Would you answer the phone at church if you knew it was someone calling for directions or worship time?
Of course you should.
Now imagine that same person has come to your website, instead of calling the church. Wouldn’t it make sense to have the pastor or church secretary answer THAT “call” too?
Of course it would.
The answer is a Live Chat feature at your website.
It can be done for free.
It’s easy to do.
And any staff member can be assigned to be the one monitoring who’s requesting to chat at your website.
Hopefully you already know what I’m talking about when I say “Live Chat.” It’s a great tool that many businesses on the web use for live support. But here’s what you probably didn’t know: you can get it for FREE …and can be added to almost any website quite easily.
There are two parts you will need:
(1) The live chat “messenger” program that goes on your computer. You’ll sign up at a website and create a username and password.
(2) A small bit of code that goes on your website to create the live chat module your visitors will use. You’ll go to one of the free live chat sites to generate this code. It will ask you what your messenger username is.
The live chat module code you put on your webpage will have embedded in it your instant messaging address so that when people start typing in your web chat module, it will send a message to your computer to open the instant messaging software you install on your computer. Actually, any computer you have instant messenging software on, including your smartphone! can receive these alerts from your Live Chat module that someone wants to talk to you. Pretty cool.
This is a screenshot of the free Windows Live Chat box at my
Here’s what the Pluggo or Meebo live chat module can look like on your site.
HOW TO INSTALL “LIVE CHAT”
at your website….
OR….
2. After installing a messenging program on your computer, you can go to either www.meebo.com or www.plugoo.com and sign up for a free live chat application. Both these services work with Yahoo messenger or Windows Live Messenger installed on your computer. Meebo or Pluggo will ask you for your Yahoo chat or Windows Live chat username. It needs to know your chat username! Then… their step by step setup will generate some code to create the module you need for your website. You’ll copy that code with your mouse.
NOTE THIS: If you have created your website in WordPress or Blogger, they have a ‘chat widget’ you can slide onto your page and hook up. Just follow their instructions. Very slick. In fact, WordPress uses the meebo chat plugin.
3. Next…. you’ll also see that Live Messenger, Meebo or Plugoo have DISPLAY OPTIONS you can adjust to make it look different on your site. Choose some appearance options, then ‘save’ or generate the needed code to install into your website. Copy the code they give you using your mouse.
4. Finally, paste the code they gave you into your website’s homepage code or whatever page you want it to appear in. (Remember, it has to be pasted into the code behind the text of your page.) Upload your homepage, and go to it to see your Chat box magically appear with the formatting you selected! (If you’re using wordpress, see my notes below)
One thing you want to remember to do when you have an instant messaging program installed is keep your computer’s volume button turned up. When someone sends you a message in the chat window, you will hear an audio alert.
A second thing to remember is to let your Yahoo or Live Instant messaging program turn on when you boot up your computer. If it’s on, it can tell people you’re available. If you have your messaging program turned off, people at your website will see a “not available” notice.
Just remember to SIGN OUT if you walk away from your computer.
How LIVE CHAT Works:
When you have a Yahoo or Windows Live chat account, everytime you start your computer and the chat application starts, it “pings” the Yahoo or Live chat server to let it know you are online. It also “pings” your meebo or plugoo account on the meebo or plugoo servers. “Ping” means it sends a short single saying, “I’m available!”
When the meebo/plugoo server sees that ping from your chat program, it knows you’re online and ready to chat. So….meebo/plugoo now “pings” your website where you installed the special code to say, “hey code, make a green light appear on this page to tell people I’m online right now.” That’s how people coming to your website see you as “available online to chat.” If meebo/plugoo’s server sees that your offline, it sends a signal to the code on your website to say “not available” and a red light appears on your website.
When you’re online and available and someone types into your webpage chat form, their text is shot over to meebo/plugoo server and sent to your Yahoo or Windows Live software on your computer. (In internet terms this is called “relaying”). Your yahoo/live chat software opens up a chat window on your desktop and shows you the incoming message. Now you can type messages back and forth with the person who’s come to your website.
Very easy, very cool, and a great way to REACH OUT in a personal way to those visiting your website.
Note: You don’t even have to be AT the church to answer a chat request from your website. Anywhere you are with a computer, and have logged into your Yahoo chat or Windows Live account –when you log-in meebo/plugoo will see that you’re logged in and tell people at your website that you are avaiable for chat.
NOTES:
Windows Live Chat, Meebo and and plugoo work with virtually ALL websites.
If you have a WordPress created site that’s hosted on wordpress.com’s server (which I recommend that a lot of churches do), you can only use Meebo. In fact, Meebo is already pre-installed. Just open up your list of widget and drag the Meebo box onto your wordpress site menu. If you have a WordPress created site that uses the free robust version of WordPress.org and is hosted on your OWN website host, you can install plugoo as a plug-in. See my example on the BOTTOM of this resource page!
Recapping:
1. Sign up for, download and install Yahoo chat or Windows Live chat from www.live.com
2. Sign up for either a free Windows Live Chat, “Meebo” or “Plugoo” account to generate a live chat module for your website, and it will give you a couple of lines of code to copy.
3. Put the code on your webpage.
4. Be sure that your office or home computer is logged onto your chat account so people coming to your website see that someone is available. You’ll be surprised how many want to chat at 10 pm at night when you’re surfing Facebook!
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