How to Start a Christian Blog That Reaches More People for the Kingdom

Feel called to share God’s message online but not sure how to start a Christian blog?

Christian blogging, religious blogging, faith blogging, God -Blogging – whatever you call them, faith blogs and online services covering a variety of Christian and faith-related topics are becoming increasingly popular in this new digital age that we are now living in.

Reading: How to create a bible study blog

It is Not only is it a great way to channel your own inner desire to share God’s message, but these online services serve a much higher purpose – making sure God is where people are so they can learn more about Him !

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Why start a Christian blog?

Starting a Christian blog is an exciting and unique way to spread the good news of Jesus! Christian blogging sites are the new way to bring the gospel to the people where they are. More and more people are turning to the online world for answers and information on a variety of topics – including Jesus Christ!

Starting a service blog is such a life changing experience – both for you as the author AND for those who come across your content. We are no longer bound by the confines of our zip code because the internet allows us to connect with others literally around the world!

My own blogging journey has enabled me to meet with some amazing Christian Bloggers get in touch from all over the world! These women and men have wonderful testimonies of their own about how God has impacted their lives – and blogging has enabled them to share this with so many people outside of their own church and their neighbors.

If you are gifted in writing and have a burning desire (or perhaps a calling) to share the love of Jesus and show others how to apply the teachings of the Bible to their daily lives , then religious blogging (starting a ministry blog) is definitely an avenue to pursue!

How to start a Christian blog – step-by-step -Step Guide

Knowing how to start a Christian ministry blog right from the start will save you so much time and energy in the long run. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not that easy to just create the website and start writing. Setting up a blog properly gives you a solid foundation to generate organic traffic – visitors who are actually searching for your content.

Apart from the writing aspect of starting a blog, there are some important steps (and order) in starting a Christian blog that many new bloggers often overlook.

1. Seek God’s guidance
2. Define your niche and target audience
3. Domain and name research
4. Platform & hosting
5. Install & set up WordPress
6. Define blog structure
7. Set up social media profiles
8. Optimize for Pinterest
9. Email forms set up
10. Write content
11. Launch your website

The following Christian blogging tips will help you make your blog a success!

Step 1 – Start your Christian blog m it Prayer

The first step on the way to a new journey is prayer. Starting a service blog isn’t something you can just “hop in and hope it works.” To truly honor God, make sure He is with you every step of the way.

You may have already prayed about this – keep praying! Not only does he give you ideas for the direction you should take (which to specifically blog about), he also makes sure you get the resources you need to get it right (maybe that’s how you are on this post landed!). Without prayer, however, you can easily fall into doing things as YOU think they must be, and not as much as HE wants you to do.

Step 2 – Define Your Niche and Audience

The most overlooked step in starting a Christian blog is the step of defining an audience. This means you need to determine who your content is for and for what purpose.

A niche is basically the general “topic” of what you want to write about. Yes, “Christian” or “faith” are considered niche – but they are general in nature. To say that you want to start a Christian blog simply to share the love of God with the world is WAY too general.

Let’s say you wanted to have a Christian parenting blog. Obviously the themes would relate to the faith and upbringing of a family. But even within the Christian parenting category, you can break them down further – parenting of teenagers, blended families, divorce, young children. Each of these types of parents needs and wants different advice and Bible inspiration.

Once you’ve decided on the general topics you want to blog about, it’s important to research and define your audience. Who is your blog content for and how will you serve them with your content? This is an important but often overlooked step! If you don’t understand this part, you will have a very difficult time building a loyal and engaged following or generating organic traffic to your website.

Not sure how to start? You can sign up for my free Defining Your Ministry Avatar course, which will help you plan everything for your target audience.

Christian Blog Ideas

Any of the following general topics could be the focus of your faith blog. Within each category listed below, you could further define the target audience to a specific demographic group within that category. (This is just a list of ideas – you can write on literally any topic and add a little Jesus to it!)

• Christian Parenting Blog
• Resources for Christian Women
• Bible Studies
• Chronic Illness/Health
• Font
• Lifestyle
• Targeted by age/gender
• Homeschool
• Business

An example of further defining a general niche would be a Christian blog that teaches how to apply the Bible in daily life. How you write (how you translate Scripture) is heavily influenced by your audience.

See also: How to Start a WordPress Blog on Bluehost (2023 Review)

How you would write content to help a single mother apply biblical principles to her life and raise children alone will differ greatly from whether you write for a single millennial audience. How you write to the older generation is very different from how you would write to teenagers. Age, gender, a life stage, marital status, parenthood…all of these things play a big part in the success (or failure) of your Christian blog.

Knowing how to start a Christian blog is knowing Who you want to write for (your target audience) will make your Christian blog more successful from the start. The more niches you create it, the easier it will be to create content, monetize the blog (if you choose to do so), and build a loyal following. It’s also important to remember that you should only focus on a few topics (categories) of content and not write about a bunch of different things. Focusing on maybe 3 general categories will help really attract a loyal following.

Step 3 – Choose your blog name and domain

The first step toward The physical aspect of setting up a blog is to choose a name for your blog. The blog name is the first opportunity to let your audience know they’ve landed in the right place! Try to avoid choosing a name that only has a special meaning to you.

Once you’ve settled on a few ideas for your blog name, make sure that name is available for both your domain and all major social channels. You can check the domain and social handles below, but do not purchase the domain until prompted in step 4.

• Check domain availability ( Always choose a .com domain)
• Check Social Handles

If your domain name is the same as your blog name (or something similar as possible) use it will help people find it much easier. For example, if your blog has a name but your domain is your name and you give someone your blog name, they will type that into the Google field to find your site.

This also helps readers follow you on social channels if your handle is the same on all. If you can’t get the exact grip on all platforms, make them as close as possible. For example, on Instagram our handle is @kingdombloggers, but on Twitter it’s @kingdomblogger1

Step 4 – Select Platform and Hosting

Setting up a blog includes the Choosing the platform and hosting you will use. So what is the difference between a platform and a hosting? The easiest way to explain it is to compare it to a cell phone.

• Platform – this would be the equivalent of the type of phone (operating system) you are using – Apple or Android
• Hosting – this would be similar to the service your phone is managed by – AT&T or Sprint (or others).

By far the best platform to start a Christian or faith based blog would be WordPress(.org). There are actually two different WordPress platforms (.com and .org). The WordPress(.com) platform allows you to start a blog for free, but I strongly advise against it.While it might be tempting to save money by using a free platform, you will have many limitations on what you can do (the design, adding plugins, monetization, etc.). This platform offers a paid version, but it is a bit pricey compared to the WordPress(.org) version.

By starting your Christian blog with WordPress(.org), you can have creative freedom from Start from scratch AND you have full control over your website.

To get started, you’ll need to sign up for hosting through Siteground, then perform a “one-click” installation of WordPress so you can start setting up your blog (the fun part! ). Read more about Siteground to see why they are the best web hosting service – they even have specialized services specifically for Christian ministries. You can read more about why Siteground is the best web hosting for Christian blogs here.

Step 5 – Install and set up WordPress

Once you sign up to Siteground, you will receive an email with instructions on how to install WordPress. It’s super easy (one click to install!) and you can be busy setting up your website. When you first log into your WordPress dashboard, it can be a bit overwhelming to navigate and figure out what everything is for. Some of the things you need to take care of are:

• Install a Great Theme – Your dashboard comes with some free default themes, but you can choose one you want Find and invest in a topic that aligns with your blog’s niche. Themes have different layouts, different ways to add additional widgets, as well as other things you should consider to determine the look and function of your website.
• Install required plugins – your WordPress dashboard comes with some plugins already installed and your theme can also come with plugins pre-installed. You may not need all of these, and there are a few important plugins (that don’t come pre-installed) that you may want to install right away.
• Customizing Your Theme Settings – Although your theme is already set up, you may need to edit your admin settings and possibly customize how the page displays.
• Set up and connect Google Analytics – With Google Analytics you can see exactly where your traffic is coming from (once you go live), which posts get the most engagement, which searches get your post appearing in results, and more!

Step 6 – Map your blog Structure

If you want to start a Christian blog that truly reaches others, you need a solid outline for your blog structure. This starts with deciding on the main categories of content you are going to write about. Remember, these should speak directly to your target audience. This will help you focus on serving your audience in relation to the purpose of your blog.

Your categories should be visible in your navigation menu at the top of your blog so readers can immediately see what’s about They write .

If you’re not quite sure what a good blog structure looks like (or how to create one), I have a comprehensive blog planning toolkit with me Several different workbooks for designing your blog structure and ideas for your content.

Step 7 – Social Network Profiles

Even if you have social media in your Personal life, having social channels set up for your blog is essential to the growth of your online business. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are the most common, but other platforms like Snapchat are also gaining popularity among the younger generation.

• Create a profile for each platform – with the same branding (header images ) for everyone.
• Connect social channels to your blog’s social follow icons.

Once you’ve launched your blog and started posting content, you can a planning tool to release your content throughout the month.

To be honest, social media can easily become an endless time waster that keeps you so busy that you have little time left for actual ” productive” work on your blog. Once you have your blog fully set up and ready to promote it on social media, I recommend Social Media Content Creation for Christian Writers & Bloggers.

Jessie is our Christian Resident Social media guru and has created this awesome tool to show you how to create and plan a month’s worth of social media content in under 3 hours!

Step 8 – Optimize for Pinterest

When you first start a Christian blog, you will definitely want to set up your blog to bring traffic from Pinterest.Pinterest will usually be the number one source of traffic for your Christian blog when you’re starting out – but only if you’ve optimized your blog AND your Pinterest for success.

In case you didn’t know, Pinterest isn’t a social media channel — it’s a search engine. Although it works with SEO practices, it’s much easier to find your content on Pinterest than on Google. Steps you can take now include:

• Set up (or convert) a Pinterest business account (this is completely free) – A business account allows you to do analytical Reviewing data about your Pinterest and blog traffic will help improve your blog strategy.
• Optimize your Pinterest profile for your niche – This includes your profile name and description, wall titles and descriptions, and what you pin.
• Make sure you include a Pinterest-worthy, pinnable image on each post – This image should be approximately 600 x 900 (in Canva, this Pinterest template is 735 x 1102 , which is also great) should be visually appealing and include the title of the post. Plain images without a post title won’t get pinned, and if they do, nobody will click on them when they see them on their Pinterest feed.
• Make sure your social sharing buttons are clearly visible on each post – Make it as easy as possible for readers to share your content across all social channels (not just the ones you’re on).

See also: Implement a trial version of your app

If you need help understanding Pinterest need and how it works for you, I recommend Pinterest Ninja by Megan at Love Family Health. This was the very first course I ever attended and while I have attended many more since then, yours is hands down the best. And it keeps it updated with the latest Pinterest changes so you know what’s going on (because Pinterest makes changes quite often).

Step 9 – Set up email

Unlike many other bloggers, I don’t really recommend building an email list right away. The truth is that creating a solid plan just for your blog takes a lot of work. You need an entirely different plan for building and maintaining an email list.

For the first year, simply focus on posting content that drives organic traffic to your blog. Then you can evaluate that traffic and start working on a solid plan for building an engaged email list.

Related: Building Your Email List

When that time comes, there are a few things to consider:

When it comes to sending email to a list of subscribers, you can use your regular E -Do not use mail services such as Gmail or Yahoo. They are set up for personal use and can be flagged as spam if you try to send an email to a large group of recipients. Instead, you need to create a domain email address (email address with your blog domain.com) through your web host.

This is totally free and you can create more than one to track different types of emails. Once created, you then use an email service provider like ConvertKit or MailerLite to manage the emails. Make sure you have your RSS feed set up and connected to your email service provider, and set the days on which new posts are sent to subscribers.

You should also have a really great one set up welcome email automation to allow new subscribers to know a little more about your site and when to expect emails from you.

Step 10 – Write Content

Before you start writing, it’s important that you understand the benefits of SEO and why it’s so important. SEO (search engine optimization) is basically choosing the best keyword phrase for your post to increase the chances of the post making it to page one of a Google search. Not using SEO is like writing a book and stashing it under your bed where no one can find it! Read more about the benefits of SEO and how to do proper SEO research.

I was asked what the first post should be about. DO NOT write a “Welcome to my new blog” post!! Every post you write and publish should fall into one of your main categories so that it serves the audience you are trying to build. You write content that will be found in Google searches. (Save the “Welcome” for your email sequence when a reader signs up.)

The key to writing content that actually ranks on Google is there is to make sure that people are actually searching (on Google) on this topic. If they’re not looking for it, there’s no point in writing it!

Step 11 – Publish your blog

Congratulations! You can now call yourself a Christian blogger! Once you hit the publish button, your content will be out there for the world to read—and hopefully find themselves closer to Christ.

A few things to do after your Christian blog is published:

• Delete the “under construction” plugin if you have one installed
• Connect your blog to Google Analytics and Google Search Console
• Create a sitemap and submit it to Google Search Console
• Verify your site for Pinterest

Now it’s time to start working on a blog content schedule. This means that you should come up with a schedule for how often (and when) you will release new content and stick to that schedule as much as possible. A good rule of thumb is to post once a week.

Start a Christian blog today!

Now that you’ve figured out how to be a Christian blog, you are ready to literally share the glory of God with the whole world! How crazy and surreal is that?! Blogs about Jesus are growing in popularity as more people around the world seek the good that comes from knowing Christ.

As you begin to serve your To fully set up your blog, be sure to visit the Kingdom Bloggers Category Page where you’ll find exactly the tutorials you need.

While this tutorial gave a brief overview of how to set up a Christian Starts Blog You may need a little more detailed help to start your blog. Below are two completely FREE courses to help!

While we complain about the bad things that go with the internet, there is so much good in it too. The internet makes it possible for anyone who wants to serve God to share their message with the world – literally worldwide Christian ministry – from the comfort of their own home – no matter where you live!

I thank God every day for the blessings of religious blogging because it has enabled me to be a catalyst for faith writers around the world to flood the internet with more and more Jesus! It has also allowed me to connect and make new friends with women all over the world as we chat weekly about blogging, Jesus and life in general (from our different cultures). Through a ministry blog, you truly have the power to influence and change the world!

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See also: How to Blog on Facebook: Everything You Need to Know

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