I’m going to focus in the upcoming week on five dimensions in which your blog should be growing over time. We tend to think of a blog’s growth in terms of readership or pageviews, but there is much more to growth, long term, than statistical increases. Your blog needs to grow in other ways too.
This week’s posts are inspired by a quote from Rick Warren that describes his passion about the local church…
A church needs to grow warmer through fellowship, deeper through discipleship, stronger through worship, broader through ministry, and larger through evangelism.
That sentence may or may not mean a lot to you, but I keep going back to it in my mind when I think about the art of blogging. I want to zero in on each of those five dimensions of growth as they relate to your blog.
Five days. Five ways. Stay tuned for the rest by subscribing to this blog by rss or email.
HOW YOUR BLOG SHOULD GROW WARMER…
I’m not speaking to major news blogs here. This concept is tough for large, multi-author blogs, which is why personal and single-author blogs have an advantage on this dimension of growth – you can be known. I don’t mean “known” in the sense of popularity, but intimacy. People can get to know you. That’s powerful.
How then do you create warmth on your blog?
Be You
I can’t emphasize this enough. Blogging will be less and less enjoyable until you finally find the “you” in your voice. Decide what kind of blogger you are and be that with full confidence – let no one convince you otherwise.
Light A Fire (with Passion)
Blog with fervent heat! Write off the cuff, from the hip, and most importantly, from the heart. I almost never edit my blogging. This is different when you’re writing a research paper, course material, or perhaps even a book. But for a personal blog – edit less.
Design With Warmth
I once met with a client about designing his corporate website. I expected he’d want the typical elements of a corporate online identity but he surprised me. “I called you because your design makes me feel like I’m sitting by a warm hearth – that’s the feeling I want to capture.” Wow.
How do you do that with your design? For starters, don’t make it look like an advertising junkyard. This is not a rant about running ads – I’m cool with ads. Just make them feel like pictures hanging on the wall of your home, not trash thrown onto the front lawn.
Connect with Readers
Respond. Reply. Encourage. Help. Visit the “homes” of your readers once in a while. It’s part of being knowable.
You might think of this post as a post about community-building, but it’s not. I’m primarily focusing on making your blog feel like home. I’ll get to the community-building in a couple of days.
The big question of this post is simply what can I do to make my blog a warmer place? That shouldn’t be too hard. You are awesome, after all, aren’t you?
photo credit: jonmatthew photography
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Of course I’m awesome! I draw from Pastor Rick Warren’s teaching all the time – after all Purpose Driven Life helped me change my life for the better and I go back and review it every year. Last year I decided to publish my responses to my blog – little did I know that almost a year later that those responses get the most traffic to my blog.
Anyway, back to your point – creating a warm blog is my goal and even inspired my use of a sunset/sunrise-themed template.
I try to present stories from heart that will inspire and encourage others. Thanks for sharing these dimensions of growth inspired by one of my favorite leaders.
Sidenote: I know this is a year old but, I got so excited and cried when Rick Warren did the inaugural prayer last year.
One of my future goals is to make it to Cali and attend one of his sermons.
Kiesha @ Highly Favored´s last blog ..Top 10 unorthordox and unromantic indicators that your family truly loves you
Thanks Kiesha. It’s an interesting world. I did a post about Rick’s inaugural prayer and that post made it to the front page top result of Google Blogs for an entire day – is my 2nd most visited post ever. And I’ll be in California next week at a Saddleback conference. Can’t wait!
Oh! I’m so jealous!! I hope you enjoy it and are blessed by the experience. I’d love to hear about it – blog post topic maybe…? :)
Kiesha @ Highly Favored´s last blog ..Top 10 unorthordox and unromantic indicators that your family truly loves you
Most definitely – will be blogging probably every day of the conference over at my personal / pastoral blog.
Thanks for the link! I’m there…
I’ve officially subscribed.
Kiesha @ Highly Favored´s last blog ..Top 10 unorthordox and unromantic indicators that your family truly loves you
Okay, you had me at HELLO. But, you kept me when you introduced Rick Warren (one of my favorites).
Be You = it’s true. I’ve learned that the blogs I enjoy the most are the ones that sound like someone is literally talking to me and they’re being themselves. They inspire me to write more freely. (without pretense)
Did you say “edit less” lol, I can’t do that. Although it may look like I don’t do any editing, I do. ;-)
Thanks for this, I enjoyed it and to answer your question…I was created in the image of the most Awesome One, therefore I am.
Kissie´s last blog ..Black History Month Begins with a Stir
Haha, good answers all the way around – pleasure to connect with you always!!
Interesting recommendation Brandon on editing less. In the interests of getting to shorter and shorter posts, I do lots of editing. Maybe it’s time to do a “first draft” week and see how it goes!
I definitely recommend giving it a shot sometime – what’s the worst that can happen? Offending all of your readers and having to start from scratch?… Nah, would never happen!
Brandon,
You’re killing me with your edit less advice. It sounds like I edit my comments more than you edit your posts. ;) I’m not sure I can get used to just writing off the hip without a lot of editing involved. Maybe I’ll try it one day, but probably not.
Brad
Brad Harmon´s last blog ..Jesus Says Use Your Boss’s Money to Make Friends?
Haha, it’s actually fun to pull the trigger and see where the shot flies!
Rick Warren did the inaugural prayer last year.
One of my future goals is to make it to Cali and attend one of his sermons.