This is a different kind of website. We are not trying to sell anything. We don’t have clients. Therefore, there is no way to measure our “conversion rate” (number of visitors that become paying customers). So, there is no point in trying to keep up with who visits ReachPortugal.com and trying to increase traffic to our site. Right? Wrong!
Here are the 4 main reasons we keep developing this website:
- Introduce Portugal to Christians that did not “know” it existed.
- Make people aware of the great need Portugal has to hear the Gospel of Christ.
- Keep people informed of what we are doing to reach Portugal with the Gospel of Christ.
- Encourage Christians to get involved in World Missions by going, giving and praying.
We believe that it is a worthy cause to “keep people from forgetting about Portugal”. We are not in a competition for visitors, clicks, likes and shares for the sake of those things or for a desire of profit. We believe that this website can be used as a tool to keep people praying for Portugal and possibly to challenge people to come here as missionaries.
But what does all of this have to do with Facebook? Well, recently I read a post called “Don’t Build Your Social Media House on a Rented Lot” . In this post, the author gives a few reasons why social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, ect.) is a good tool to drive traffic to your website, but that it should never replace your website. The premise for his thinking was, that you “own” your website but you ultimately have no control over Facebook or Twitter. You know what? He’s right.
I have noticed that when one of our posts gets shared on Facebook, we automatically get more visitors to our website. We plan to continue to use it as long as it stays reasonable, but different things could happen:
- What if they change their rules again?
- In last couple of weeks there have been many people concerned about the privacy policies of Facebook’s new Messenger App.
- Different times, Facebook has changed their newsfeed algorithm. What if they decide to suppress this even more?
- There are even recent news about some people leaving Facebook altogether.
Well, we don’t want you to stop getting our content, specially if you are committed to praying for us. You might be someone interested in missions and want to keep up with what the Lord is doing in Western Europe. We would like to encourage you to join our email subscription list. Here are some reasons you should consider it:
- It is free! (Everybody likes free, right?)
- You get an email once a week with a summary of everything that was published the week before.
- It is the best way to guarantee you don’t miss our monthly Prayer Letter.
- We will never give your email address to other people.
- You can unsubscribe whenever you want (very few people do).
Facebook, because it is a privately owned business, does not give us 100% control. Email is still the best way to never miss the content you want. It gives you control over what you read, and when you read it.
Click here to become a ReachPortugal.com email subscriber (only the email address is required, the other fields are optional)