Have you ever read a post on your blog a couple of days later (after publishing) and found words or spelling that needed to be changed? I just make the changes and usually go on down the road unless my mistake has been pointed out in a reader’s comment.
Mostly these amount to word usage mistakes that weren’t caught by the spell check–like there or their, to and too, accept and except, effect and affect. These type of changes are usually no big deal and really don’t affect the message.
Here is a good article on blogging from the Washington Post, by Dan Zak. It contains some good advise for those starting out and even for bloggers who have been around for a while. Read the entire article if you want you blog to reach a greater audience. The main points in the article are elementary but useful and profound.
There is an interesting article in the Washington Post about Worship on the Web. It starts out talking about how religion in general has become an important part of the web experience. Here is a short quote:
” “The first wave of religion online, in the 1990s, was mainly for nerds and young people and techies,” said Morten Hojsgaard, a Danish author who has written extensively about online religion. “But now it really is a mirror of society at large. This is providing a new forum for religious seekers.”
There are a number of things that you can do to increase the visibility of your ministry blog and the number of different people actually visiting your site. Are numbers all that important? Ask a Pastor if he or she would rather have a growing church or a stagnant one.
A lot depends upon the goals and reasons you started the blog in the first place.
Why Blogging? Because God and his son Jesus Christ need equal time in the blogosphere.
Pastors have so little real time to influence their people and blogging can extend and increase the opportunity to share the Gospel and the Christian world view not only with their own congregation, but also with anyone else who happens to come across the site. Best of all, blogging can literally be done at anytime, and the time investment is minimal compared with the possible results.
Blogs can be set up to reach only a private audience like Youth ministries and church groups. WordPress.com in particular allows for private sites for free. Groups can have there own calendar, communication, message, and feedback site. Passwords to enter as a reader/subscriber can be given to members only; while leaders maintain control over the site and its content.
I had no idea that thousands of people every day were confessing their sins on the internet until I ran across it. Thousands apparently sense a lack and a need in their lives and are turning to the internet for answers and absolution?
Millions of people are involved in blogging, look at blogs everyday, and search the internet. There are 10s of millions of blogs that post about religion and proudly wear the title of ‘Godblogs’ and probably even more websites that can be identified as religious.
Many of those sites are produced by the writers as a hobby, and then there are other sites which are obviously designed to be an internet ministry.
Soon nearly every family in America rich or poor will have a computer or access to one and/or a tablet or cell phone with access to the internet. Internationally, the internet is growing at a phenomenal rate. As a media for ministry the potential is really unlimited.
It is really amazing how many people can be reached and how many nations can be touched by a very simple ministry located on the World Wide Web.
Among the many confusing terms that you run into when you are just starting out in the blogosphere is “RSS”. Yet this term is of prime importance to understand if you are going to expand the influence of your blogging ministry.
What is RSS? Simply defined it stands for : Really Simple Syndication.
According to a MinistryToday article written in 2009:
“On Feb. 1 youth groups around the world will be going on a two-week missions trip—from the comfort of their homes.”
A new ministry called ‘Online Missions Trip’ is encouraging young people to evangelize via social networking Web sites like Facebook, MySpace, and World of Warcraft. Tim Schmoyer, pastor of student ministries at Evangelical Covenant Church of Alexandria in Alexandria, Minn. talks about the new online missions ministry for youth:
Here’s a good article from DailyBlogTips: “Write Your Titles CAREFULLY and AFTER the Post”
Daniel Scocco writes that titles are important and more time and effort should be given to composing the best possible headline for a post. It is a fact that most decide whether to read an article or not based upon the title alone.
Anyone who’s been publishing a blog for a while has received comments that are inappropriate for a Christian site–comments full of obscenities or bearing links to pornography–or comments that you would rather not have published on your blog.
There are always those Christians who consider it their mission to drop pre-written articles into the comment line of any post that comes close in anyway to their specialty issue. Mention ‘baptism’ in a post and you might receive an unsolicited 2 page teaching on "why infant baptism is a false practice"–posted on the comment line. You may even agree with the teaching but it really doesn’t respond in any way to the original post–what do you do?
There are so many host sites anymore that is confusing to a beginner and even to someone like me who has been around for nearly ten years. To find the best current host for you site--'google:'
best blog hosts or
best website hosts or
top ten hosting sites.
.com .net .info .org .us
The right domain name is extremely important to have yet few folks spend a lot of time coming up with the best Internet address possible for their blog or ministry site.
Remember, you have to live with the domain address and your target audience needs to be able to find you. Another aspect rarely thought about is the fact that the Internet is ‘international’ and whether you intend to reach out to the world or not folks from all around the globe will visit your site. The name should reflect well on who you are and what you intend to be doing in this international forum.
I know of one Christian who has a real popular blog site who is nevertheless considering a domain change because his address contains the word ‘naked’ as in ‘naked truth’ but ends up being blocked by some search engines as a potential porno site. The name is innovative and is easy to remember and creates attention—all of the things that you might want in a name except sometimes it gets the wrong type of attention.
Now there’s a new template designer tool from Blogger which offers a far greater variety and makes a way for greater creativity and uniqueness—take a look:
I found that 'Blogger Help' site is the best at helping one to start a Blogger blog with the least trouble:
https://support.google.com/blogger/
“How People Blogging Are Changing the World and How You Can Join Them”
By Bob Walsh (Berkeley, CA: Apress, 2007, 351 pages)
An excellent book on why one should blog and how to get started. Bob gives suggestions about getting started publishing a blog with Blogger, Windows Live, and TypePad and evaluates which blogging platform might be best for you considering your goals and what type of blog you wish to publish. <
