You’re filling your church’s blog with great blog posts, or so you think. However, no one seems to be reading them.
While you’re not likely to go viral overnight, you’d at least like to see your members engaging with your church’s blog. The key is to craft posts that both inspire and engage.
This might sound like a tall order, but it’s not as difficult as you might think. Once you know what elements to include, you’ll see more traffic on your site and not just from church members.
1. Focus On The Headline
Your headline is the most important element of all blog posts. The content matters, but if the headline doesn’t grab the reader immediately, they’ll never make it to the content. Church staff and volunteers are busy, which sometimes leads to headlines such as “Church Update #57” or “Today’s Scripture.”
Those don’t exactly inspire anyone to click to read more. Instead, think carefully about your topic and how to explain it in around 10 words or less. Your headline should describe the topic and make it sound interesting. A few great resources for creating engaging titles include:
- How To Write Catchy Headlines And Blog Titles Your Readers Can’t Resist
- 101 Catchy Blog Title Formulas
- Blog Title Generator
- 74 Attention-Grabbing Blog Titles That Actually Work
- How to Write Catchy Blog Post Titles That Get Clicked Like Crazy
2. Stick To The Point
No one likes rambling, unless it’s the person doing the rambling. For instance, we could veer off topic and go into what blog post templates to use or whether it’s best to put posts on your homepage or a separate blog. However, that’s not what the title of this post is about.
If your church’s blog posts aren’t sticking to the point, they turn into chaotic messes that no one wants to read. If other topics come to mind while writing, jot them down to turn into separate blog posts later.
3. Create Engaging Sub-Heads
Sadly, many people just skim blog posts. They’re looking for something that stands out and makes them want to read more. With millions of blog posts being published daily, there is a lot of content vying for attention. As with your main headline, your sub-heads need to engage your readers.
Make them short, yet descriptive. Putting them in a Q&A, step-by-step or list format also helps. Not sure what skimmable content is? These examples from HubSpot should help inspire you.
For churches, you might consider making the sub-head a motivational quote, scripture or lesson to be learned.
4. Teach Readers Something
Your church blog shouldn’t serve as an in-your-face marketing tool. Instead of constantly using posts to ask readers to come to your church, just focus on teaching them something. Readers want blog posts that are educational. They want to walk away feeling as if they spent their time well.
5. Find Relevant Topics
It’s also important to ensure the topics your blogging about are relevant. A post about the construction of a local school isn’t exactly relevant to your church unless your church is helping to fund it.
You have two options – topical and evergreen content. Topical works well to help visitors and members handle issues that are relevant in their lives right now, such as how to help after a major natural disaster. Evergreen content might help readers keep their faith after suffering a major loss.
6. Get Visual
Blogs are about text, right? Sort of. People like pictures too. In fact, images help boost engagement, social sharing and overall post traffic. They’re ideal for encouraging someone to click on a post. They also work well for summarizing a post, such as adding an infographic at the end that puts all the main points or statistics together.
You don’t have to have numerous visuals, but adding a main image is a great start. For long-form content (1,000 words or more), break up the content with a few extra visuals.
7. Tell A Story
Outside of headlines and sub-heads, this is the single most important element of engaging and inspiring blog posts. Storytelling has been a popular method for sharing advice, anecdotes and experiences for centuries. However, it’s rarely employed in blogging. Why? Many bloggers don’t think it’s professional enough.
For churches, it’s the perfect strategy. After all, storytelling is engaging and creates an emotional connection with the reader. Plus, the point of storytelling is to teach someone something. Smart Blogger goes in-depth on different ways to create engaging blog posts using this age-old method.
Do your blog posts meet all these criteria, but your site’s still not getting visitors? Try our free website analysis to see if there are areas for improvement.
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