This is Day 2 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, a group project 50+ other bloggers are doing together in an effort to help each other become better bloggers. You can read more about it and still sign-up to participate here.
What an awesome first day we had in this series yesterday. I am blown away! To see my observations from yesterday check out 6 Things I Learned from Day 1 of #31DBBB.
Today’s lesson is about the list posts. If you’ve been reading blogs for any length of time, you know list posts are very popular. In fact, we have done our fair share of list posts here at Christian Web Trends. Here are some examples…
Top 5 List Posts on Christian Web Trends
- 20 Ways to Share Your Faith Online
- Top 10 Signs Your Church Website Needs a Redesign –
- The 10 Commandments of Social Networking
- 12 Ways to Ensure Easter Attendees Don’t Come Back to Your Church Next Week
- 10 Things I Learned from the Online Church Blog Series
The lesson gives several reasons list posts are so popular. They are easy to write. They’re easy to read. They break the main point up into clearly identifiable bite-size nuggets. In fact, you could make the case that list posts are the Chicken Nuggets of blogging. (Would you like some dipping sauce with that?)
Personally, I have my own theory for why list posts are so popular…
Geeks like numbers.
But that’s just one number-loving geek’s theory. (Full discloser: I was on the math team in high school)
Assignment
The assignment for today is to write a list post for your blog. If you’d like some more advice about writing list posts, check out 10 Steps to the Perfect List Post
Discussion
- Do you agree that list posts are both easier to write and easier to read? Why or why not?
- Of all the tips you’ve read about list posts, which do you think are the most important?
- If you did the assignment and wrote a list post, include a link your comment.
The Extra Mile
A few other things you can do to take your blog, other bloggers, and this project even further today…
- Reply & give other bloggers feedback on their list post
- Go back to 31DBBB – Day 1: The Elevator Pitch & check out the elevator pitches.
- Tweet, share, & bookmark this post. (You could win a $25 gift card!)
- Ask & answer questions about blogging but unrelated to elevator pitches in the forums.
303 Comments
Hello all! Here is the link to my list post:http://digitalmcgrath.com/31dbb/basic-church-soci…
Comments are always welcome!
I think this is probably one of the better examples of a list post we have so far. Great work!
Great post. Personally I wouldn't break it up like you do in the middle but let the long list really speak for how vulnerable we can be to our flesh and then wrap it up. Purely a personal choice though. Breaking it up like you do does make it easer for a person to read through.
I left my feedback on your blog. I think it's a great start!
<blushes> Thank you!
I blocked off that section and used bold text to set it apart from the rest of the post. I thinks this will highlight the info that the title promotes. It is the best I could do here. Again, I can see that future posts should be more concise.
I like this list. Like that you "bolded" the first sentence for each point, too –makes it easy on the eyes. I hope I can come back to you for help when I'm ready to install a commenting widget?
Great post! How about changing the title to "Five Easy Steps to a Basic Church Social Media Plan?" See my comments to LarryW above.
As far as linking to other posts go, since the blog has so few posts on, a few would apply I didn't do that. One tool I have found that does help with this though is Link Within. The links are automatically generated. I assume it looks at posts that share the same categories, but I'm not sure. Obviously, it would be much better to hand pick some posts that would help a reader get deeper into your blog. Thanks for all the tips. This has been great to learn so much in such a short period of time.
Thanks, Kathryn. And believe me, if I can install the commenting html, anyone can. 🙂