At the Ministry2 conference I shared some of my super secret sauce on blogging. I realized that I actually haven’t shared it with this community here, so here it is.

For the first year of this blog, ChurchCrunch.com, I’ve been able to manage a sustainable (and reasonable) bandwidth of about 3 blog posts a day. Actually, the number is more close to about 5 since I also actively maintain a few other blogs as well.

I’ve discovered 10 “types” of blog posts which help me have the most impact with the least amount of work possible. Here are the 10:

1. Date Specific

This type of post is easy to create and maintain. Essentially, you establish on your schedule a post that will happen systematically during a particular day. For example, I run a blog post series on Human3rror the first of every month called “Desktop Backgrounds” where I simply ask my readers what they are sporting as their desktop background.

Super easy.

2. Interviews

Interviews are fairly easy as well. For a while I used to do a Friday 5 series here on ChurchCrunch which helped establish a rhythm of blogging here. I stopped after a bit as I had a lot of other topics I personally wanted to cover, but I may bring this back soon.

Interviews can really work well and don’t require much work on your part. Make it part of your schedule and you’re set.

3. The Super Simple Post

The super simple post is essentially just that. The goal here is little work and high impact. The “Caption Please” series I run on Human3rror is a great example of that. I don’t have to do much work but I get the most traffic and comments.

4. The Series Posts

I’ve written a few times on how good this strategy is already. Splitting up a post into a series of posts can significantly help you create more content and coverage over a few days instead of just one. Consider splitting up your big post into a few next time you sit down to write.

5. Dissertation Posts

This kind may not help you much but for me it did. About once a month I’ll write what I call a “dissertation” post, or a post that is about 2,000 words long. For me this helped change it up a bit as well as provide a really deep discussion point that I’ve been thinking about for a while. Another instance is a post that ends up looking like a deep FAQ or Walkthru post of a particular service or application, like this Feedburner 101 post.

More types after the jump…

6. Guest Posts

This is pretty self-explanatory, but the guest post is a no-brainer. Get others to contribute their valuable thoughts and skills to your blog!

Enough said… or read this post about 4 Reasons You Should Have Guest Posters.

7. Stats / Updates / Goal-Sharing Posts

Every so often I’ll post about how the blog is doing, especially in terms of traffic, statistics, and metrics. This is a simple way to provide some authenticity and transparency to your blog, and it’s not hard to do. Oftentimes the audience appreciates this candid look into the “backend.”

8. Giveaways

Duh. Giveaways are easy and simple.

9. The “Change Up” Post

Sometimes I’ll blog something that falls outside my typical coverage, like a post about my family or something a little more personal. This helps keep a blog healthy I think and adds some flavor. It is also somewhat cathartic.

10. Humor (Mileage May Vary)

Humor and satire work and sometimes by adding a humorous post in the mix can add some spice. It’s also not too hard to do either.

Ok, so what have you seen work? What other types of posts do you use?

[Image from Ciber]