Still 5 More Tips for Christian WordPress Bloggers

Don’t mind me – just trying to share tips for successful blogging on the cornucopia of content that is WordPress! Not that I’m a guru or anything – I’m just sharing what I’ve found by experience. Read my previous 15 tips on the subject here, here, and here (and my last five here).

16. Use a Call to Action

If you’re frustrated that people don’t share your posts on social media, try asking them to. It may sound mind-bogglingly simplistic, but research has shown that people tend to do what you’re hoping them to do (in this case, share your post on social media) when you explicitly ask them, rather than hoping they’ll read your mind. I’ve got a sample Call to Action at the end of this post.

17. Get that first post up!

A lot of my new followers haven’t yet written their first post. I don’t usually follow such blogs back. Please don’t be offended – I have to ensure that my follower feed is 1) as spare as possible so I don’t get buried and 2) in line with my beliefs. 2) is impossible for me to gauge if there’s no material by the blogger yet!

So if you haven’t posted yet, get that first post up. I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of blogger you are.

18. Join blogging communities

My blog didn’t start taking off until I was invited to a Facebook blogging community (Faith and Family Bloggers – look it up). They’re there to support you, share you, and when needed, refine you. Don’t be shy or intimidated about any of this – everyone in those groups started where you did. Find one and join up!

19. Think about font readability

I mentioned in an earlier post that your formatting shouldn’t be gimmicky, but you can take this further by doing some research into how scientifically readable your font choices are.

Some fonts, like Times New Roman, are harder to read than others. There is also contrast to think about; the elderly eye, for example, gets exhausted reading black-on-white and actually runs into much less fatigue reading dark gray-on-white instead. Weird, I know. Do some research!

20. Use images

Posts grab a lot more attention if you’re able to come up with a witty or thought-provoking image for it (or multiple images!). You can use online editing sites like PicMonkey to add captions and other modifications. (I don’t have an image for this post, but I do for most of mine.)

Pro tip: if you want to avoid the hassle of possible copyright infringement when you’re searching online for images to use, search for images that aren’t protected. In Google images, under the Settings tab, select Advanced Search. Then, for “usage rights”, select “free to use, share or modify, even commercially”. This will list images that have been left unprotected by the user (usually intentionally). Tweak away!

If you know someone who would be blessed by this post, feel free to share it on social media. Thanks a bunch!

25 thoughts on “Still 5 More Tips for Christian WordPress Bloggers”

That’s a little answer to an unspoken prayer – your mention of that particular FB group – thanks Brandon! Librestock is a great resource for free images too, but handy to know about those settings, thanks.

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Brandon Adams says:

09/09/2017 at 12:10 pm

Thanks for mentioning Librestock. Hadn’t heard of them.

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- Liberty on the Lighter Side - (LoLS) says:
  
  09/09/2017 at 12:13 pm
  
  They are good in that they pull a few sites together, found out about them on another writing site (which I’m sorry I can’t remember now).
  
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- Liberty on the Lighter Side - (LoLS) says:
  
  09/10/2017 at 8:01 am
  
  Oh and here’s another, specifically for Christian images that have just found! https://freelyphotos.com
  
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All good advice!

Here’s one thing I might add, some of us follow many, many blogs,as well as responding to lots of email, so we may not always get back to you promptly. WordPress can also drop followers in some kind of glitch. So, don’t take these things personally, be persistent, leave people links. I’ve had a few new bloggers hurt because they think I unfollowed them when I didn’t. Everyone is different, but I happen to love links, so leave links.

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Brandon Adams says:

09/09/2017 at 12:11 pm

Yeah, my blog has mysteriously dropped a few followers. I know one RL friend who’s had to refollow at least twice for some reason.

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Thanks for the tip concerning the color and font issue! I’ve created a site where I’m teaching the Book of Revelation. I’m going to use what you’ve mentioned here on that blog! Thanks a bunch!

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Brandon Adams says:

09/09/2017 at 1:25 pm

No problem! It’s the sort of thing I never would have even thought to learn without research.

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Awesome! Thanks for the tips!

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Good stuff Brandon! I’m the founder of DailyPS.com – As of this morning we just hit 65 Christian authors posting on our blog. These points are solid and many of them I share with our newer authors. Thanks for taking the time to write this and share it with everyone! If you’re ever looking to guest post (no pressure at all) check out https://dailyps.com/ – We’d be honored to have a professional like yourself!

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Brandon, Good stuff!! BTW, PicMonkey evidently is charging now, so I’ve found an even better FREE site https://ipiccy.com/ and THANKS for the tip about a blogging community–how does one “join”?

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