Tips Christian Blogging

Christian blogging can help your church or ministry with your church outreach. It is no doubt a powerful outreach tool. For church outreach purposes, you want to take a strategic approach to your Christian blogging.

Invest in a good blogging tool.

There are several free blogging tools available. These free tools might seem like a good deal, but they don’t compile each of your blogs into multiple blogs and then optimize them to secure page one listings on search results. You have to do that yourself and that takes a lot of work.

Compendium does the opposite. It makes Christian blogging easier, faster and more effective. For a free demo on how this tool can help you in your Christian blogging, call Pathmaker Marketing for a free demo at 623-322-3334.

Invest in keyword research.

Whenever Pathmaker Marketing sets up a blog, we gave Compendium a list of strategic keywords that people would search when looking for a service like ours. The Compendium tool automatically compiles our posts into multiple blogs under all appropriate keywords, not just the one into which we posted it. This work-leveraging feature also optimizes the posts to tell the search engines to, “Come find me.”

Pathmaker Marketing helps clients do keyword research that select keywords that are not only used by people searching for their services but also (a) get a lot of searches and (b) don’t have too much competition to break into. Pathmaker also helps clients evaluate where they currently stand in search results for those keywords and then develop strategies to improve those standings.

Develop ministry-oriented content that uses keywords.

Not only do you want people to find your blog entries, you want them to find the information useful enough to convince them to visit or contact your church and get the benefits you offer them. Christian blogging should be ministerial in nature, and you should provide contact information so people who need the ministries you offer can easily find you.

When you use the right kind of blogging tool, put adequate time into choosing the right targeting keywords and develop concise but helpful content using those keywords, your Christian blogging can become an effective online extension of your church outreach efforts.

Church Outreach Ideas for the Internet: eWelcome

Whenever you welcome someone to you church, it is likely that you have a team ready to make sure the new person feels welcome. They serve him coffee, exchange sincere pleasantries and ask for his contact details. Your church does this to make sure that the newcomer comes back to your church and becomes a regular attendee and active participant.

Using the same analogy, your church website can strategically welcome and interact with your first-time and returning visitors by offering them something "ministerial" in exchange for their basic contact information.

There are many ways to do this. For example, you can offer free Christian e-books, spiritual gifts tests, MP3 files of your best sermons, invite them to read your ministry blog, or install a prayer wall where they can leave their prayer request. In exchange, the website visitor would simply have to provide basic contact information: First Name and Email Address.

Typically, once they have requested your special free offers, your system will have a triggered set of email messages that automatically go out at pre-established intervals: one week later, two weeks later, etc. Each email is designed to get those newcomers further acquainted with your church and encourage them to return, possible even get further involved.

Each autoresponder email message is designed to welcome the newcomer to a different aspect or your church or ministry, and of course, encourage them to get involved. Why not collect email and snail mail addresses on church visitors in exchange for a Welcome Kit about your church, then place those emails into your electronic welcome series?

Some good real-time examples of this practice can be found in Gregory Dickow Store and in the Jewish Voice Ministries.

By developing an incentive-based e-welcome series, you can be assured that you will remain in contact with people who have shown in interest in your church outreach inperson or on your website. This may not yield instant results in increased church membership, but you are establishing relationships with newcomers, who as long as they remain on your email list, are indicating that their interest remains. Plus, typical results show that for every 100 emails you acquire, 63% of those will also give you their full name and mailing address in exchange for a Welcome Kit from your ministry!

For a Free Demo on how this process works, contact Pathmaker Marketing at 623-322-3334.