Category Archives: Blogger

Top 50 Most Viewed Essays

Posted on by

If you are a new visitor to my blog, you may want to take a few minutes to browse through some of my top essays. These are ranked by page views over the past two years. I have a different list of some of my favorites but these are the most viewed. I hope this gives you a flavor for the kind of material I like to cover in my essays - current LDS topics.

1. General Authority Training – Advanced Subjects
2. How Americans View Mormonism
3. About Tim
4. There is no middle ground
5. It Came From Behind the Sun
6. Elder Packer Was Right about Bearing Testimony
7. My Interview with Mormon.org
8. What they don’t tell you about Bishopric Meetings
9. The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith
10. The Mormon Corporate Empire
11. Getting past prejudices with Rent – the Musical
12. An Evening with Richard Bushman
13. The Endowment is more than the ordinances
14. When Prophets need to know
15. Divine Manifestations must have a purpose
16. Come Unto Christ – my Christmas talk
17. A different kind of knowledge
18. Rachel Esplin video continues to be a hit
19. Shades of grey and relative truth
20. Walt Whitman – the great American poet
21. Mormon visitors from outer space
22. A website for the average Mormon
23. Thoughtful discussion of controversial topics
24. 2012 the movie
25. Revelation and emotional response
26. Add your profile to Mormon.org
27. The attitude of mocking
28. Objections to the Book of Abraham
29. A letter to a reader – burning of the bosom
30. The ambush – a fictional background story
31. Spiritual experiences as a foundation for faith
32. Seer stone in a hat – book of Mormon translation
33. When a prophet gets Alzheimer’s disease
34. The personal power of Hester Prynne
35. Red Sky – an early version of my novel
36. Unique Religion of Benjamin Franklin
37. God even loves computer geeks like me
38. Moving toward gospel promises
39. Sandinistas - missionaries in Nicaragua
 40. Mormon mommy blogs are the traffic queens
41. Multiple versions of the first vision
42. And the stars shall fall from heaven
43. Miracles and angels – a car wreck in Oklahoma
44. The government of the United States will collapse
45. Just where exactly are the lost ten tribes?
46. Mormon Church is not the fastest growing
47. Just what was Portnoy’s Complaint?
48. Changes to the Book of Mormon
49. Changing requirements of perfection
50. Public rebuke from an apostle

 

New home for Latter-day Commentary

Posted on by

wordpressI’ve been writing on Blogger for quite some time and have long wished for greater control of the blog.  I like the ease of use of Blogger but it does not offer customization features that I have read are available with WordPress.  All the old Blogger essays transferred to WordPress without any problems.  The links still point back to Blogger but that’s OK.

I’m not sure that I’ll be able to get all the same widgets in WordPress that I had in Blogger but I probably needed to get rid of some of them as it was beginning to look cluttered.  I wish there was a way to transfer my blogroll but it looks like that may be a manual process.  I also changed the theme to one that promotes the writing and not the design.  I like the simple header.  It speeds up mobile loading.

Update: three days later

The move is complete.  I may still add some widgets but overall, I like the look and functionality of the new site.  The biggest hurdle was transferring all my subscribers without having to ask them to subscribe to a new feed.  I simply had to break the old feed from Blogger and redirect it from here.  Easy, I know, but it took me hours to get it right.

Now I know why I waited until the three-day weekend to attempt this.  The learning curve for WordPress was not too steep, but there still were some gotchas.  The whole process was rather time-consuming but fun.  I’m ready now to do some serious SEO and to get back to writing new essays.  Oh, and respond to some of the recent comments.

No blogroll on LDC

I decided not to add a detailed blogroll but will maintain several in separate web pages.  The links are at the top left: A new LDS blog aggregators list, the top LDS group blogs, the top LDS solo blogs and a large list of LDS Message boards or forums.  These were all previously posted but have recently proven to be very popular reference pages.

Thanks to all the aggregators and fellow bloggers who have linked to the old site over the years.  I know some have already changed to the new site.  Thanks for your links.  A blog is fairly boring without readers and comments.  Your links bring me new readers every day.  I look forward to the continued dialog and hope my essays are worth reading.

How to promote your LDS blog

Posted on by

I started my blog about eight months ago in late September 2007. That was before Elder Ballard asked us in December 2007 to participate more in the new media. For the first few months I got just a few visitors a day. That’s OK, I wasn’t promoting my blog yet. They were just finding me through raw Google keyword searches. Besides, I was just trying to build up content.

After Elder Ballard extended the invitation to actively share the gospel online, I decided to switch my blog content from political / current events to almost all gospel-oriented themes. A few months later, I began to get a lot of comments from visitors who were opposed to my views. I felt it was time to start promoting my blog to the online LDS community or bloggernacle.

So I asked the major LDS Blog aggregators if they would add me to their lists. I immediately saw an increase in LDS traffic. I could tell they were LDS by the nice encouraging comments. I also got another influx of anti or ex-Mormon traffic. Apparently I was writing about a lot of the same subjects that were being discussed in the DAMU or disaffected Mormon underground.

What works for me

I think the reason I show up so high on so many Google searches is because of one major technique I employ. Linking to other sites raises your visibility higher and faster on the search engines than anything else. After I write an essay and before I post it, I go back through and add links on every major keyword or phase that someone might want to know more about.

It doesn’t seem to matter where I link, just as long as there are lots of links in the essay. For the most part I link to LDS.org and Mormon.org, but I have just as many links to Wikipedia. A lot of people are doing a lot of good in updating Wikipedia articles about the church. Thanks guys. I confess I also link to a lot of other major LDS blogs like Jeff Lindsay, FAIR and FARMS.

My content is more expository and apologetic than journalistic, so it is not really a true weblog. What I wrote six months ago should be just as pertinent today. The only exception is my running commentary of what Carol and I are learning in our Pearl of Great Price Institute class. I can’t wait to get to the Book of Abraham to see how much the papyri translation is discussed.

How to track your traffic

I’ve had over 13,000 visitors since I added a Statcounter in Nov 07, about a month after I started. I suggest you get yourself at least one counter. I have five. Besides Statcounter, I just love FeedJIT because of the live traffic feed on my sidebar. I love to watch where the visitors come from and how they got there. I also use Bravenet, Google Analytics and GetClicky.

My most popular post as far as comments was one I made on a subject I know nothing about and care very little about – Evolution. A lot of people wanted to set me straight, which I appreciate. Until recently my most popular essay was Mothers Who Know, which I wrote in response to What Women Know. It has now been replaced by Mother in Heaven – Heavenly Mother.

I think I’ve got enough basic material so I’ve decided to get serious about promoting my blog. I note in my stats that many first time visitors are spending more time online now. That means they are reading my backlog of essays. I like to get comments on the older essays and respond to them. To keep them visible I use a reader comments widget from Blogger Templates.

Most popular posts

01. Mother in Heaven – Heavenly Mother
02. Mothers Who Know and What Women Know
03. The new Mormon history – Grant Palmer
04. Why can’t I attend a Mormon wedding?
05. Seer stone in a hat – Book of Mormon translation
06. Just where exactly are the lost ten tribes?
07. Changes to the Book of Mormon
08. No such thing as Mormon fundamentalism
09. Will President Monson change Mormon doctrine?
10. Rules, religion and society
11. The Book of Moses revisited
12. Has the prophecy in Joel 2:31 been fulfilled?
13. Pondering about the spirit world
14. Teachings of Presidents: Joseph Smith
15. The practice of plural marriage
16. Working for the LDS church as a blogger
17. Bruce R. McConkie, bold servant of the Lord
18. A different kind of religious education
19. A mother who knew
20. Multiple versions of the First Vision

A few suggestions

Jeff Lindsay had some great suggestions back in January of Tips for New LDS Bloggers. He also had a follow-up post in February that included lists of LDS blog aggregators. For those who don’t know, an aggregator is a website or blog that brings together posts from multiple blogs for centralized viewing or clicking. Here is my favorite list of LDS blog aggregators:

01. LDS Blogs – A comprehensive meta-list, slow
02. Mormon Archipelago – This is the bloggernacle
03. Planet LDS – Read LDS blogs in one spot
04. LDSelect – Customize your favorites in one place
05. Mormon Blogs – Also known as the blogregate
06. LDS Rankings – Not limited to blogs, but good
07. Mormon Blogosphere – New and a little slow

I’m sure there are others but these are the ones I found to be the best. I am listed on all of them. I get the most traffic from Mormon Blogs and Mormon Archipelago. Right now I get about 65 to 85 unique visitors each day. The majority of those come from these two sites. This is especially true on days that I post new essays. The rest of my hits come from Google.

There are a dozen or more major LDS Group blogs but this essay is about promoting your solo blog so I won’t list them. You should visit the major ones every day, or read their stuff on one of the aggregators. I prefer Planet LDS because I don’t have to click. I can just read in one place. Use good titles on your posts. Headlines sell but don’t be misleading. That can annoy readers.

Summary and conclusion

Let’s see, have I covered everything? This essay is about promoting solo LDS blogging on Blogger and maybe on WordPress if you prefer. I’ve mentioned aggregators, linking, stat counters, good content, headlines and comments. Oh, I need your help. Will you visit blogged for me and add a review? After a few reviews I’ll request a professional editor review as well.

Here’s a suggestion that’s often overlooked: go out and add comments on all the top LDS blogs. Don’t expect the author to comment back. The intent is to get your intelligent comment out there with the link back to your blog. S.Faux does this on a lot of my posts. I hope he is getting some traffic from me on his excellent Mormon Insights. I appreciate his comments.

I love blogging. It has been incredibly rewarding. I started blogging as a method to keep me motivated to study the gospel every day. It has more then accomplished that purpose. I have made some wonderful online friends and hope that I am sharing valuable content that is helpful in combating all the garbage that comes up when you Google “Mormon.” Happy blogging!

Controversial subjects in LDS blogging

Posted on by

I have discovered that people like to read about controversial stuff. If you take a look at the popular posts on my blog as shown in the widget on the sidebar you will see that most of them have to do with things like Mormon Feminism, Religion in Politics, Boy Scouts, Gays and the LDS Church, and of all things, Donny Osmond on Eternal Marriage. I haven’t written anything about abuse, polygamy, the temple, blacks and the priesthood or ex-Mormons.

I like blogging about controversial subjects because it stimulates dialog. That is a good thing. Most of the controversy comes right from the headlines today, especially since Mitt Romney has brought so much attention to the church. In the end, all dialog should point to one place – the words of the prophets and apostles on the subjects at hand. That is always my intent – to take some headline of the day and add commentary that includes modern revelation on the subject.

I guess I’m just trying to follow the advice of an apostle to share the gospel using the new media. It seems to be working. I am getting links to my posts from, of all places, the Wall Street Journal – note the link on the bottom of the WSJ page to my post “Are Mormons Zionists?” I am surprised that posts I think will be popular are ignored or don’t show up high on the hit list. StatCounter is amazing. It shows me exactly what keywords you use to get to my blog. As I suspected, almost every search came from Google. Amazing!

I wish there was a way to tell the religious association of those who visit my blog. Based on the keyword searches I suspect the majority are LDS. I’m pleased to see the number of searches on terms like ‘Anthony Larson‘, ‘Joseph Smith comet’, ‘comet of the last days’, ‘unusual signs in the latter days’ and ‘Velikovsky City of Enoch’. Yep, you guessed it. I’m fascinated by prophesied cataclysmic events of the last days. I plan to add a lot more posts about the subject.

One of the great things about blogging, and especially about Blogger with the automatic and almost instantaneous keyword indexing on Google is the ability to connect with people who share the same interests as I do. Thanks for stopping by. I am gateful to be a part of the generation that uses the new media and is curious about what others are writing about similar subjects. The world is changing and it is changing the way members of the church connect and share.