Sweetman:  That's three strikes you're out.

Russ Cantu:     You're out.

Dean Sweetman:  Yeah. Okay so that's the website for visitors, people coming on, checking out the church.

Frank Barry:    That would fit into the like, big mistakes churches make.

Dean Sweetman:  Huge.

Frank Barry:    Like massive mistakes.

Russ Cantu:     Well, 70 percent of your base is all visitors. So if you can't figure it out.

Dean Sweetman:  Because most members, they're like, they know what is going on, they're tuned in. If you got an app, they know when the events are on.

Russ Cantu:     Well, they go to the affinity, what's the thing that matters to them? So, um, you know, you have young kids, well homepage doesn't really matter to you. [crosstalk 00:12:28]

Dean Sweetman:  You go straight to kids.

Russ Cantu:     But kids stuff. So those are the things [inaudible 00:12:32][crosstalk 00:12:32]

Frank Barry:    Even then, I rarely go to my churches website, because its all on our app, for like the membership, right.

Russ Cantu:     Totally.

Frank Barry:    So I'm using that more then I am the actual website at this point.

Dean Sweetman:  So shifting, so that's that. Second most important thing is, okay I am a member, maybe I'm not, we're always kinda preach mobile first when it comes to giving. But let's say I'm, you know, I'm not real kind of confident around a mobile device. Got it there's some really key basic things you gotta do as for as giving goes on the webpage.

Dean Sweetman:  So I'll give you my two cents and you're the expert, expert, but here's my little two things.

Russ Cantu:     Hit it.

Dean Sweetman:  One of them is top right. So in my old, old life in advertising, when you read a newspaper, there's some really hot zones. Top left to bottom right is how people read a newspaper, just the way they're columned. So that advertising in the top left and bottom right was always more expensive. Cause the eye trained down.

Dean Sweetman:  With websites you go on a website and you go left to right. So to me like often there's branding there and then menus go across. My favorite spot for the giving button is top right and then my second thing is stand it out a little bit. It doesn't have to be bright red and flashing and gaudy but it should pop a little bit.

Frank Barry:    Or it does, why not?

Dean Sweetman:  I like popping out and gaudy sometimes. But you know, so there're my two things. Is that good thinking?

Russ Cantu:     No. [crosstalk 00:13:52]

Dean Sweetman:  Okay, I don't know anything, I'm an idiot.

Frank Barry:    And people on the web, when you look at heat maps, right? It's like you see the F pattern to your point. You see [inaudible 00:14:00][crosstalk 00:14:00]

Russ Cantu:     It works, analytically, you're kind of on the right track. But here is the thing, like we're at a place a year ago where we were at 70 percent mobile traffic. We're almost at 80 percent. So on a mobile device, you're not going to see a full menu across. You're going to see a sandwich, where you're going to see something that says menu and you click it open. So, at that point [crosstalk 00:14:19]

Dean Sweetman:  I guess I was more talking about on a computer. Not on a mobile.

Russ Cantu:     Which is fine, if you're looking to just go 20 percent.

Frank Barry:    To the Boomer Generation.

Russ Cantu:     Yeah.

Dean Sweetman:  To which I am [inaudible 00:14:27] boomer.

Frank Barry:    You're dead in. [crosstalk 00:14:30]

Dean Sweetman:  I'm right on the edge, of the youngest of boomers.

Russ Cantu:     So yeah, your thinking is right, but you just have to take it the next step further [crosstalk 00:14:37] and go, but gosh I got to think mobile.

Dean Sweetman:  And think mobile too. That's so good and such a good point.

Russ Cantu:     So where is it on mobile? So that's fine.

Frank Barry:    And most churches aren't going to want to lead with give here, right?

Russ Cantu:     No, no you shouldn't [crosstalk 00:14:47] you should lead with get through the doors this weekend.

Frank Barry:    Yeah, yeah, come visit us, right? Here is how we can help.

Dean Sweetman:  So you're thinking on a mobile, it's hamburger menu, which is the three little lines, right? Then drop it in there.

Russ Cantu:     Yeah, then drop it down.

Dean Sweetman:  Got it.

Russ Cantu:     So I'm still fine with the far right, just understand that the metric that you're saying it's different today.

Dean Sweetman:  Got it.

Russ Cantu:     I mean you only, that's 20 percent of people you're marketing to.

Dean Sweetman:  Very good. Got it.

Frank Barry:    Mobile make it easy to find there. Hamburger menu and then not drilling down another level.

Russ Cantu:     Yeah, I don't even like hamburger menu anymore. I mean they're gone because there are some people now that senior citizens are on their phones. Like, I don't, what's this thing?

Dean Sweetman:  Yeah they don't know what it is.

Russ Cantu:     No, just say menu. It's really hard [crosstalk 00:15:23] Just say the word menu.

Frank Barry:    Oh, just say the word menu.

Dean Sweetman:  You go figure. Just say menu.

Frank Barry:    Click here?

Russ Cantu:     Yeah, yes. YES! You laugh at this thing but these are the things I deal with every single week. We have churches who are getting online for the first time which is insane. [crosstalk 00:15:35]

Frank Barry:    Shocking. Shocking.

Dean Sweetman:  No, no. Saying that again? [crosstalk 00:15:37]

Frank Barry:    Shocking.

Russ Cantu:     Right? We have churches that are getting online for the first time and so things like hamburger menu, while it's easy for us.

Dean Sweetman:  Us who have been around.

Russ Cantu:     They're going what's that? I don't know what that is.

Dean Sweetman:  That makes sense.

Frank Barry:    The hamburger menu, it does throw people.

Russ Cantu:     It does throw people. Just tell people what it is.

Dean Sweetman:  It threw me a couple years ago.

Frank Barry:    Okay, so the meatball chart.

Dean Sweetman:  Okay, so, mobile optimization for your website on the phone and then making sure that they can find the menu and hit the give.

Russ Cantu:     Critical, critical.

Dean Sweetman:  And that's the way they go.

Frank Barry:    Quickly.

Russ Cantu:     Absolutely mission critical.

Frank Barry:    And I agree though with what sorta making it stand out, Right? Like that's, any call to action, right? Anything you want them to do, it's got to be easy to find.

Russ Cantu:     Yeah the easiest thing is just put a box around it.

Frank Barry:    Yeah.

Dean Sweetman:  Right.

Russ Cantu:     Whatever brand color, so like this beautiful green. [crosstalk 00:16:26]

Frank Barry:    Right, it's amazing.

Russ Cantu:     Put a green box around that give. It just goes. It goes, and its not hard to do. It's easy to code.

Frank Barry:    Yeah.

Dean Sweetman:  Right, right, right.

Dean Sweetman:  Yeah I think for us you know we deal with the giving generosity space all day every day.

Russ Cantu:     Sure.

Dean Sweetman:  And we build apps, we're always helping churches with their websites and this kind of stuff. The journey sometimes looks frustrating to me, is that when churches don't take our advice. They go you know we just don't want to giving, like they're embarrassed a little bit. We deal with this on many levels. We always want to tuck giving down here and you're part of a big church.

Frank Barry:    Or they can't do it because their websites in such bad shape. [crosstalk 00:17:02]

Dean Sweetman:  [inaudible 00:17:02] We'll send them to you.

Frank Barry:    They have to put it down here, they're like I can't put it in the menu.

Dean Sweetman:  We can fix that and they can go to you know Catalyst Creative and get a good website. But you're part of a big ministry here.

Russ Cantu:     Yeah, we have a few people.

Dean Sweetman:  And you're involved a lot with in the creative and the digital strategy for North Coast. Um, I like to talk a little about the mentality of, there is a couple kinds of mentality that we run into. There's the bald go for it, maybe Evangelical church plant type guy, pioneer. Those guys need money, they don't have buildings, they don't have assets, they don't have nothing.

Frank Barry:    Techy, they kind of just know tech. They've grown up with it.

Dean Sweetman:  Yeah, right, you know. Global commerce, they're already buying coffee and doing banking, it's real easy for them, right? So they're like mobile giving, let's go. Talking about giving, getting focused on giving, let's do it.

Dean Sweetman:  But then there's another group, that we have literally thousands of customers and we love them to bits and we feel like we're called a little bit to coach, and come along side them. To help them just come into a new day. When it comes to generosity and then tying that all into the tech. You've sat back and watched North Coast explode over these many years, we're talking to Chris, you know yesterday, there's just no kind of sense of they're not gonna not talk about finances and money. Just as someone whose kind of observed all that, give me your view point on how North Coast has gone about Biblically and not over the top crazy. Right, there is extremes when you get money and church, and some of it sends me nuts. But there's a great balanced Biblical way that you can present generosity and giving, that I think North Coast has been absolutely phenomenal about.

Russ Cantu:     Yeah, and that kind of ties in with the whole thing, about the perfect giving page. So underline this whole thing is data drives decisions. So at the end of the day everyone's got opinions right, and we can listen to those opinions, but if those opinions don't match with our data. We go hey, that helps influence, but at the end of the day this data is going to drive us. It's going to drive us.

Russ Cantu:     So online, it's just what's the simplicity? People are, if they're clicking on that giving page, they don't want to go through the ten biblical reasons. [crosstalk 00:19:16]

Dean Sweetman:  Right, they've already decided right.

Russ Cantu:     They want to give, so let them give right away. Seriously what's the hurdle? What's the harm in that? Like, what's the theological hurdle in your life that is saying, well, no, no, we have to explain. No, they just want to give. Now make it simple for them to give.

Dean Sweetman:  Right.

Russ Cantu:     So at Tithe.ly just drop that button on there.

Frank Barry:    Literally it's at the top of the page.

Russ Cantu:     Literally, it's at the top.

Frank Barry:    And it's bright orange.

Russ Cantu:     Here's why we give, giving button. Give. 30 seconds later and people are done.

Dean Sweetman:  Done.

Russ Cantu:     Like, they wanted to give, they went to the webpage, they found it in the upper right hand corner. Now they're on the giving page, so they're two clicks in, give, three clicks and they're done. That's exactly the metric. Three clicks, three minutes, three pages. Okay we won.

Russ Cantu:     So it's the simplicity in giving. So after that. [crosstalk 00:20:07]

Frank Barry:    So that is on the actual page, once you've gotten to give, you know church website, slash give, clicked on the top right or they found the give page. Once you get there don't over complicate it.

Russ Cantu:     No, you can't over complicate it, and if you want to over complicate it, over complicate it below the screenshot rule.

Dean Sweetman:  Underneath.

Frank Barry:    Like low down, add more. I love that, because I do love having you know maybe more information.[crosstalk 00:20:28]

Dean Sweetman:  Some verses or whatever or your vision.

Russ Cantu:     Some verses or whatever.

Frank Barry:    But having it as the secondary thing, so those who want to give right now it's really clear. I can do that. But you know if I want to read more about what's going on, I can, or even I love adding how the church is using the money, right.

Russ Cantu:     Yeah, but if you think about the thing in your hand, everything is going to shift upper left. So if your story is up here and then the why you're giving is and your bible verses and giving button like, people aren't scrolling and scrolling.

Frank Barry:    It's all of a sudden at the bottom buried.

Russ Cantu:     Yeah, it's buried, so you don't want that. It's the give now, okay and then share it in the Facebook live app or I'll give a giving page. The perfect giving page just for Tithe.ly is done.

Frank Barry:    We should do that.

Dean Sweetman:  So we're going to wrap here in a second. I want to talk about Catalyst Creative real quick.

Russ Cantu:     If you must.

Dean Sweetman:  One of the things we're going to give away is you're going to do a consultant thing with you know one of our viewers.

Frank Barry:    For Free. 100 percent.

Dean Sweetman:  You get some time with Russ Cantu, who is like the guru of web and church. So we'll work it out, put your church name in the Facebook live.

Frank Barry:    Yeah, like this show, give us your name, the church you attend or the church you're a lead pastor at. Make sure to do that in the Facebook live, right now. We're going to hop on during the show, but probably right after the show, we'll announce the winner. [crosstalk 00:21:50] Since we're live here.

Dean Sweetman:  Yeah, he'll be able to full diagnostic of your website and give some great tips. In 30 seconds Catalyst Creative what do you do for churches?

Russ Cantu:     Two things, number one, kick butt websites.

Dean Sweetman:  Yeah, love it.

Russ Cantu:     Number two, consulting. So we'll come in, we'll evaluate your entire system from street to seat. We'll tie it in with your digital presence, [crosstalk 00:22:08]

Dean Sweetman:  From street to seat I love that.

Frank Barry:    Yeah.

Russ Cantu:     tie it in with your digital presence and at the end of the day you're just going to win. Period.

Dean Sweetman:  I love it, I love it. And like this is a 10,000 member church and Russ is the guy so he knows what he's talking about. He has a phenomenal business.

Dean Sweetman:  I want to say thanks to everybody for joining.

Frank Barry:    Yeah, there's been a ton of people on. We got a message from one of the folks here at Tithe.ly saying that Neil I'm probably going to pronounce this wrong, Neil Lider. Thanks for using Tithe.ly we're sending free swag, hat shirt, fidget spinner. [crosstalk 00:22:41]

Dean Sweetman:  The yo-yo's are coming!

Frank Barry:    The yo-yo's are coming, you're going to get a cool swag bag from Tithe.ly.

Dean Sweetman:  I can do a live yo-yo. [inaudible 00:22:42]

Russ Cantu:     You're in straight 80s mode, that's awesome.

Dean Sweetman:  Call me the yo-yo guru. [inaudible 00:22:47]

Frank Barry:    We're going to get them in green for sure.

Dean Sweetman:  For sure, it's going to be it.

Frank Barry:    Neil, thanks for joining us, everyone else thanks for joining us.

Dean Sweetman:  Awesome. Hey! God bless you guys. We'll see you next time.

This week on Tithe.ly TV, Dean Sweetman and Frank Barry are joined by Russ Cantu, founder and CEO of Catalyst Creative.

During their conversation, they discuss:

  • Common church website mistakes
  • How to make sure your church’s website can be found online
  • 3 things your church website must do
  • Must-know facts on how people view your church’s website
  • Proven strategies to increase your online giving
  • How to optimize your church’s online giving page

Resources

Here are the resources mentioned during the show or in the comments:

AUTHOR
Category
Generosity
Publish date
October 17, 2018
Author
Category

5 Ways to Optimize Your Online Giving Page

Related Blog Posts

Button Text
Tithely Pricing