Brian has covered this before, but one of the things that I’ve found is most effective in bringing visitors to your site is posting regularly.

On my personal homepage I’ve been trying to post something with substance twice a week. What has been even more effective is splitting longer posts up. There are a couple of ways to do this:

1. Just split it up. Remember, 3-6 paragraphs or about 500 words is the most that anyone is going to read on your blog. If what you’ve written is longer than this or even close, split it up into posts with titles that have “Part 1″ and “Part 2″ on them. Two posts of 200 words will draw people and have them at your site longer than one 5oo page article.
2. Teaser posts.In the past two months I’ve written a number of longer pieces, both for my personal blog and as a guest post on a friend’s blog. In both instances the piece itself was preceded by a teaser post. This works best when the teaser post contains something interactive – post your bullet points, a video, or a question for your readers (your  best bet for interaction). This will create a bug in your readers’ brains so that they’ll want to come back and see what you’re going to say about it.

This is my 5th paragraph and I am at 227 words, so I am going to end it here. Just get out there and post a few posts!

1. Post REGULARLY (not a numerical goal): Something as specific as “I’m going to post every Tuesday and Friday.”

2. Respond to EVERY comment: A blog is set up for discussion and engagement; if you do not respond to comments you will dampen the spirits of those who comment and decrease the chances that they will comment in the future.

3. Link to other bloggers in your posts: Next to commenting on other people’s posts this is the easiest way to build rapport in the blogosphere.

4. Embed pictures and videos more frequently: It causes more people to engage and requires just a little bit more time on your behalf.

5. Focus your posts around specific topics: the more diverse your blog is the less it will be read. If people know what you blog about they will be more likely to check your site when the want information about a specific topic. There’s no way you will compete with the Huffington Post.

photo courtesy of undeleterious

1. Consolidate Your Categories to 3-5 larger ones: None of your readers are going to take the time to go through fifty different category tags. Eliminating tags will also help focus your writing and make your posts sharper.

2. Optimize Your Blog Title for Search Engines: Is your blog title abstract? Or is it only your name? Both lack the information to help those searching for content online find you. The title of my personal blog was “The Necessary Things” (too abstract). I recently added a subtitle to help with search engine optimization: “The Necessary Things–Future Oriented Leadership Thoughts within Campus Crusade.” Much more descriptive and immediately lets people know what the blog is about.

3. Optimize Your Permalinks for Search Engines: Read this article on using permalinks. If you’re still using “ugly” ones please change to “pretty.” They don’t just look better, they also make your blog posts more findable.

4. Mix Media into your blog design and posts: Are there any pictures of videos on your blog layout? Are there hundreds of pictures or videos on your blog layout? Each person that gets into blogging leads more towards one of these three media elements: text, photos, video. A big part of the refining process of blogging is balancing each of these three media elements to increase engagement among your readers.

5. Post more often by reading more posts: Are you using an RSS reader? Are you reading any other blogs besides yours? Reading other people’s blogs has probably helped me with my own blogging more than anything else. If you have yet to dive into RSS I suggest starting with Google Reader. It’s easy to use and if you have an iPhone or a Droid there are apps that sync with it.

I’m all about keeping my inbox at zero these days. Here’s the post I read that inspired me.

Since creating content can be the biggest challenge for entry level and mid-range bloggers, I wanted to encourage you to use emails that you either send or are sent to you as fodder for blog posts.

Here are some practical ways to turn an email into a blog post:

If it was an insightful email:

• Quote part of the email and explain what made it so insightful.

• If the email caused you to take a significant action step or think about something differently, blog about that.

• Extract the principle or spirit of the email and blog about that.

• Sometimes I receive emails from leaders who write with a powerful tone. I like to step back and evaluate my writing in light of theirs, looking for ways I can improve my tone.

If it was an annoying/unnecessary/common email:

• Don’t quote it!

• What was it about the email that made it annoying? Did it tap into any of your core values or strengths? Don’t write about the annoying part. DO write about the core value/strength stuff.

• Is it a metaphor for something wrong on a greater scale? What could you write that in some small way might lead people in a more redemptive pattern?

• Google the problem that the email caused/suggested. Write a post offering tactical solutions based on the links that Google provided. Now you’re actually contributing to the solution in a meaningful and practical way.

What are your tips for turning emails into blog posts?

Ok, I admit it: I’ve been in blog world for only six months, which undoubtedly puts me in the minority within the Campus Ministry. But even though I’m a newbie, I think I’ve learned a few lessons along the way that may help the remaining four of us tip-toe into the unfamiliar.

I am committed to growing in all areas of my life. I have never wanted the fear of the unknown to rule my world and eventually close it down. Learning helps my character, as well as my trust in the Lord, to grow. I sensed God wanted to expand my footprint to encompass ministry to believers and non-believers alike. So last spring I took that scary first step and started the process of actually getting my own blog site.

I had a new book coming out in June ’09, Grace and Guts: What It Takes to Forgive, and the marketing strategy included a blog piece. I contacted two friends who were far ahead of me and asked for their help: Mike Foster of PlainJoe Studios and Brian Barela, MTL at Chico State. Both of these guys were invaluable to me, lending insight and very practical suggestions on how to proceed.

Now, I’m going to be honest here: At first I felt way over my head. I was afraid of failure, I entertained thoughts that it was all too hard for me, and I even slammed my computer shut one morning when I couldn’t import an image into my post! But I am growing and learning—and expanding my ministry. I’m glad I’m hanging in there, and I celebrate even the smallest of victories.

Maybe a few of you have been hesitant about claiming new ground in blog world, too. My advice? Grab a few friends who are further down the road than you and just jump in. You might fall and skin a knee or two, but you won’t crash and burn, I promise. Before long, you’ll be smoothly marching into blog world. Practice makes perfect. I’d love to hear about your successes, too. Just post them as comments on my blog site at http://graceandguts.net/

This is a guest post by Barbara Francis. Subscribe to her blog here | Add her on Facebook

If you haven’t started a blog for fear of the time involved in self-hosting, you should know: Choosing NOT to set up your blog all by your lonesome is a valid, viable, and oftentimes smart option. This applies for those blogging personally, professionally, or for their college ministry site.

There’s often an assumption that starting a blog requires an enormous amount of time:

1. Time to learn the best blogging platform.
2. Time to learn the possible blog design options.
3. Time to learn the necessary code to design your blog.
4. Time to learn “search engine optimization” so your blog will actually get found.
5. Time for trial-and-error, tweak after tweak, perhaps even reading a book or contacting tech support – just so your blog looks normal.
6. More time tweaking, in hopes that your blog looks better than normal.

All this – and you haven’t even written a post.

Brian B. asked me to post here about something I sheepishly “admitted” to him as we hung out at Chico State the other day: I don’t do the “self-hosting” thing. That means that I don’t do much “behind the scenes” work on my blog, instead relying on the platform (in my case, WordPress) to do all that for me.

And two years into regular blogging, I’m still quite content with our arrangement.

I started my blog (exploringcollegeministry.com) in July, 2007, three weeks before I left Dallas on a yearlong road trip. Though I’m fairly tech-savvy (when I try to be), I didn’t have time to walk through the steps I listed above. So I went the free-hosting route.

Yes, there are fewer options available to me. But I’ve still got lots of themes and options I can choose from. And when there are “non-negotiables” I want to make sure my blog contains, I make sure I pick a theme that contains those elements. Further, my perfectionism doesn’t have the chance to run rampant – not only can I ignore many elements of “power blogging,” but I don’t even have to take the time to learn how they all work. So I probably enjoy blogging a little bit more.

Sure, I can’t adjust everything I want to adjust. And I recognize that there are lots of good reasons to self-host. But the amount of time I save with everything WordPress does for me – like providing a great basic design and managing search engine optimization – makes free-hosting worth it at this point in my ministry. (I’ve actually used a WordPress-hosted blog for my ebook site, too, as well as a couple of other projects. So yes, I’m a fan.)

If I ever have the time (or staff!) to self-host, maybe I’ll do it. But for now, I’d far rather let the experts handle the behind-the-scenes stuff (for free) – while I tend to blogging daily and taking road trips around the country.

Are you looking to read up on how to improve your blogging?

Here are some great links from the pros:

• 50 Ways to Take Your Blog to the Next Level–Chris Brogan

• A Sample Blogging Workflow–Chris Brogan

• Blogging Tips for Beginners–Problogger

• Discipline is Your Blog’s Missing Ingredient–ChurchCrunch

• Blogger Basics–Image Compression–ChurchCrunch

image courtesy of tudor

CRU Blogging is hosting a 30 minute webinar to help ministries understand the value in switching over to a blog for the main ministry website. We hope to share some vision, explain some tactics, and answer your specific questions.

I’ve noticed that a lot of ministries have outdated websites, and would like to try something new, but don’t know where to start.

I’ve also noticed that the focus is on DESIGN (better logo, graphics, text formatting) and have yet to see the value of upgrading the website to facilitate more ENGAGING CONTENT.

Sign up here in this post, or in the widget box on the right hand side of your screen.

How do I start? I saw this question last week (essentially), so I did this video. It’ll be a series of basic instructional videos on how to use WordPress.

One thing that I forgot to say in the video. You should check out the readme.html file in the WordPress directory after you unzip the folder.

When you’re taking up a new role in your life or your job there are always things that you need to learn how to do. The same is true with blogging in ministry.

Here are some skills that you’ll need to learn, some for every blogger and some just for self-hosted bloggers.

First, you need to learn how to read a manual. No, really, you do. I seem to be able to pick up a program and figure it out naturally, but that only gets me so far. Just like in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, I need to learn from a master to be able to truly use my skills. Every good blogging platform has some official and some non-official “manuals” that will help you learn how to use it better. WordPress.com has their support site, self-hosted WordPress has the Codex, Tumblr has their help section, TypePad has the Knowledge Base.

Next, and this is important to everyone who uses a computer or any piece of technology, you need to learn how to use Google well. It should not be hard to find out just about anything about how to do something relatively normal to your site. Want to moderate spam comments on TypePad? Try typing “spam comments TypePad into Google. Want to change the banner on your WordPress self-hosted blog? Type in the name of the theme that you’re using and “header image” and I guarantee you’ll find info. Try doing this before you email the “experts” that you’re friends with, because I guarantee that’s what they’re doing when you ask them.

For self-hosted bloggers, there is one more thing you need to learn: FTP. (Wikipedia article on FTP – just read the first two paragraphs.) This is how you upload things to your blog that aren’t directly included into your posts or pages. (Hint: this is probably how you’ll have to upload your new header image.) Most blogging platforms have done a lot to remove this from being required in your toolbox, I’d still suggest learning how to do it. Most of the time it’s barely more complicated than moving a file on your computer.

More skills you’ll need to learn that we’ll cover in the future: Image Editing, Tag Word Choices, How to Not Get Sued.

Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/chefranden/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Jayson:Tumblr calls itself “the easiest way to blog.” They may just be right. Ben Meredith shares why he chooses this platform.

From their site:

Tumblr lets you effortlessly share anything. Post text, photos, quotes, links, music, and videos, from your browser, phone, desktop, email, or wherever you happen to be. You can customize everything, from colors, to your theme’s HTML.

Brian just posted something the other day about RSS, and why it’s good. Let’s take a step back, what is a feed?

Think of it this way, back in 2001 when you wanted to see if your favorite pages had updated you’d have to go to each one of them to check. For the most part, that is not true today, this is because of feeds.

Think of it this way, when the Associated Press publishes a new piece they send it out to every news source that has subscribed to their newsfeed. The news organizations that subscribe to it don’t have to call the AP every 15 minutes and ask if there’s anything new happening; the AP sends the new news to them.

That is a feed.

The best way to get someone to read something is to send what you want to read to them. Magazines do it, the IRS does it, your county does for jury duty – and you do it already (your prayer letters). Imagine if you just set your newsletters outside your house each month and asked your partners to come bye and pick them up so they can pray for you… yeah, I know, stupid.

You probably already use feeds. Twitter, podcasts, email updates from websites, etc., these are all examples of feeds or are services that use feeds to run them.

That orange symbol up there, that symbol says, “Hey! Subscribe to me!” If you notice, it’s in at least two locations on our CruBlogging (even more if you are using Firefox or Chrome). If you click on them or the place on our sidebar that says “Entries RSS” you’ll be taken to a page to tell your browser how you want to subscribe to us. Let me suggest Google Reader. (Make sure you look at the Google Reader tour too.)

One of the most confusing and frustrating parts of finding a web host is not knowing what to look for.

Brian and I have decided to take a look at the hosts that we use and go through the benefits of both options. Also, I’ll share an option that is available to people who are in ministry with Campus Crusade for Christ or any of it’s affiliate ministries.

First, our hosts. I use DreamHost for all of the sites that I host or run (including this one) while Brian uses MediaTemple for all of his hosting needs (this is what CSUChat.com was registered through).

Dreamhost

Dreamhost has been around for just over 11 years now and have been a wonderful resource for me since I set up my own Whelpley.org site for our ministry partners. Here are some of the things you get for the $8.95 per month price.

• Storage: Unlimited + 50Gb of storage.
  • Wait, unlimited plus something? Yep. You have unlimited storage for things that are accessible through a web page, but they also provide 50gb of storage for your files and things from your hard drive that won’t be accessible through a web page. No other “unlimited” web host offers anything like this
• Bandwidth: Unlimited
  • Unlimited. No, really, unlimited. Here’s what they say on their site: “What we mean is, you don’t have to worry about disk storage or network transfer when your site gets popular.” You do have to keep things running cleanly and efficiently, but other than that there’s not a lot of limits.
• Databases: Unlimited
• Registered/Hosted Domains: Unlimited
• User Accounts:
  • Email Accounts: Unlimited
  • FTP Accounts: Unlimited

Other Benefits: POP/IMAP email access, easy One-Click installation of  programs (WordPress, Gallery, ZenCart, PhpGedView, Pligg, dotProject, Moodle, Joomla, phpBB, MediaWiki, WebCalendar, Advanced Poll, and Trac), easy Google Apps integration, PHP5, Ruby on Rails, CGI, free Subdomains, free website mirrors and redirects, QuickTime streaming, 24-hour tech support, Web-based account panel, DreamHost support Wiki.

The $8.95 per month cost is based on a 2-year contract and paying at the beginning. If you pay for one year it works out to $9.95/mo and $10.95/mo (plus a $49.95 set-up fee) if you have a month-to-month contract.

I’d recommend DreamHost to every one who was looking for their own web-host. I’ve had virtually zero problems in the past 3 1/2 years. If you want your own account, click here to sign up, or use the promo code WHELP2 to get a discount on your domain registration.

MediaTemple (MT)

For those who have EXTREMELY limited knowledge of how to host, welcome to my club! I had no idea where to start in looking for a hosting provider.

My response: go to my favorite/most respected sites and see what they use. Over and over I saw Media Temple featured on the sites I liked/trusted.

There customer service is great (very patient people on the other side of the phone to answer my stupid questions, support tickets answered in under 24 hours usually, easy to navigate website, and an iPhone app (not a big reason, but cool nevertheless).

I pay $100 a year for the Grid Service Package (click here to read about the tech features of it).

CruTech Hosting

This is a hosting service through CruTech which is through the MidAtlantic Campus Ministry office. I (Jayson) run it through a DreamHost server that is owned by CruTech. What you get with this is the unlimited hosting and bandwidth of DreamHost without having to administer it yourself. I’ll set up your WordPress site and do some very basic design stuff and hand it off to you, you can take it anywhere you want from there.

The charge for this varies by ministry location and what ministry you are with; we charge only by staff account transfer so your payment is easy you just give me the account number or Chartfield and I’ll run the charge through after we set it up. Email me at jayson@CruTech.org for information about this.

Post image can be found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/altemark/ / CC BY 2.0

What are some questions you have as you think about going self-hosted? How can we help you figure out the best solution?

RSS (most commonly translated as “Really Simple Syndication” but sometimes “Rich Site Summary”) is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format.–Wikipedia

When someone mentions ‘your feed’ or ‘my feed’ this is what they are talking about. By making your feed easily accessible you enlarge the range of options by which people can consume your content.

I read some blogs only on my computer, I read MOST blogs on my iPhone using Byline, an RSS reader that syncs with Google Reader. That way I can highlight posts I like and easily revisit them when I’m using Gmail, or writing blog posts.

If you’re new to blogging here are some first steps to take:

• Sign up for a Feedburner account; it provides for easily distribution and tracking of your subscribers (those who are receiving your feed)
• Promote your Feed on your blog: most commonly this is in the form of a widget, but you can promote your feed by adding a link at the end of every post (Jayson can provide the technical details on this)
• Write a post asking people to subscribe to your feed. It may capture some readers who visit infrequently.