I was recently asked by a fellow Catholic blogger for some pointers in getting people to come to his blog. Anyone who has ever run a blog understands the desire to have people read what you write. It can become spiritually dangerous to focus too much on getting traffic, but on the other hand, if you truly believe that what you write can help others in their walk with Christ, then you want as many people as possible to read it.

I make no claim to be an expert on the topic, but I do have a few ideas that might help other bloggers to drive traffic to their site.

1) Content, Content, Content
If you don’t have interesting (and well-written!) content, people will not be interested in your blog. Sometimes blogs get popular because they espouse “controversial” views, but I think the better way to increase visitors is to have content that people want to read on a regular basis. Note, however, that this takes a lot of hard work. Emphasis on “lot” and “hard” and “work.”

2) Be yourself
Don’t try to imitate other popular Catholic blogs – write about what you care about and what is interesting to you. The only way to produce good content (see above) is to write about what you are passionate about. If you just try to pick topics that you think are popular, your writing will suffer and you won’t stand out in the crowded blogosphere. Find your niche and stick to it.

3) Promote your blog
For most of us, promoting ourselves is difficult, as we are afraid that we are putting ourselves in front, instead of Christ. And it can be a danger for bloggers. But if you have written something that you think will help people, then by all means tell others about it. Write to other bloggers and tell them about interesting posts you have written (but don’t overwhelm them with every post you ever write: only pick ones that you think that particular blogger might find interesting). No one will magically show up at your blog – they need to be told by someone they trust to go there.

4) Links
The best way to help your search engine ranking, which will allow people to more easily find you, is to have many inbound links to your blog. To do this, you have to ask people to add you to your blogroll or otherwise link to you. Some people will do so and others won’t (I don’t link to very many blogs on my blogroll, for example), but any link will help.

5) Be Patient
If you look at the most popular Catholic blogs out there, you will notice that they all have been around for years. Building an audience on the internet takes time; people usually have to visit your site a number of times before deciding to make it a regular destination and to recommend it to others. Do not expect a quick jump in traffic and be prepared to blog for years before you have any substantial audience.

And finally, don’t take your blog too seriously. Yes, blogs can address serious subjects but we have to remember that they are just blogs, after all. Ultimately, how you interact with those around you – your family, your friends, your co-workers – is more important to your spiritual life than how well-trafficked your blog is.

One of the things that most Catholic bloggers and blog-visitors would love to know is: “What are the most popular Catholic blogs?” Unfortunately, there has been no good way to find out, as such statistics have either not been publicly available or difficult to compile.

Until now.

As a service to the Catholic blog community, I decided to put on my programming hat and attack this problem. I knew two things: the list of Catholic blogs is publicly available at the Catholic Blog Directory and the number of Google Reader subscribers for every blog is also publicly available. The problem: who is going to manually determine the subscriber numbers for over 2,000 blogs? Thus, I wrote a program that would do the work for me (programmers are essentially lazy people), gathering the subscriber numbers for every Catholic blog at the Directory. I then ranked them in order by number of subscribers. Below is the top 25 plus a link to the top 200.

Big red disclaimer: this list is based on Google Reader subscribers only. I imagine that this is a good indicator of a blog’s popularity compared to other blogs, but it does not measure actual traffic to the site or the total number of subscribers across different feed readers. Furthermore, it doesn’t guage a blog’s current popularity as much as its popularity over the full history of the blog.

Top 25 Most Popular Catholic Blogs by Google Reader Subscribers

(1) What Does the Prayer Really Say?: 4841
(2) Whispers in the Loggia: 4685
(3) Charlotte Was Both: 3053
(4) Conversion Diary: 1817
(5) New Advent Blog: 1429
(6) Creative Minority Report: 1248
(7) Patrick Madrid: 1173
(8) Standing on my Head: 1156
(9) The Hermeneutic of Continuity: 1053
(10) Damian Thompson: 954
(11) Rorate Caeli: 933
(12) The New Liturgical Movement: 892
(13) Ask Sister Mary Martha: 867
(14) Mere Comments: 811
(15) Catholic and Enjoying It!: 796
(16) Ignatius Insight Scoop: 749
(17) By Sun and Candlelight: 712
(18) Catholic Cuisine: 648
(19) The Shrine of the Holy Whapping: 643
(20) Testosterhome: 638
(21) Happy Catholic: 607
(22) The Crescat: 573
(23) Domine, da mihi hanc aquam!: 521
(24) Shower of Roses: 481
(25) Wildflowers and Marbles: 474

See the list of the Top 200 Most Popular Catholic Blogs over at my main website.

For those who are curious, my blog came in #303, which isn’t bad out of over 2,000 blogs considering I’ve only been doing this for a little over a year. But feel free to subscribe to my blog to bump me up.

I realize that I tend to write longish posts on this blog, so I have added a link at the end of each post which gives you the option to create a printer-friendly version of the post, so you can print out a post and then read it in the comfort on your favorite chair and without the eye-strain that comes from reading on the computer screen. I know that any article longer than about 400 words I cannot read very easily on the screen, so hopefully this new feature will be of help for some people!

In today’s Gospel reading, Christ urges us to make petitionary prayers to the Father. He says,

Ask and it will be given to you;
seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds;
and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
Which one of you would hand his son a stone
when he asked for a loaf of bread,
or a snake when he asked for a fish?
If you then, who are wicked,
know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will your heavenly Father give good things
to those who ask him.
(Matthew 7:7-11)

For a while now I have been planning a “service” I would like to offer to anyone who comes to this blog, and this Gospel inspired me to start it today. Here is the service: if you send me a prayer intention I will make sure that one of the following will be offered for that request: a decade of the Rosary, a Mass intention, or a day of fasting. I am in contact with some people who are willing to offer these activities for your prayer intentions.

To make a prayer request, simply email prayer@ericsammons.com and let me know your intention. Strict confidentiality will be kept and I promise that someone will offer your intention as soon as possible. Unless I am overwhelmed by intentions, I can’t imagine that it will be more than one or two weeks before your intention is offered in union with one of the above-mentioned activities. If the matter is urgent, state that in the email, and the request will be given priority.

I don’t want this blog to just be a place where I expound my opinions; I want it to be something that helps others draw closer to Christ. I believe very strongly in the power of prayer, so I hope (and pray) that this little service will do some good in building up the Kingdom of God.

If you have your own blog, feel free to let others know about this service.

Brandon Vogt over at The Thin Veil is not just a blogger, he is a serious reader of blogs. By his own estimation, he is subscribed to over 180 blogs, which he scans almost daily. Recently, he decided to rank his top 75 blogs, and the list is quite interesting and ecclectic; it includes Catholic blogs, Protestant blogs, as well as useful secular blogs. He broke the list into three parts:

#75-#51

#50-#26

#25-#1

I was honored to make the Top 10 of Brandon’s list of favorites, but even more important, I’m grateful to Brandon for this list – many of the blogs I was not familiar with, so now I can peruse them and see if I want to add any to my own subscriptions (which comes nothing close to 180!).

Thanks Brandon!

I recently added my blog to the Networked blogs at Facebook, and added a widget in the right column in which you can click to follow the Divine Life blog. Please do so!

Also, I have a badge of my own FB profile in the right column as well – feel free to click on it to add me as a “friend” (yes, as much as I appreciate Facebook, I am unable to use the term “friend” without quotes surrounding it when referring to Facebook “friends”. Call me old-fashioned).

I’ve moved my website to another server, so if you notice any problems – dropped comments, missing posts, etc. – let me know. Hopefully there will be no issues and the server will be faster as well.

For my last Top 10 List of 2009, here are my own Top 10 personal favorite posts from this year:

1) Really Catholic and Uber Catholic. One of my most popular and commented posts, it was also my favorite.

2) Truth. The image of an unborn child came to me as soon as I heard this quote from President Obama.

3) Scott Hahn becomes Muslim! My April Fools entry allowed me to gently tweak a man I greatly admire.

4) My name is Eric and I am a Catholic Geek. This was a great opportunity to combine my interests in all things Catholic with my technological background.

5) We need a pope. I was very fortunate to meet Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America this year, and was somewhat stunned by his words to me.

6) Author of Hebrews: theology school dropout. One of my great interests is Biblical studies and I often lament their sad state in much of academia. I put their false presuppositions on display in this post.

7) How to evangelize your family this Thanksgiving. Another driving passion of mine is evangelization. In this post I try to give practical advice for evangelization within the family.

8) Dei Verbum and the Sources of Revelation. In honor of the anniversary of Dei Verbum’s promulgation, I discussed one of the key points of that Vatican II document.

9) At least Captain Picard will understand the Bible. My technology background has led me to contemplate some of the consequences of new technologies and how they impact our spiritual lives. Here is one example.

10) Divorce of Scripture and Theology. Another post on the state of Biblical Studies in our times.

I hope you have enjoyed this blog this year and I hope to have many more posts in 2010. Happy New Year!

In journalism, the motto is “If it bleeds, it leads”. The more disastrous a story, the more likely it is to get a lot of play in the media. I have tried to offset that tendency at my blog by highlighting little-known stories of grace which show that God is working in this world. I think in heaven the stories that get the most “press” are stories like the ones below.

The Top 10 stories from my blog in 2009:

1) If you kill me, I’ll go to heaven and you’ll go to hell. One of my most popular posts, the embedded video tells the story of an elderly woman who stopped an attacker in his tracks with the Gospel.

2) Joyful Sisters. The story of a woman who found her vocation through the witness of joyful sisters.

3) How could you have brought us to this insane place? The story of what happens when a Baptist minister visits an Orthodox Divine Liturgy.

4) You know Catholics. A woman does her part to fulfill the command of Genesis 1:28.

5) Born again at 90. A man reads the Bible in his old age and becomes Catholic.

6) My mom dragged me into Church and I ended up a priest. The story of an Evangelical who goes to a Catholic church unwillingly and ends up a priest.

7) Vocations crisis! A post about the “problem” the Nashville Dominicans are facing.

8) Came to Church for the girls, ended up a priest. The vocations story of Msgr. Charles Pope, who initially came to church for less-than-ideal reasons.

9) I did not understand how people could pray to a weak and dying God. The power of the Gospel takes hold of a Sikh.

10) Sisters come home. An order of Episcopal religious sisters decide to swim the Tiber.

We can get caught up in the negative news which the mainstream media makes part of our daily diet, but we must always remember that God is active in this world: we just need to open our eyes to see it!

Yesterday I posted my Top 10 Most Popular Posts by traffic. Today I will post the Top 10 Most Commented Posts:

1) To be deep in history is to cease to be angry. What was highly ironic about the ensuing discussion of this post was how angry many people got.

2) In defense of the Novus Ordo. Anyone familiar with the Catholic Blogosphere should understand why a blog post with this title would get a good number of comments.

3) Coming out of the closet. After liturgy issues, Harry Potter is a surefire way to generate a lot of comments.

4) Really Catholic and Uber Catholic. I had a number of great additions to my list in the comments.

5) Fact: demanding, liturgical churches attract youth. Rule #1 of Catholic blogs: discussion of liturgy=comments.

6) Truth. Another good way to generate comments: mention President Obama and abortion.

7) Rules of Engagement for Catholics on the Internet. Fortunately, no one seemed to break the rules in the comments for this post.

8) “Filioque” means “division”. This post generated my favorite discussion of the year, as a number of people were able to contribute valuable insights into this age-old point of division.

9) Why I love being Catholic. Usually “negative” posts generate the most comments, but I was pleased to see the response to this “positive” post of mine.

10) Scott Hahn becomes Muslim! My April Fools contribution generated a few comments, unfortunately including some who took it as an opportunity to criticize Dr. Hahn.

Every blogger loves comments, so in 2010 feel free to leave your own!

This week I plan on posting some “Top 10″ lists related to my blog. I will start with a list of the Top 10 Most Popular Posts (by traffic) from 2009:

1) How many silent monks does it take to sing Handel’s Messiah? A popular YouTube video showing a high-school production of monks “singing” Handel’s Messiah with cue cards. This link must have gotten embedded in a wide-spreading email, because about a week after it was posted it started receiving hundreds of visitors per day from out of the blue.

2) Really Catholic and Uber Catholic. My tongue-in-cheek take on what makes someone “really” Catholic or “über” Catholic.

3) If you kill me, I’ll go to heaven and you’ll go to hell. A cute video about an elderly woman who brought her attacker to tears by preaching the Gospel to him.

4) Tiger Woods and Pornography. A look at the connection between Tiger’s failings and the everyday temptations we all face.

5) What would Catholic-Orthodox reunion look like? A look at two proposals which have been made regarding Catholic-Orthodox reunion.

6) Rules of Engagement for Catholics on the Internet. A list of rules I try to follow when engaged with others on the Internet.

7) Coming out of the closet. In which I divulge a deep, dark secret: I am a Harry Potter fan.

8) How could you have brought us to this insane place? The story of “Real Live Preacher” – a Baptist minister who decided to attend an Eastern Orthodox liturgy and was blown away.

9) When Mass makes you angry. A discussion of why the Liturgy is so important and what to do when its implementation makes you angry.

10) To be deep in history is to cease to be angry. In which I discuss how the more you know history, the more peaceful you become about current problems in the Church.

As is obvious, I’ve redesigned the blog. When I originally set up the blog, I went with the default design, but I always intended to do something different. The old design was a bit dull, and I thought the text was too small. Well, I finally got around to redesigning it this weekend. Hope you enjoy the new look!

After I uploaded my last posting, I realized that the first sentence read, “Often when there is debate within the Church about some controversial movement or vision or person, defenders will trout out the positive “fruits” as a definitive proof that the phenomenon is legitimate and from God.” Now, I realize there often can be grammatical and spelling mistakes in blog posts, as they are not heavily edited, but I usually do check my posts for errors, but somehow this one was missed.

I’m not sure exactly how a defender can “trout” out a fruit – perhaps they swim down the river to grab it? I do know that when I was a boy my uncle would often trot me down to the river to do some trout fishing; perhaps that was the cause of my confusion?

Now I’m getting hungry for some fresh trout…I think I’ll trot down to the grocery store to see if any is available…

My site was down for the past 8-10 hours due to technical issues. Isn’t technology grand?

Blogging will be light (and possibly non-existent) next week as I will be out of town.

As Mark always says, keep those beans out of those noses!