Why Your Parish Should Have a Blog
10 Reasons why your parish website should be a blog.
In theory, parish websites could be excellent tools to reach out to both parishioners and potential parishioners. The harsh reality is that in many cases those tools remain underused and underestimated. Some parishes spend more money on donuts than they do on the design of their website.
Excuses and missed opportunities
“We don’t have the time or the people to update our website”, “our parish priest doesn’t think the website is a priority right now”, “the volunteer that made our website 5 years ago has moved and we don’t know how to do it ourselves”.. the list of excuses can be long. Whatever the reason for the website problems, fact is that the parish website looks terrible, has outdated information and hardly gets any visits, let alone returning visitors. And so we are missing a huge opportunity to introduce our community and our message to a potential audience.
One of the problems is that many websites are still based on a static model. Every page is coded individually, and only the person with access to the location where these pages are stored can alter the website or edit information. Changing or updating the layout of the pages can be a pain.
Why your parish should start blogging
The good news is: any parish can change this almost immediately, very quickly and for almost no extra costs. The solution: turn your parish website into a blog. I will explain in an other article how to do this, but in this article I want to tell you the reasons you should.
1. A blog separates content from layout
First of all, blogs separate the content from the layout. You can fill the site with articles and information, and if you are unsatisfied with the layout, you can change it easily without having to re-edit all the existing pages.
2. A blog lets you involve more people
Blogging systems usually allow you to involve more people in the maintenance of the parish website. You can assign the role of author, editor or administrator to various people that together, can make sure the website is updated regularly. And authors don’t need to be tech-geeks to do this; in general, adding an article to a blog is as easy as writing it in a text editor.
3. A blog helps you organize your content
Most blogs allow you to organize your information in an orderly and attractive way. A system like WordPress has “pages” where you can store static information (the address and contact information of your church, Mass times, information about the sacraments, RCIA etc.) and “posts” that contain dynamic, regularly updated information (news, photos, tips, articles).
4. A blog can look fantastic
There are thousands of free, beautiful layouts that you can use for your parish blog. They are easy to install, and changing the layout of your parish website is a matter of minutes. There are no more excuses for any parish website to continue to look like something that was designed by a 5 year old. (And in some cases, a 5 year old would probably do a better job!).
5. A blog can be always up-to-date
A blog allows your parish website to be always up-to-date. Nothing worse than a parish website that still displays information about Christmas 2007 on the front page, or lists a priest or deacon that has been moved to another parish years ago. A blog makes it easy to add new content regularly, and to modify and update static information quickly and without effort.
6. A blog can be read everywhere
People can “follow” blogs even without going to the website itself. Mosts blogs automatically generate what is called an “RSS-feed”. It’s a summary of recent content on your site that people can subscribe to with various programs and that links back to your website. RSS-feeds can be read on the computer, but also on mobile devices like the iPhone, Android phones or the iPad.
7. A blog generates more visibility
Blogs get more ‘google juice’: Google indexes blogs on a regular basis, and the more up-to-date information is found on the parish website, the more likely the address of the site will turn up in search results when people look for Catholic information in their area. A static website that is updated once every two years gets lower ratings by most search engines than a blog that is updated every week.
8. A blog post can be shared and redistributed
Information on a blog can be redistributed in Social Networks. Many blogs can automatically post new information to Social Networks like Facebook and Twitter via a plugin. Or you can add links that allow people to share articles from the parish website on their own blogs. And the more your message is shared, the more people it might reach.
9. A blog can integrate your existing content
You can easily transfer the contents of your current parish website to a blog. No need to start from scratch: you can copy and paste the existing information on the website and integrate it on your new blog. The same content can look so much better on a modern blog than on your old, static website!
10. A blog can help save a lot of money
Some parishes have paid a lot of money for the creation of their website. If they hired a specialized company to create the site, even updating or modifying the website might cost a lot of extra money. In contrast, a parish blog doesn’t have to cost much. You can actually even create a blog for free on a service like WordPress.com, albeit with some limitations.
A service like Bluehost allows you to install a professional WordPress blog with a few clicks of the mouse for just $6.99 per month, and you even get a free domain name with that. That is less than what some parishes spend on donuts per week 
You can even support the mission of the Catholic Media Guild if you set up a blog with Bluehost through a link on our pages, since SQPN is a Bluehost affiliate. Click here to check it out!
Can you think of other reasons for parishes to start blogging? Or is your parish blog a shining example of how it’s done? Let us know in the comments!
