Tips for Spiritual Blogging

I am not an expert, but from my small experience, i will try to put forward some points worthy to be considered while blogging from spiritual standpoint. I have omitted general tips which are advised by professional bloggers and can they be easily googled. Refer to Links to Blogger Hacks - Credits.

1. Publishing an article for any religious festival / occasion, conference (summit).

If you are planning to publish any information of any festival like Holi, Diwali, New Year Message, etc, then DO NOT publish or schedule your post to be published on the day of festival. Publish the post atleast 4-5 days before the day of festival. Prefer to post before weekends.

Google and other search engines need to crawl and index your post, which takes time - a few hours or a day, so that they are displayed in the search query.

2. Frequency of posts.

Even though many professional bloggers advice us to blog daily or atleast thrice a week, in spiritual field, I feel, it is not necessary to blog too frequently. It is appreciable if you can manage to blog daily, without compromising on quality.

Bloggers advice from SEO (Search Engine Optimization) point of view. Although it is necessary, i think blogging once in a week or once in two weeks is also ok. Concentrate more on quality.

3. Labels or Categories.

Try to keep minimum number of Labels / Categories as they are not indexed by Google. over a period of time it will be a mess making it difficult to navigate. Again, do not add too many labels to a post. Focus  on one topic while writing an article.

4. Give credit to original source.

There is nothing new that can be given in spirituality. Original content is better but if you wish to just post the teachings of great saints, publish articles which are not available on the net. Remember to give credit to them or backlink to any online source. I personally prefer to spread the teachings of great saints then to write my own articles.

5. Exchange backlinks.

Backlinks are links that point to another blog, who has already given a link to your blog on his/her blog. Backlinks increase blog traffic and make more people aware of your blog's existence. Don't be greedy. Do not compromise on quality of links. Take some time, review the blog properly and then add or request for a backlink.

6. RSS Feeds for Individual Labels

Offer RSS feeds for each labels, as some users are only interested in posts covering a specific topic or an area. Individual RSS can be helpful since subscribers receive the feeds only when a post categorized under subscribed label is published.

e.g. if i have subscribed to the label "Ramakrishna Kathamrita" then i will receive the feeds only when an article categorized under the label "Ramakrishna Kathamrita" is published and not each and every post of the blog.

7. Social network.

Opening an account in Twitter and facebook also helps. there are services available which tweet automatically as you publish the post in real time. Google for it. Facebook has feature in which the posts automatically appear in 'notes'. Same with friend feed. It does not consume too much time, provided you do not allow yourself to get addicted.

8. Atleast display an email id for contact.

Many spiritual bloggers have a tendency to hide their identity. Even I hide it. But the very point that you are blogging makes you an extrovert. You cannot be 100% introvert if you are blogging. So atleast generate a proper email id for blog (and check for new mails daily).

9. Add / register your blog to blog directories.

Technorati is specialized blog search engine. You may consider other directories like blog catalog, blogged, Indi blogger, etc. Refer the links in the footer of Indiaspirituality blog. These are one time submissions.

Later on you may decide to check or not to check the directories. They also help in finding good blogs with which you can request backlinks or just add them to your 'blogroll' or 'favourite blog list'.

10. No visitors - don't be disheartened

New you setup a new blog, initially there may be very few visitors. It takes time to get recognized. Maybe 6 months or a year. Be patient.

11. When to stop blogging (not for everybody)

Blogging is better than getting engaged to other useless non-spiritual activities. In a way you are connected to spirituality.

Finally, blogging is not destination (and never make it your unavoidable, irresistible addiction). Nothing can be more important then our spiritual progress.

While the mind is extrovert blogging helps, but when the mind is introvert, it makes the mind extrovert which his not a healthy sign.  Why force your mind to be extrovert, when it has turned itself inside after years of spiritual practice .Think. You know what to do.