Dearest Friends,
There is one thing, a very small thing, that you can do. Doing just this one thing will help build a strong, vibrant Bahá’í community – word-wide. It’s easy, it’s simple, and it didn’t cost me anything. It probably won’t cost you anything, either. In fact, I have a gift for you.
The one thing you can do for every Bahá’í National Community on the planet is to link to their website. Links build authority. To make this easy, we created a free download. Download our free subfooter for your website. See the National Bahá’í Communities section below.
One Million Lights
Path of Service
A few years ago I began looking for a path of service. I’m old, my skills are valid but old fashioned. I don’t know social media very well. I tried several things. I took a look at the national websites at the world center. Most of them look great. Then I tested them. There are some things that could be better, and I am open to helping where I can. I do know websites.
There is one thing that every community can do!
I have a vision. I began building a network. But to tell you what that is, I need to back up just a bit. I want to tell you how I learned this, and how it can help all of us. You see, I was away from the Faith for a while – a long while – but that’s another story. This not about making money or affiliate links, or ads, or commissions. None of that!
Driving for Uber
I starting making websites in 2003, but up until 2015, I had enough work to pay the bills. I was successful building sites on several platforms. In 2015, I began looking for ways to earn extra money. That’s when I looked on Craigslist for a side job. I saw an ad that said “you have the license, I have the car, drive for Uber and we can split the income 50:50”. So, I signed up with the owner’s affiliate link and began driving. Every week I got paid, made a screenshot, and sent the owner half. After 50 trips, I got a sign-up bonus from Uber. When I got a bonus, he also got a bonus. The car owner was really interested in the Uber sign-up bonus. and began signing up new drivers. I was soon out of a job.
The Best Website
That’s when I realized that I didn’t need a car to sign up new Uber drivers, I needed a website. And, I knew how to build websites! So I got busy and made the very best website I could. It was technically the best I knew how to make it, and tested it many times, to make sure. Then I answered all the questions people had been asking me. It was perfect.
Cost Zero Dollars
What I’m saying by this, is that I put all my effort into the website. I spent zero dollars on advertising, marketing, promoting and the song and dance show. I made a livable income for the next five years from one website, one product, one time. OK, I put a lot of effort into that website. I worked and worked on it for maybe a month or two. It was good – really good.
Website Marketing
I learned several marketing secrets in making that website. Test it in Google’s website tester. It needs to be technically successful. This means it must be fast (nobody likes a slow website), accessible (put the buttons where people expect them), follow best practices (designer colors can be hard to read), and SEO (ask and answer the questions people actually are asking). People are lazy. Provide valuable information, that people will link to instead of create themselves.
I taught my website to do the marketing.
What I learned about marketing the Uber site, is that backlinks are, in part, the definition of authority online. The more websites that link to your content, the higher your website ranks, and the more authority you have. In social media this would be members, followers, shares, mentions, etc. In websites, it’s links to your website or specific pages on your website.
Unity in Diversity
We have diversity in languages, countries, and clothing. We also have online diversity in styles, platforms, and web hosting. We already have unity in linking to bahai.org and some of the other websites at the World Center, the Media Bank, Bahá’í Library, The House of Justice, etc. What will increase the ranking, and therefore the authority, is for all the national community websites to link to the other sites at the World Center – and to each other. This will create a de facto network of Bahá’í websites.
“…for the more we love each other, the nearer we shall be to God.”
– ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
View Source
You don’t need to be a web developer to find and copy the links to the national communities – it’s public knowledge. In fact, that’s why it’s on the internet. All browsers have a feature called “view source” to see the HTML on any website. Anyone can copy this and paste it into their own website. That’s what I have done at BahaiWebsites – and why I did it.
Free Download
If this seems too complicated, relax. I have a gift for you. It’s HTML, it’s not code. Languages like PHP, JavaScript, and others are “dynamic” and can do many powerful things. HTML is a “static” language, and is very safe because of this limitation. I have downloaded the national community links from bahai.org, simplified it to remove some classes and styles. It’s a free and easy HTML download in text.zip form.
Need Help?
If that somehow feels dangerous, I have made it even easier for you. This is how it would be styled for a WordPress page. The websites are categorized exactly like they are a bahai.org (alphabetically by continent, then country) because that is where I got them. If you have a WordPress website, this may work without any changes. If you have a different platform, you may need to keep the divs but remove the classes. Just copy this and paste it into your website. I prefer to place this just above the footer. That way, you do it once, and it’s available from every page.
This file is formatted for WordPress. If you need help installing it, please let us know. We have experience with HTML, Bootstrap, Website Builder, WordPress and a few others. We’d be glad to help. There is no charge.
