Blogging has evolved a lot over the past five years, and churches blogs make no exception. Pastors have realized that blogs are among the most effective tools for keeping in touch with their community, so they’ve dedicated a lot of time and efforts to improve their act of blogging. Introvert pastors and community members have found this effective way to overcome their communication issues. For most introverts, writing is much easier than public speaking, as it enables them to be more focused and to express their ideas more clearly. Also, blog commenting and replying to such comments should be easier than live Q&A sessions conducted in the church.
Church blogging has changed a lot since 2011/2012 year. Fist of all, pastors have understood the benefits of SEO, so they have focused on finding the best keywords and topics to use in their blog posts. On-page optimization is easy to understand and to apply, so even outsiders can do a brilliant job in using specific cues that help search engines know what a page is all about. This focus on SEO has helped churches blogs gain a lot of traction, as they’ve managed to attract more organic search traffic. These people make excellent leads, as they are usually easier to convert. Even if pastors don’t sell anything on their blogs, they can get their readers to perform specific actions such as joining a mailing list, subscribing to various events and donating money to their church.
Speaking of conversions, this is one of the most important phases in the evolution of churches blogs. The smartest pastors have spotted the opportunity of creating an email list, so they’ve used software tools like MailChimp and AWeber to determine their readers to join their mailing lists. These pastors have managed to take their blogs to the next level, by using them as lead generators. Some of them offer incentives to people who subscribe to their newsletters, so we can safely say they’ve grasped the basic concepts of digital marketing. Once they have the email addresses of the members of their community, they can keep these people updated with the latest news and events, thus offering them the opportunity to get involved and to bring their contribution to the spiritual life of the parish.
As they’ve got used to blogging, these introvert pastors have discovered the power of video blogging. They’ve started to record their sermons and publish them on dedicated YouTube channels. They’ve integrated these videos in their blogs, thus offering people a chance to listen to them without having to go to the church. This is an excellent opportunity for physically impaired individuals to follow their pastor without having to leave their homes.
All these development phases are very important, as they are nothing else but milestones on the way of religious and spiritual blogging. Since the digital world is in continuous evolution and transformation, there’s no wonder church blogging has followed the same trend. Pastors with good technical skills are currently trying out live blogging, as a better tool for their followers to interact with the church and with other members of their community.
All these being said, we can see church blogging has known a tremendous evolution which is far from coming to an end anytime soon. As more and more pastors become aware of the power of the internet, they learn the basics of internet marketing, SEO and blogging, thus being able to improve their blogs to take their communication skills to the next level. Thanks to the effectiveness of blogging, even introverts can be brilliant online.
