Christian Blogging Tips

Christian Blogging Tips for WordPress.com Users

1. Content – This is an obvious one for all blogs but should be noted. Having good, consistent and professional looking content will bring more readers. Spell-check, proofread and have a clean looking site. Stick to somewhat of a schedule so readers can know when to expect more content. It is good to watch your article length as well. To a first time reader long, extensive articles of 2000 or more words can be intimidating and may cause them to skip reading altogether. I try to keep my posts under 1000 words with the occasional exception. If your style is to write lengthy articles then consider breaking them up into series.

2. Interaction – Blogging is all about being interactive and communicating. If nobody knows your blog exists then you obviously won’t have any readers. A great way I’ve found to gain readers is by visiting other blogs and leaving comments on articles you enjoy. This goes back to what Jesus taught in the sermon on the mount: Whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them…(Matt 7:12)

3. Tags and Categories – It is very important to tag and use categories correctly. A great way for people to find you is by using some common tags on your blog such as: Jesus, Christ, Faith and God. This is also a great way to find other Christian blogs. If you go to your WordPress reader and type in one of these tags in the topic box you’ll get all the recent blogs posted under the tag. DO NOT use more than a total of 15 combined tags and categories for each post. If you use more than 15 you will not be listed in WordPress readers.

4. Keywords – Keywords are important if you want to get traffic from search engines. You can use a keyword tool (such as Google AdWords) to find keyword phrases that are typed in search engines often but have low competition for sites that show up as matches in the results. It can be very effective to use a popular keyword phrase with low competition as your post title.

5. Social Network Sites – Use different social network sites to promote your blog. WordPress has a publicize feature that will share each post you publish by automatically posting an update to your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr and Yahoo accounts. You will find these settings under: Dashboard/Settings/Sharing. I have a Twitter and Facebook account setup for this blog that have been effective in bringing in traffic.

6. Blog Listings – There are multiple blog listing sites that can bring traffic to your blog. Here are a few that you can list your blog at: bloggers.com, faithfulbloggers.com, alltop.com, stumbleupon.com, blogcatalog.com, mychristianblogs.com, conversantlife.com and popurls.com. There are also Facebook groups you can join such as: Christian Bloggers Network and Christian Writers and Bloggers.

7. Use Zemanta – Zemanta is a new tool available to wordpress.com users that will analyze your blog post you are writing and suggest to you links, keywords, related articles, graphics and tags. To activate Zemanta go to Users/Personal Settings/Additional Post Content.

**What tips have worked for you? Please post any additional tips in the comments.

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