Christian blogging is one of the most effective ways to Take Jesus Digital. Christians are to create influence for Christ in the digital world, and a Christian blog is one of the ways to do that.
Many desire to start a Christian blog but need to learn how. In this article, I will walk you through the process of creating a functional Christian blog for your church, ministry, or yourself.
Your plan to create a Christian blog does not begin with buying a domain name or web hosting, though those are important to getting a Christian blog online. It starts with developing a strategy.
The reason we have inactive Christian blogs is because of a need for more strategy. Anything you do without a plan will not be consistent. I have developed tens of Christian blogs in the past few years, and only those with a strategy have stood the test of time.
Let’s start with the reason you want a blog. We need to clarify this, or else it will all amount to nothing.
Do you want to create a blog for relevance, fame, or to make money? Then this is not for you. Your desire to create a Christian blog should be to solve a problem and fill a vacuum in the spiritual realm.
This blog you are reading is solving the problem of empowering people with the proper knowledge to take Jesus digital, and a vacuum is filling in the spiritual realm. That is, preparing men and women to serve as Christ’s digital ambassadors.
When you seek to solve problems through your blog, other things you desire will be added to it in the long run.
What problem do you want to solve? The blog must resolve this problem spiritually because it is a Christian blog.
Strategies for Creating a Christian Blog
- Choose a Christian Blog Niche
- Have a Vision You are Running with
- Target Audience
- Get a Domain
- Get a Web Hosting
- Design your Christian Blog
Choose a Christian Blog Niche
When thinking about the problem you want to solve, consider your NICHE. A Christian blog niche is a specific topic or area of issues you want your blog to discuss.
For example, this blog niche covers topics such as Christian blogging, church website, church social media, digital evangelism, digital ministry, and more. Some Christian blogs talk about politics, movies, and many more
Here are a few Christian blog niches you can explore.
- Parenting
- Addiction
- Marriage
- Courtship
- Faith
- Holy Spirit
- Women
- Men
- Music
- Sermons
- eBooks
You can focus on two or more categories, but they should be related. When you niche down, it will be easy for your audience to identify you among the crowd, and It will be easier for you to build authority.
How do I know My Niche?
Don’t panic. Identifying your blog niche is simple.
- Ask the Holy Spirit to lead you.
- Find out the things you flow with when discussing with others.
- Find out what you love reading most.
- Choose a niche you can quickly write about.
When choosing a niche, ensure it is aligned with the plan of God for your life.
If you are convinced about any niche, pick a niche, open a blog as regards the niche, and start writing but keep praying for direction. Experience matters in blogging; while you are doing that, you are blessing others and getting experience. You begin to see what God wants you to do when you are consistent with an open heart.
Have a Vision You are Running with
Without a vision, failure is inevitable. Now that you have chosen your niche, what do you want to achieve through it? That is vision.
Visualize where your blog will be in two months, six months, one year, or five years. Your vision must be plain. Write it down. For example, my vision for creating a Christian Parenting blog is to educate parents on how to raise their children in a godly way, or my vision for creating a Christian relationship or courtship blog is to teach people how to stay pure till marriage.
Write your vision down and make it plain for a lame man to read.
Your vision should talk more about what value you want to produce for your audience and how you want to help them solve their problems.
The vision for this blog is to build an army of Christian Creatives to take Jesus Digital. You can join our community for more.
Have a Targeted Audience
We call it Buyer Persona in the business world, but here, I coined it “Souls Persona.”
It is a fictional representation of who your ideal audience will be. Either you are targeting believers or non-believers.
In the business world, they create blogs to reach out to educate customers or an audience. In the kingdom, we create blogs to educate souls for evangelism or discipleship because we believe every soul is important to God.
Your Souls Persona will include
- Age range
- Location
- Gender
- Marital Status
- Educational Level
- Spiritual Status
- Spiritual Struggling Point
- What they want to know
Your Souls Persona will determine your content creation process and other activities on your blog. It will be your guide online.
When you ask yourself questions such as
- What type of content do I want to create?
- Which social media platform should be my focus?
- What age range should I create my content?
- Should I write in basic English or advanced?
- What lessons do I want them to learn from my content?
- Which location should I start targeting?
If you want to answer these questions and many more, you should refer to your souls persona.
Get a Domain
Subsequently, the next step is to get your domain name.
A domain name is the unique address of your website. The address people type in the browser to visit your website or blog. I call it a door to open your website or blog. If you look up, you will see a name in the URL box (oluwaseuncephas.com) that is the domain name for this website.
The address is specific for you. Once you purchase a domain name, it is yours and cannot be bought by any other person. Before you get your website online, you have to choose and purchase a domain name.
In this article, “Beginners Guide to Domain Names, you will learn all you need about domain names.
When choosing a domain name for your Christian blog, consider these factors.
- Make it simple and unique.
- If you can, involve the name of your niche. Not necessary if it is a personal domain name like the one on this website (xephas.com)
- Avoid using hyphens or numbers
- Consider synonyms
Always check for the availability of the domain name of your choice before you conclude.
Get Web Hosting
After you get your domain name, web hosting is the next thing to consider.
This is where you will host your website. Imagine you have all the house utensils, a chair, the door, a kitchen cabinet, etc. — but still don’t have a house. You have everything you need to set up your business — a table, a chair, and a structure-mapped house, but no physical space to host them. This is what web hosting is to a website.
A domain name and web hosting are essential for any church website or Christian blog. We have web hosting providers in Nigeria and abroad who will provide reliable hosting for an affordable fee.
We have free website hosting for you, but you should go for a paid one for the following reasons:
- Free website hosting and domains are hosted on subdomains. For example, yourdomain.blogspot.com, yourdomain.wordpress.com, etc
- You do not own complete control of your website. Though you will have access to your admin panel and customize your website to your taste, you cannot have access to the backend of your website, and also your host can delete your website if it goes against their policy.
Free hosting platforms
- Blogspot [blogger.com]
- Free WordPress [wordpress.com]
- Wix [wix.com]
Don’t break the bank when thinking about domains and web hosting. Start with the free web hosting listed above, create a space for yourself, and build authority. Then, when you have gained a little mastery, you can purchase web hosting and migrate your website.
Before choosing a web hosting provider, ensure their online reviews are positive. Ask around, search Google, look at recommendations from other blogs, and then you are free to go.
You can read more about web hosting in this article Web Hosting for Churches and Ministries
Design your Christian Blog
When using a free host, you must study their design tools’ peculiarities. For example, free templates are available at Goyabbi Template if you use a Google Blogger host. You will be able to customize your blog professionally.
For paid website hosting, you must install WordPress to design your blog. You can use many other content management software (CMS) to host your blog. I specifically recommend WordPress because of its features and its free-to-use features.
Watch the video below to learn how to install your WordPress and publish your first blog post.
- Install your WordPress
- Customize your blog
- Don’t forget to optimize it for search engines (SEO)
- Start publishing
In conclusion, Christian blogging is a ministry under the 5-Fold Digital Ministries. When planning a Christian blog, remember that you are planning a digital ministry, and your focus should be to bless lives with your content.
