One thing at a time – Missionary blog tip #7

It’s a great temptation, and almost everybody does it. You haven’t blogged for a while, so you have just a few little tidbits of unrelated information to get across.  It’s the famous “This and that” post – the one called “Random notes” or entitled “Bits of news”.  It’s exactly what the experts tell you to avoid.

Why?  Well, the main reason is the search engines. The more focused you can be on a single topic, the easier it is for them to understand what you’re talking about.  You may think you don’t care about search engines, but the fact is that more and more people are going to be looking for you with Google, MSN or Yahoo! search.  Let’s say a church is wanted to get involved in medical missions – they may come looking for you.  Maybe someone is thinking God is calling them to plant a church in Togo – they may start looking for someone else who is there doing the same thing.  Maybe a missionary is discouraged and looking for someone who has gone through the same struggle.  How are these people going to find you?  Just maybe through a search engine.

But there is another reason as well. Web surfers are more and more becoming “scanners” – they don’t read what you wrote, they scan (we touched on this topic before when we talked about short paragraphs).  That means that they’ll miss more information if everything’s in a hodge podge.  But if you have 3 short posts on three topics, it will be easier for them to scan.  They’ll “hear” you better.  They’ll be able to find past information better (because of more specific titles).  Everybody wins.

Ok, so you’re not likely to be able to completely avoid “Miscellaneous News” posts.  But next time think about how you can split it up a little, and focus more.  It will make your blog more search friendly and user friendly.

Who’s been doing this well lately?  How about:

• littlemissionarygirl
• Pure Christianity
• Scottspiel
• Vessel of Mercy
• Voice in the Desert