I definitely didn’t see that one coming.

Sometimes you just need to take a break from things. Back in April this year I set a goal to write a blog post every single day and see what happened. It was a good exercise at first as I disciplined myself to write every single day. That carried on pretty much through June. But I don’t think I’ve found a good balance between discipline and freedom, so I keep swinging between the two poles of writing frequently or not at all. Maybe one day I’ll figure out where I need to be.

Anyways, look for some more posts to come in the near future.

For those who are wondering how this thing has progressed over time, here’s the breakdown:

• 2004 – I started reading various blogs. I think the first blog I ever read was Tony Jones’ original blogspot blog, whose book I was reading for a youth ministry class. That I could read the original, timely thoughts of a real-life author was pretty cool to me. I was enamored with the blogging style: anyone anywhere could publish any thoughts to anyone in the world with no filter or hoops to jump through. I had to try this.
• October 14, 2004 – In my townhouse at John Brown University one evening, I started a blogspot account and began posting. Looking back, my posts were totally random and sporadic. I only made 47 posts between October 2004 and September 2006.
• September 19, 2006 – I migrated from blogspot to wordpress.org since WordPress had some widget features that blogspot hadn’t developed quite yet. I was much more disciplined and posted around 100 posts while on that site, including many of my personal favorites. That was when I wrote my Neo-Youth Ministry Series.
• November 28, 2007 – I switch from wordpress.org to a self-hosted wordpress website, MattCleaver.com, allowing me to do anything I want with this website. This is when I got really “serious” about blogging. I have made around 240 posts on MattCleaver.com. Not only that, but I have learned tons about wordpress and web publishing, and have even made a little (emphasis on “little”) money helping other people set up and tweak their own websites. I’m not an expert on WordPress, but I have learned quite a bit over the last two years.

When I started blogging, I had all these visions of grandeur that people would come and read my thoughts and be mesmerized by my theological insights. Well, I learned that sometimes the stuff that people want to read isn’t always what you think is the most important. Check out the top-10 posts of all time (since I started tracking with Google Analytics in November 2007):

1. How I Built a Church Website for Free: Picking a WordPress Theme
2. The Ultimate Ubiquitous Capture Device?
3. How I Built a Church Website for Free: Introduction
4. How I Built a Church Website for Free: WordPress Plugins
5. 13 Reasons Why (Traditional) Seminaries are Irrelevant (For Church Leaders): Part 1
6. Locution, Illocution, Perlocution, and Developmental Psychology: Age-Appropriate Cultural Texts
7. 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly: Thoughts from One in the Minority
8. Brian McLaren is a Heretic
9. Review: Francis Chan’s Crazy Love DVD
10. Podcast Episode 0: Church Marketing

Over the years, I’ve learned that the posts people read the most are the ones that rank well in search engines in a particular niche (hence I have 3 of my top 10 posts having to do with building a free church website with WordPress), that get linked to from bigger websites (Ubiquitous Capture Device and Podcast Episode 0 got linked to from much more popular sites), or are posts that are written to strike while the iron is hot (ELCA Churchwide Assembly). The posts that I think are most important often don’t make huge spikes in traffic.

And therein lies the frustration for many who blog. I have seen quite a few youth ministry bloggers come and go in my five years, and I have thought about quitting every now and then. Fortunately, ever since the beginning I have told myself “This blog is for me as much as anyone else.” I enjoy writing and haven’t taken the time to get really serious about publishing my thoughts in traditional forms of media, and blogging allows me to keep writing on a fairly regular basis.

To those who have stuck around for a few years and keep coming back, thank you. Your comments have (hopefully) made me a better writer, minister, and theologian. I hope to continue fruitful conversation here for the foreseeable future.

And for those who don’t keep coming back, please subscribe to my RSS Feed.

Most popular posts this month:

• The Ultimate Ubiquitous Capture Device?
• Youth Ministry Compensation
• How I Built a Church Website for Free: Picking a WordPress Theme
• 13 Reasons Why (Traditional) Seminaries are Irrelevant (For Church Leaders): Part 1
• How I Built a Church Website for Free: WordPress Plugins

Website stats compared to April:

• Unique Visitor Increase: 100%
• RSS Subscriber Increase: 28%
• Visits Increase: 90%
• Pageviews Increase: 69%

Thanks to these sites for sending me the most traffic (aside from google, twitter, and facebook):

• Moleskinerie.com
• Shaungroves.com
• Smalltownyouthpastor.com
• Deliciousdays.com
• Erikullestad.blogspot.com

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to the conversation recently. Some of the comments have been really great, and that’s what makes blogging so interesting and fruitful. I hope you it will continue!

And those of you who lurk (I know you’re out there, because you’ve told me), leave a comment already! I’d love to hear what you have to say.

So, I’m thinking of scaling back the blog over the summer and not putting as much effort into summer content. I’ll keep posting quotes and links like I’ve been doing on the weekends, but maybe move that to weekdays. Maybe I’ll do more personal reflections of how ministry and life are going. I’ll probably keep going with my discussion on seminaries while that is still a fairly fresh topic.

I was thinking about scaling back the posting to just three days a week, probably Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I’m just trying to think what will be the best way to keep the momentum I’ve built going without wasting some good discussion topics while people are too busy to chime in.

What about you? Do you approach your blog differently over the summer? Do you read blogs differently over the summer?

This list is a combination of personal preference (which may or may not help increase your readership) and some are common sense tricks of the blogging trade (which you should probably take into consideration).

I would love to read your youth ministry blog if…

• You post at a reasonable rate – In my mind, there are two ways to get readership. No, three. The first is to be famous. Since most of us aren’t famous, that leaves us only two. The first is to get search engine traffic, which is often a quick glance at a page and then readers will never come back. You can get a lot of hits this way by making sure there is plenty of content for Google to send people to on your site, so posting multiple times a day could be a good tactic. The second is to get the same people coming back over and over again. When I am looking for youth ministry blog, I look for someone I can get to know, someone I can have a conversation with. So, I want to come back over and over again. Posting multiple times a day makes it difficult to keep up. Now, most of us don’t have a problem with posting too much. Usually we go a few days without posting, get a few good ideas, then post 2-3 times in one day. I would suggest it would be better to stretch these 2-3 posts out one per day. Use the ability to schedule posts in your blog software to spread out your posts over a few days.
• You have an easy-to-find RSS feed – The kind of people who will become regular readers of your blog will use RSS feed readers (Don’t know what I’m talking about? Click here). Having an easy-to-find link to your RSS feed is imperative. When someone comes to your site, there should be an icon and link readily visible that people can find without scrolling around. Blogspot is notoriously bad for forcing readers to hunt to find a site’s RSS feed, so make sure you put one where people can find it (drop me a comment if you are having trouble figuring things out). The vast majority of people subscribed to my feed use Google’s Feed Reader, so I added a button that will allow people to add my site to their Google Reader with one click. You can do the same by clicking here.
• You publish a full RSS feed – Most blogging software allows you the option to publish all of your RSS feed or only an introductory snippet. If you only publish a portion of your feed, the idea is that you will get more traffic to your website because people will have to click through their feed reader and go to your blog to read the post. The problem is, most of people don’t like doing that. You will get more long-term readers if you publish a full RSS feed.
• You post quality content with original thoughts – Anyone can fill a blog with links, videos, quotes, and a lot of personal reporting. People who stand out are people who can write with a fresh voice. Quality trumps quantity in the blog world, in my opinion. Notice that I didn’t say that you need to post regularly. Since I read feeds in an RSS reader, it doesn’t make any difference to me if you have a long time between posts. A few of my favorite blogs that I’ve subscribed to for years have really sporadic posting rhythms, but I know that the content will always be good when it comes across my screen. Of course, going a year without posting might not be a good idea, but put your focus on quality posts and don’t force yourself to write something just because it’s been a while.
• You have a tasteful amount of advertising (or none) – Honestly, you must have lots of traffic to make enough money worth counting on your blog (I would say well over 1,000 unique visitors a month). Trying to make enough money to cover your hosting costs by littering an otherwise beautiful website with ads is oftentimes counterproductive. I’m not saying you can’t have any ads, but use discretion. And, if you put ads in the RSS feed, please put them at the bottom of the post.
• You write well – There is a difference between having original thoughts and writing well. Good writing will make your original thinking clear and understandable. I have found there are two ways to make sure the quality of your writing stays acceptable. First, proofread your posts. Secondly, do a lot of reading, which can improve writing almost by osmosis as you are exposed to quality writers.
• You genuinely want to have a conversation – Be acceptable of opposing viewpoints, interact with commenters, and really try to understand where people are coming from. This is one of the hardest things to do, but readers will appreciate it.

So there you have it. Those are the kinds of things I look for in a youth ministry blog, and I’m sure many people have similar criteria. If you know of youth ministry blogs that meet my above criteria and aren’t in my sidebar, let me know by dropping a comment. Yes, even if it’s your own blog.

Happy blogging.

I’ve been perusing the blogosphere quite a bit lately as I get more acclimated to twitter. Whenever I follow someone or they follow me, I take a look at their blog if they have one to see if it’s worth reading. I’m especially interested in finding good youth ministry blogs, and I figure there’s got to be more out there. Unfortunately, I’ve been a bit disappointed in the blogs I’ve been finding.

I am unlikely to read your youth ministry blog if…

• you post 5 times a day – Most people don’t have this problem, but a few people like to post links or videos (and post them often). I don’t have time to read all of the articles you link to or sit through all the youtube videos you think are cool, especially if you post multiple times per day.
• you don’t have an easy-to-find RSS feed – If you have a good blog, I can subscribe to it and put it in it’s appropriate folder in my Google Reader with three clicks. If you have a link to your RSS feed it takes about 5 seconds. WIthout an RSS feed I have to copy your blog address, open up Google, add a subscription, move it to the folder, etc. I am much less excited to follow your blog if I have to hunt for the RSS address. You should always have an easy-to-find RSS link above the fold. Always.
• you don’t publish a full RSS feed – People use a feed reader so we don’t have to click to 100 different sites to keep up with what is going on. Only publishing part of your feed defeats that purpose. Do us all a favor and please publish the whole feed.
• your last three posts go something like this – “It’s been a while since I’ve posted because I’ve been super busy. I’ve been a total slacker on the blog lately. I hope to get back to regular blogging after this busy stretch clears.” Don’t apologize for not posting. Just post stuff when you are able.
• your site or content is filled with tons of ads – I know that you want to try to make enough money to pay for your server costs, which I understand. But don’t go overboard. The worst is those ad scripts that automatically find keywords in your posts and then link to an ad from them. Don’t go overboard on the ads. If you put ads in the RSS feed, put them at the bottom of the post.
• all you ever do is posts links and videos – I don’t mind you pointing out good stuff on the web, but what will really keep me coming back is if you have something good to say. So say it–be creative! A doubly bad version of this is if you only post to funny and/or gross youtube videos. Seriously guys, let’s not reinforce the youth ministry stereotypes. Give me something substantial.
• you have a huge photo of you – I don’t mind seeing who it is that is doing the writing. But I don’t want to feel like your site is trying to sell your own personal brand. Come on, we’re in youth ministry. We’re not that big of a deal.
• you only quote scripture out of the King James version – Hey, I’m just being honest. How many “KJV only” sites do you subscribe to? That’s what I thought.
• you use lots of exclamation marks – They should be used sparingly! Use them all the time and they lose their value! When you use them, only use one, not three!!! See what I mean!?!
• you use it just to try to sell me something – I don’t mind having a discussion around a topic that you’ve written about in a book or around a curriculum you’ve written. But I don’t want to feel like you are only using your blog to promote a commodity. Blogs are for exchange of ideas and dialogue. Don’t try and coerce (or worse, trick) me into buying something.

So there you have it. Don’t break the above rules and there’s a good chance I might follow your blog regularly. Notice that I didn’t say that you need to post regularly. I really don’t care how often you post–I prefer quality over quantity. Since I read feeds in an RSS reader, it doesn’t make any difference to me if you have a long time between posts. A few of my favorite blogs that I’ve subscribed to for years have really sporadic posting rhythms, but I know that the content will always be good when it comes across my screen. Of course, going a year without posting might not be a good idea, but put your focus on quality posts and don’t force yourself to write something just because it’s been a while.

Oh, and realize I’m just one person. These are my criteria, but some people have different criteria. For example, Josh Griffin posts way too often for my taste, and usually posts lots of links, videos, pictures, and quotes. So, I don’t subscribe to his feed. However, he has 1675 subscribers to his site (which is way more than I have). Obviously not everyone agrees with me.

If you know of youth ministry blogs that meet my above criteria and aren’t in my sidebar, let me know by dropping a comment. Yes, even if it’s your own blog.

Happy blogging.

• Visits: 81% increase
• Absolute Unique Visitors: 78% increase
• Pageviews: 62% increase
• RSS Subscribers: 22% increase

A few lessons I learned during this month of posting:

• Posting once a day is a good rhythm. By trying to post at least once a day, my mind seemed to be more creative and it really wasn’t that difficult to come up with things to write about. When I would just post on occasion it would be very sporadic based on the whims of my creativity. Committing to do it once a day kept my brain spinning.
• You write better by posting regularly. I ended up writing a few posts this month that generated more traffic than usual for my blog. My guess is that as I got into this habit of writing my writing quality got better over time. Starting and stopping means you have to get back into writing mode and you can’t build on the skills and lessons learned by regular writing.
• It’s less time-consuming than I expected. I just needed to carve out about 30 minutes to crank out a decent post, 10-15 for a quick post, and about an hour for a high-quality, original, creative post. And usually when I wrote for an hour it was long enough to warrant being broken into two posts, like my posts on the irrelevance of seminaries. So, I didn’t actually lose any time by working for an hour on those posts.
• Schedule posts for late mornings and emails for early afternoon. I have my twitter set to update automatically when I post, and I think early morning is a good time, because people will likely be on twitter during that time. Then I have my feedburner email subscriptions set to go out between 1-3 PM, a time when I expect a decent number of people might actually read it. First thing in the morning is bad because people are likely inundated with lost of other emails. Much after 3:00 and I expect there is a good chance lots of youth ministry people aren’t in the office. So, this is the scheduling I’m sticking with for a little while.

I think I’m going to try and keep this up for as long as I can. I will need to get some good posts stored in reserve for the summer when I’ll be on youth trips, vacation (hopefully) and just the general summer unpredictability. We’ll see how this goes.

Through April 30, here are some details about the last month of posting:

• Days in April: 30
• Posts in April: 32
• Most popular posts for the month of April:
  1. How I Built a Church Website for Free: Picking a WordPress Theme
  2. 13 Reasons Why (Traditional) Seminaries are Irrelevant (For Church Leaders): Part 1
  3. How I Built a Church Website for Free: WordPress Plugins
  4. My Suggestions for Youth Specialties
  5. Review: Francis Chan’s Crazy Love DVD
• Most Searched Keywords
  • free church wordpress themes
  • mattcleaver.com
  • brian mclaren heresy
  • church wordpress plugins
  • youth ministry books

The blue font color that I’ve picked out for links may not be the exact shade I’m looking for, so it might get tweaked. If looks matter and you read via RSS, you may want to check out the site.

Oh, and, like other people I’ve struggled with whether or not to place ads on my site to try and at least cover the expenses of hosting the blog. After going ad-less for a long time I put some Google Adsense ads in the top right corner of the page. I think over the next few weeks I’m going to do some experiments with ad placement and see what works. I’m really trying to use it to target search engine traffic, so I’ve moved the ads from the corner to actually embedded in the post. If the ads bother you the RSS feed is ad-free.

As happens sometimes in life, you don’t do things as early as you had hoped. I didn’t get my next post in the How I Built a Church Website for Free series until late today, and I don’t like posting substantive posts late in the day or on weekends. Look for it Monday.