All About Mormons

Hi all. Occasionally people ask me for my recommendations on how to start a Mormon website. Given Elder Ballard’s recent counsel that more Mormons engage in online missionary work, it really is a great time to become a Mormon webmaster or blogger. SO MANY PEOPLE search the Internet for information about Mormons. We can do them a great service by providing them with accurate viewpoints.  I wouldn’t trade my two years of full-time missionary work for anything, but truth be told, I’ve probably helped reactivate and baptize more people through my Internet site than I ever did as a missionary. In the past two years, for example, over half a million people have visited my meager site. At the current rate, I expect another half a million people to visit over the course of the next year. When the whole world is your area, missionary work is a lot easier!

Here’s a list of ten tips for new Mormon bloggers/webmasters. I hope they help!

1. If you know another language, blog in that language. Certainly the Internet needs more English-language Mormon websites, but the need is even greater in languages like Spanish and Portuguese. The activity and traffic I get on my site from Latino visitors dwarfs the traffic I get from English speakers. If you need a little help writing in a foreign language you haven’t used in a few years, use Google translate. Be sure to check Google’s translation for obvious errors, though. Computer translation is still a work in progress.

2. Try to avoid needless speculation. We Mormons get so excited about our religion that we often can’t help but speculate on theological topics. I know I’ve been guilty of speculation from time to time. Not only does this kind of speculation confuse people who are investigating the church, it confuses some Mormons too! In my experience, any idea worthy of the label “deep doctrine” is not really doctrine at all, but just speculation. We need to teach the doctrines that will bring people to Christ and to salvation. Our opinions about the nature of “Heavenly Mother” and the origin of God are not so important. 🙂

3. Don’t assume that every anti-Mormon question you get comes from an anti-Mormon. A lot of times sincere people repeat anti-Mormon questions because they want some clarification.  Unlike anti-Mormons, these kind of people will respond to reason.

4. Use language that those of other faiths can understand. A ward can be called a congregation, a talk can be called a sermon, etc.

5. Install and use Google Analytics. Analytics is software that can identify your most popular pages. Once you identify those pages, expand and improve them. Perhaps write additional articles about the same topic. Once you discover what your visitors want to know about Mormons, deliver the content they need.

5. A topic-specific site can be better than a general site about Mormonism. No matter how hard you try, you’re probably not going to ever be on the first page of Google for the keyword “Mormon” (in English). You may actually get more visitors if your site is about something specific, like Mormon families, Mormon temples, or Mormon weddings.

6. Make an “Ask a Question” button very visible on your site. Publish the answers you give online. If one person has a question, there are probably a million other people with the same question. Also display a “Meet with Mormon Missionaries” link prominently on your site.

7. A content management system (CMS) is the software that displays the articles you write. Unless you want to have a ridiculous amount of control over every aspect of your site’s appearance, DON’T WRITE YOUR OWN CMS! I made this mistake, and consequently I’ve spent countless hours writing and rewriting computer code. There are free CMS programs that are downright elegant in their design. For example, you can set up a blog for free on blogger.com.

8. The More Good Foundation is a great resource for Mormon webmasters and bloggers. Become a member of their community. AllAboutMormons would probably not exist today without them.

9. Try to build an online community. Let users post comments to your articles. Your blog doesn’t have to be a public forum; feel free to approve only comments you like. Try to respond to as many of the approved comments that you can, especially from those that are sincerely interested in the church. When investigators recognize that they can interact with you, they will be more likely to come back to your site.

10. Have fun!!! Being an Internet missionary is great. Unlike when I was on my full-time mission, I now sometimes worry that I might actually have too many investigators to handle! Yeah! 😉

If you’d like any help setting up a Mormon website, send me an email with your ideas. I might be able to help depending on my schedule. Good luck!