A Good and Wholesome Instruction

Creating A Website That Works!

Masonic education, like any body of knowledge, takes time to acquire. There are huge masses of information on the internet, in Masonic libraries, public libraries, lodge libraries and in bookstores across the world, but it's very difficult to know where to begin.

WHICH: Which book is the best primer (beginners book) to start your Masonic walk through the Masonic halls of higher education?

HOW: How do you begin training a new Masonic apprentice?

DUTIES: What are the real duties of a Worshipful Master...(the man with the hat)...or to be more exact...the man with ALL the hats?

WHY? I'm a curious type. I want to know why things are done a certain way. In other words, I want to know why the Sheaf of Corn alludes to "the plenty". Plenty of what?

In my search for true Masonic knowledge, I have found it, everywhere. Unfortunately, it usually appears in bits and pieces...a single sentence in a lengthy white paper or Short Talk Bulletin, in antiquated books no longer on the market, in long and wordy pages on internet websites which no one reads because a single paragraph is 2 pages long. (or on an internet page in black font on a brown background with flashing banners or some such).

I have found it in the Bible, the Torah, the rabbinical histories passed down through the ages by Jewish rabbis, from Carl Claudy, Albert Mackey, Duncan's Ritual, the Old Charges, from books in the Masonic Lodge of Research, the public library and many, many more.

Once I found and compiled the information for which I searched, I began placing it into a notebook for easy access and fast look-up for my own use. One day, it struck me that it seemed a shame that after so much tedious and time consuming work putting the information together, there must be many others who search, as I do, for the "why". Would my efforts have been only for my own curiosity or was there some way to share the knowledge with others to make Masonic education easier and faster to acquire than my own arduous journey?

How would be the best way to accomplish this task?

Some Masons are not avid readers...but they still want to learn. Others are Masonic scholars and truly relish attempting to decipher things like the true length of the Biblical "cubit" (the length of measure used in the Bible, much as we measure in inches or centimeters, today).

I struggled with this issue until I realized that, like me, both the non-avid and the avid reader and scholar have one thing in common...they, too are simply searching for more light.

With that issue solved, I could get back to the next issue which was:

What was the best way I could share the information?

Should I write a book? Should I create an E-Book? That seemed like a lot of effort without much reward, as there are so many millions of books, mine might just lay at the bottom of the pile, somewhere. Should I print up some packets of information to give out? I had visions of me standing outside various lodges on cold wintry nights like a shivering character straight out of Dickens, handing out packets of information. Nope. That definitely did not appeal to me.

NON-TECHIE: I considered creating a website, as that seemed to be the best way to disseminate Masonic education to lots of people, but I knew nothing of .html, search engines, hits or anything else website-related...other than Googling for information and opening my e-mail...and really had no inclination to want to learn any kind of "code".

WEBSITE? However, the website idea still seemed like the best approach, so I began researching, again, as to how I could create a website when I don't "do code".

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION: My research turned up the fact that there are approximately 110,000,000 websites on the internet with billions of pages of information. Therefore, my small "window on the world" wouldn't even be relegated to the size of a "peephole" if I did not figure out how to get my pages in front of people. I thought it would be a worthless expenditure of my time and efforts...only to be placed on page 24,967 of 60,000 for any given subject.

FREE WEBSITE PROVIDERS: So...more research...days of it, in fact. I checked out the free website providers and called and spoke to their customer service people. I asked if I had to write in "code". Some said yes and said some no, but, to be honest, I felt like my actual conversations with them were in code. I asked if they provided any training about how to get started. There was usually a long pause, after which they would give me the URL (web address) of a site where I could begin to learn code. When I asked about how I could insure that my website's pages would actually get seen, or SEO'd (Search Engine Optimized), my newly learned word of web lingo, they really weren't sure, but gave me the URL of another website that sells SEO information.

At this point, I was very frustrated, to say the least...however:

NEVER GIVE UP:

"Ask, and it shall be given you, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you....(Matthew 7:7)

In other words, much as when Winston Churchill, a well-known Mason, was asked to provide the baccalaureate speech before a graduating class, (which is typically a lengthy "farewell-to-your-school, hello-to-the-real-world" speech), his entire speech consisted of: "Nevah,... nevah,... nevah .....give UP!" (Never, never, never....give up!). He said this same sentence 3 times and left the podium.

So...I continued searching and although the SBI! site's pages of information had come up quite often in my searches, I honestly thought it was just another "Rags to Riches", a how-to-get-rich-quick by creating your very own website. But, research is not about only reading what you want to hear. It's about listening to what someone really has to say. That said, like most people, after having reached so many dead ends, I was truly a skeptic....but I kept reading. Still skeptical, but intrigued, I downloaded their free Action Guide and watched the How-To videos.

Afterward, I purchased it....and all I can say is WOW!

When my site, Masonic-lodge-of-education.com was 1 month old, it ranked in the top 4% of all 110,000,000 websites on the internet! When it was 2 months old, it ranked in the top 1% of all 110,000,000 websites on the internet. If my site had been on the 24,967th page on Google, I seriously doubt you would be reading this information right now. But you are reading it...which means you found it by doing a simple keyword search and you found the information you were searching for, so you already know it works.

Who do you have to thank? Not me. Thank Dr. Ken Evoy who is the web genius who built SBI!   SBI! stands for SiteBuild It!, which is Dr. Evoy's flagship. SBI! sells itself as an all-in-one site-building, site-hosting, site-promoting suite of tools. It eliminates all the confusing technical complexities and all the exhausting manual labor involved in building and promoting a site and leaves you with the fun part...simply creating content.

Site-Sell's (SBI!) underlying philosophy is to rank high in the Search Engines for keywords that are in high demand and generate lots of traffic to your web page. It's not a get-rich-quick, build-a-website-and-make-a-million-dollars or a one-time-offering, get-it-before-it's-gone deal.

Like anything else in life that's worthwhile, you have to work at it....but not as hard as I would have to work attempting to learn code!

Best of all, it provides step-by-step training which takes you through the How-To, as well as the Why. There is no special software to buy. Everything is done through my regular web browser where I simply go to SBI!'s website and login. SBI! not only trains you, and hosts your site but even sends you an e-mail (from a specially programmed "Link-bot" piece of software) that lets you know if you have a broken hyperlink on your site! Their internal modules are pre-programmed to help you avoid spamming the search engines (web-talk for submitting your new page to the search engine too often and the search engine viewing you as a spammer of their services and therefore denying you the ability to place your pages onto them). This takes all the technie-stuff out of my life and frees up my time to do what I want to do...provide good, solid, Masonic education to others.

Since purchasing SBI!, I haven't felt any need to read any other marketing or How-To books on web marketing, .html, etc. I just read (and re-read) the training books and free courses that I receive with my purchase of SBI and if I have a problem, I can either e-mail SBI!'s Support Team or click over to the SBI!'s User Forum ...(both are free to SBI! owners) for some help.

With SBI!, I also learned how to provide my site's visitors with free language translation so that Freemasons across the world can read my pages.

SBI! helps you build your business. If you want to build an affordable website, (even if, like me, you're not a technie), there are a number of excellent ways to ways to free yourself from your "job" (Yes, you can create a solid income with your website)... or simply provide yourself a second income....and then decide whether or not to keep your job!

One unseen, but potentially huge benefit to owning your own website, owning your own traffic and building your own business is that you are not depending on any one country's economy for your livelihood.

Choose the link, below, that fits your lifestyle the best.
If you don't see a link that you feel best fits your needs, click on the one which is closest to your specific situation.

1. Convert your Hobby or Passion into Income

2. Provide ongoing retirement income to supplement your savings and Social Security

3. Become a Work-at-Home Mom

4. If you have a current online store, but no real traffic.

5. If you want to create and sell E-Goods (E-Books, E-Photos, your own digital music, etc.)

6. Publish information based upon what you know (from work experience, hobbies, passions or pas-times).

7. Promote your local (offline) business.

8. Promote your Service Business.

9. SBI! is also excellent to help webmasters, marketing
professionals, net marketers and small businesses who are
bi-lingual enough to create an English speaking site to
give them an edge in the very competitive English-speaking
market.

For more information on this, see the non-English links, below.

The list is endless.