What MOST How To Guides Don’t Tell You About Christian Blogging
Most people who start a blog, quit within the first three months.
Shocking, I know.
We start our blogs with good intentions. We want to share the message that God has placed on our hearts and possibly for some even earn an extra income on the side to support our families.
But, after weeks of giving it your all, not seeing much traffic not seeing any results, most call it quits. That my friends, is the reality of blogging.
You are likely here because you want to start a Christian Blog and begin blogging for Jesus.
Or, perhaps you just want to learn about Christian Blogging?
Whatever your situation, there is much more to blogging than just purchasing a domain name and a web host.
I have pulled together an in-depth guide to help you create a plan for your blog as you get started as a Christian blogger alongside sharing blogging lessons I have learned along the way.
HOW TO START A CHRISTIAN BLOG PIN FOR LATER
This post may contain affiliate links. You can read my full affiliate disclosure here.
Find Your Why For Christian Blogging
Know your why? Why do you want to get started with christian blogging? Is it to share your faith, or is it to earn extra income to support your family?
We can easily become distracted by the lifestyle of popular bloggers who make a full-time income online from their blogs.
Know this, blogging isn’t a get rich scheme, success doesn’t happen overnight. It takes lots of hard work and being intentional with your blog. If money is your motivator, you will quickly become discouraged when you don’t see your blog making any money.
As a christian blogger, at the forefront should be the desire to create a ministry that helps spread the gospel and bring your readers closer to God.
Spend some time sharing your desires with God and let him guide the direction of your blog. Find an area that you are passionate about and can talk about at great lengths and let that be the focus of your blog. Alternatively, find an area that you don’t mind continually learning about and staying on top of new trends.
For days that you might feel like quitting, ultimately its your passion and mission that will help keep you motivated.
For me, my desire was just simply that I wanted to write, and wanted the opportunity to share and grow my faith in the process. Just a side note, starting a faith based blog is an awesome way to grow your faith. After all, you can’t write what you don’t know, so you will find yourself regularly spending time in the word.
Blogging is more than just writing on whatever topics that you like, quite frankly, its not about you. Its not just writing about your family or how you spent your vacation. Blogging is more about curating content that your readers will enjoy and find beneficial. For a christian blogger, its about developing content that directs the reader back to Christ. In Matthew 28:19, Jesus charges us to, “Go and make disciples of all nations.” One way you can accomplish this is through blogging.
Identify the Target Audience For Your Christian Blog
Once you have narrowed in on your focus, you want to start thinking about your ideal reader. Think about that one person that you would like to appeal to. Think about where they hang out, what struggles they typically have. You can’t be all things to all people.
Wait, draw the brakes for a second,I haven’t even started my blog yet, where can I get this information you may ask? Facebook groups are pure gold, you can join groups and search for problem areas as a base for learning about your ideal reader.
Start with who you envision to be your ideal reader. As your blog grows, you can send out subscriber surveys which can help you further hone in on your target persona.
A reader persona will come in handy when you start developing content for your blog. It will ensure that you stay on topic and are indeed speaking to your ideal reader. Develop your Ministry Avatar is a free course and a great place to start to learn more about developing and creating a blog persona.
How To start A Christian Blog
I am all about blogging as affordably as possible. I know many bloggers recommend Siteground or BlueHost but personally I use NameCheap for both my domain and host. Their customer service is awesome,whenever I have issues one of their reps are readily available to troubleshoot and help me resolve the problem. Best of all, I have not seen my yearly domain and hosting fees skyrocket at renewals.
If you are just starting out and want an economical option, I would recommend purchasing a domain through Name cheap and using NameCheap EasyWP for hosting. Check to see if your domain name is available.
Once you have purchased a domain, next you will want to purchase a host, I would recommend NameCheap EasyWp.
Christian Blogging Lessons
I remember my very first time just like it was yesterday.
For months I delayed and wondered, what would people think of me.
Would it all come very naturally? Would I know what to say or do?
Would I be disappointed?
Pushing the doubts and negativity aside, I took a leap of faith and published my first blog post. Years later, surprise surprise, I am stilling blogging. The following are 5 Blogging lessons I learnt Blogging for Jesus and I hope it will be a blessing especially if you are a newbie blogger.
Stop Signing Up For Every Freebie
Raise your hand if you love freebies and challenges? I am guilty as charged! While there are some excellent resources out there. I was signing up for pretty much every interesting freebie I came across. Some I didn’t even need and never quite got around to completing. The minute I started being more strategic, I realized my stress level went down, and there was one less thing on my to do list.
Instead of signing up for every free webinar, I only sign up for things that meet my current goals. Signing up for every and anything distracts you. For me, it got me constantly overwhelmed because suddenly there was yet a new strategy that I must employ if I wanted to see massive traffic.
Whenever you come across a free resource, ask yourself this question. Does this align with my current goals? If no then simply ignore it. Only sign up for freebies that align with your current objectives as a Jesus blogger. If you feel like its something that you would love to check out in the future, create a future training’s word document on your computer and include the name of the freebie along with the opt-in page for you to reference in the future.
Consistency Matters As A Jesus Blogger
This one is still very much a struggle for me. Some weeks I am chill and killing it while other weeks I am struggling to keep my head above water. When it comes to blogging and building a loyal tribe, consistency matters for faith blogs.
Let me break it down for you. Think about your favorite TV series. Week after week you watch an episode and it leaves you on a cliff hanger high. Did she or didn’t she you question, eagerly awaiting the next episode to get your answer. But what if things were different, what if the series came this Monday and then next week Friday and then the next episode a month later? Eventually, although you like it, you are likely to lose interest. It is the same with Jesus blogging. You are building up a community that is grounded on what your audience know they can expect from you and your blog. They want to know that every Thursday or which ever day you choose, they can expect an encouraging word to show up in their inboxes or on the blog.
To do this, you need a plan. Doing things haphazardly won’t give you the full impact or the results you are likely hoping for. It took me a long while to realize this one. This year, I have been utilizing this Blog Planning Toolkit to help reduce the overwhelm and help me strategize and map out my blog content. It has helped me to map out a clear goal and vision for my blog. Think about what will give you the greatest result and put your focus there to help simplify your strategy.
Focusing On All The Wrong Things
I am sure you have heard it; the money is in the list. You need to build an email list, focus on search engine optimization and Pinterest, create a freebie, the list goes on and on. What I have come to realize is that the individuals that were promoting these initiatives, while they had good intentions behind them, they often had a team behind them, or were an established blogger. Here is my advice to all the newbies of faith blogs. Go at a pace that works for you, once accomplished, move on to the next thing. Trying to do all is usually a hit and miss. Speaking from experience here, I have tried to do them all and my growth suffered as a result. Prioritize what’s important, then once you have completely mastered that item move on to something else. Don’t be a Jack of all trades and master of none. Spending time to learn SEO was the best decision I ever made for my blog!
Learn As Much As You Can About Christian Blogging
It never hurts to learn as much as you can about blogging before you get started. It will only make the process much easier once you do launch your blog.
Learning shouldn’t stop once you launch, continue to educate yourself and learn new things by learning as much as you can about blogging. There are various free and paid courses to choose from that you can find by doing a simple Google search.
If you are not sure where to start, you can check out my Blogging Tips For Beginners Board which has a wide variety of articles on blogging that I have found helpful throughout my blogging journey.
Related: Affiliate Marketing Programs For Christian Bloggers
Recommended Courses For Christian Bloggers
Personally, I have the e-book. Its a bit more affordable compared to the course. If I were a newbie starting out again however, I would totally go with the Blog By The Number course. Having helpful videos to help you along when you have no clue what to do makes this course so worth it! It also includes a step by step tutorial on how to create a high converting home page.Taken by 8,000+ students, here are a couple features you will find in this course:
65+ Video Tutorials to Help You Step by Step:
- Build your blog and write your first post
- Launch your blog successfully
- Learn how to get visitors
- Discover how to make money from day 1
- What you get:
- Over 50 pre-made website templates to choose from!
- 500 free stock images, 8,000+ blog post ideas, a whole wagon of bonuses to make your life easier!
- A complete workbook and the Blog by Number ebook
When I just started blogging, I opted to sign up for Mailchimp, the main reason being it had a higher threshold for subscribers before I had to pay. However, I quickly realized how steep the learning curve was for Mailchimp and switched over to Mailerlite very early on. I find Mailerlite to be very user friendly. There is no charge if you have less than 1000 subscribers, a great option if you want to test it out.
If you are serious about growing your email list, I would recommend List By the Number. Suzi has massively grown her list over the years by using printables and she shows you the strategies she used in her course List By The Number.In the course, Suzi has tutorials which showcases how do use Mailerlite. In this course you will learn:
- 50+ video tutorials to help you master Convertkit and MailerLite
- Email Funnel Templates for Welcome, Education and Sales Series
- Basic and advanced techniques to help you grow your email list
- Make more sales through tagging, segmentation and advanced funnels
- 24 popular ideas to grow your email list
The printables market is huge! If you are struggling with designing your own printables to grow your email list or even to create your very first product, this course will help immensely. It includes lots of step by step tutorials using resources readily available to you such as PowerPoint and she shows you how to setup a shop on your website using tools such as Woocommerce. Thought PowerPoint was just for presentations? Think again! She even shows you how to create a Daily Bible Reflection Sheet which you can easily replicate, an awesome optin idea for christian bloggers.
In Printables By The Number you will learn how to create beautiful optins and printables to explode your email list and grow your income!
- Learn how to use three different programs to create beautiful optins or printables
- Grow your email list with optins
- Make money by selling your printables or offering printable creation services
Are you struggling to get traffic to your christian blog? Christian Bloggers Bootcamp is the course that helped to really turn around the trajectory on my blog so I could stop doing share threads, promoting on social media and commenting on blogs with the limited time I had. f you want to stop doing all the things and want to learn how to rank your blog post on page 1 of Google, this is the course for you.
Since taking this course, the traffic to my blog, grows consistently every month, that’s the power of Search Engine Optimization! The following is a look at my organic traffic analytics comparing March 2019 to March 2020. As you can see, in March 2019, I was only getting around 417 sessions, a year later am at 3630 sessions for March 2020. The exciting thing is that my organic traffic keeps going up, much of that I attribute to Christian Bloggers Bootcamp.
Christian Bloggers Bootcamp is an 8 week live course that will walk you through:
Defining your target audience
Blog Structure and Site Layout
Backend SEO Settings
Keyword Research
Develop a Blog Post that ranks on Google
Content Planning and Monetization
Pinterest and Branding
Affiliate Marketing For Christian Bloggers
There are a lot of affiliate marketing courses on the market. Affiliate Marketing For Christian Bloggers however, is geared especially for the faith niche. LeeAnn shares her strategies on how she manages to generate $200 a month consistently from Amazon and over $300 a month using a platform like Shareasale.
Related: How to Monetize Your Christian Blog
Focus On What Matters
One road block that not only new bloggers face, is spending too much time on things that aren’t bring you closer to your blog goals. While it’s a good choice to have a good design and fine tune your blog categories, time is much better spent on things that propel your blog.
You could instead focus your energy on crafting content that helps you find your voice, build an email list, focus on one or two social media platforms instead of being on all and spreading yourself thin. With social media, you need a strategy for each platform.Its not just sharing the same content across all platforms. If you do, what motivation is there for your audience to follow you across all platforms?
Christian Blogging
Here is what I want you to takeaway, there is more to christian blogging than what most 20 minutes guides on how to start a blog suggest. Before you launch spend time creating a plan for your blog, having a plan in place will help guide your decisions as a blogger, minimize overwhelm and help you focus on tasks that will truly grow your blog.
It can definitely be discouraging when you put yourself out there without any response! But I’ve learned it takes A LOT of time and dedication to actually gain not just an audience, but a faithful following. Thanks for sharing your insight with us!
I agree, it does take time and lots of hard work. Its your why that will ultimately keep you from calling it quits. Thankfully I have come across a very supportive blogging community.
Great information. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. Have a blessed day!
Thanks for stopping by Melissa!
Hi Shanique!
Happy to be here on your blog today.
You know, I really like the colours on your blog; It’s like I wake up ‘in a good way’ when entering your website 🙂
My husband is involved in retail Forex trading.
In that industry, they have a rule called 90/90/90 which means 90% of new retail Forex trader loose 90 % of their invested money within the first 90 days.
Ever since I heard that rule, I’ve been thinking about it in relation to our industry: blogging.
Your first line got me thinking about it again today.
It’s in the beginning chances of giving up are highest.
My thought on ‘the why’.
Many people go into blogging for one reason, that’s very dangerous; lack of money.
That’s is the worst reason I can think of for entering the blogging industry.
You wrote:
“. . . If money is your motivator, you will quickly become discouraged when you don’t see your blog making any money.”
I agree with you here – AND I have an add: I do believe that money should be a motivating factor to a much higher degree than we see today in the Christian blogging community.
It’s almost impossible to find a Christian blogger who says; I’m making a ton of money from my blog, and I’m pleased about it.
Christian bloggers don’t talk, blog or know much about money topics.
This is why it’s great to see people like you blogging about these topics.
I see a tremendous need for Christian bloggers who are willing to educate the Christian community about how long time it takes before you eventually earn money from your blogging – and what to do while waiting/working for it.
I understand what you say about ‘being passionate etc.’
I like to question this every time I see it; although I understand it.
Perhaps it’s not necessary to be passionate about it; but it’s essential to show up every day and work, no matter what we ‘feel’ about it.
You nailed it when you wrote:
“. . . it’s your passion and mission that will help keep you motivated.”
But as I said, I tend to think the passion is quite secondary when we look at it with objectivity.
You’re right; blogging is an excellent way to reach newcomers for Christ.
Many of them learn about Jesus through blogs before they attend a church (which they check out online before they go there.)
I like your discussion of niche/focus.
What you said about roadblocks is essential to understand right from the start.
A new blogger needs some numbers to measure the progress or lack thereof.
These numbers can be accessed freely for those who know what to look for.
My favourite sentence of this particular blog post was:
“Here is what I want you to take away, there is more to blogging than what most 20 minutes guides on how to start a blog suggest.”
Your voice is vital in the Christian community because you blog about a topic where there are not so many voices.
God bless you and your ministry!
Edna Davidsen.
I love how practical this is! I’ve been blogging for 4.5 years and get bogged down when I lose sight of my focus. Thankful for communities and feedback like yours!
Thanks for stopping by Annie!
Love these tips for beginning bloggers and even veteran bloggers. I jumped in head first and learned as I went. I am still learning through courses and trial and error. I love Carmen. She is one of my favorites! Pinning this
Thanks for pinning Brittany!
This is great! I did almost NO research before starting my blog. I did the “Field of Dreams” approach, “If you build it, they will come.” – Guess that only works in the movies 😛
I’ve been blogging for about 6 months or so – it’s definitely discouraging at times. I don’t so much “want” to write as feel compelled to – if that makes any sense. You’ve got some great ideas here that I need to dig into deeper – especially pursuing the Pinterest route.. Thanks for sharing!
If only it were as easy as build it and they will come. Blogging is a lot of work which most persons don’t seem to realize. I haven’t reached my 1 year anniversary either still somewhat of a newbie blogger. It gets discouraging at times but my passion for blogging keeps me going.
Definitely the Passion for me.
Like falling asleep on the couch He nudges you awake again, just can’t help myself.
Heaps of good info here, I’ll be reading again.
Thanks for putting in the effort Shanique
Thanks for the kind words Tony!
“They” definitely don’t tell you the whole story. It’s good to know what you are getting into!
ALL should be altruistic in Christ!
Wow, this was one of the best guides to starting a Christisn blog I have found. Thank you!!!