A few weeks ago, I received a question from Wesley from Outside the Box on my Facebook wall about tips for successful blogging. While I do not claim to be an expert, here are my top 10 suggestions for a successful pastor’s blog.
- Define your audience – congregation? church leaders? others in your denomination? Outside the denomination?
- Write good content.
- Write regularly.
- Read other blogs for ideas on types of posts and style of writing
- Comment on other blogs with a link back to your blog. Participation in community is good.
- Read the blogging church by Brian Bailey and Terry Storch
- Check out Blogging 101 for Pastors
- Spread the word about your blog – email, newsletter, etc.
- Define what success means to you – a certain number of readers, an outlet for your own writing and reflection, getting the word out about something… Don’t let someone else define success for you.
- Be patient.
You can also find some great tips from Merlin Mann at What Makes for a Good Blog?
Rev. Andrew Conard 
6 replies on “Top 10 for a Successful Pastor’s Blog”
I greatly appreciate all the advice that you have given me. In Merlin Mann’s post about “What Makes a Good Blog” he quoted that good bloggers make others want to start their own blog. That is what you’ve done for me and I am sure countless others.
msmethodism – Thanks for the comment and for your blogging. Glad to hear that Thoughts of Resurrection has made a positive impact for you
I think those are great. You also do a really good job of not making your blog too wordy. If I get to a blog, and the post is really long, I rarely read it. Like I have the attention span for that!
I’d add a suggestion – really expansion of participate in community – to sign up for blog aggregators. The Methoblog is a great way to get involved in the community conversation. There are others out there, too, I suspect.
Janelle – Too true.
jmeunier – Thanks for the tip, a good one.
[…] (like Andrew) might advise me to better know and target my audience with this blog. And that is probably wise advice. For the time being however, I will continue […]