 Catholic Web Content Development Articles Series (2 of 7) - Writing
to Teach a Method of Prayer
Introduction
We continue our web content development Series, by exploring the form and
content of writing on a method of prayer. Teaching a method of prayer
or a spiritual exercise involves presenting an informative step by step
guide, so that readers can follow completely the flow and order of the
spiritual exercise. It would be good to use descriptive content, and
a form that would outline distinctly the steps in detail, so that the
method of prayer is fully understood, and can be performed well by those
wanting to learn the method.
Organisation techniques in developing this kind of content
The central or main part of this content is the presentation of the method
itself. And to make our presentation well-organised, one writing technique
is to outline each step of the method in a paragraph of its own. In this
way, we can give as much descriptive and detailed instructions to fully
explain each step of the spiritual exercise. Another organisation technique
is given by authors Flesch and Lass in their book, "A New Guide to Better Writing".
These two authors speaks about an effective writing technique by which our
instructions can be well-understood: "we must go through the whole method or
process step by step in our own mind, and write it down exactly as we would
do it ourself, one step after the other'.
Consulting good sources when writing about each step of the method
Since methods of prayer and spiritual exercises are in a class of their own,
it would be wise to consult also other sources that teach the method. Each
source would have a style of presenting the method of prayer. We could
present a method of prayer better, by editing into our writing all the
best ways of describing and detailing the method of prayer as they were
presented by others in their writing. And an effective writing strategy
will give each of the steps of the prayer a set of full descriptions
and instructional details.
Make comprehensive content development for better impact on readers
As we develop the main part of our content - which would be the steps of
the method of prayer itself - we can also contextualize our instruction,
by providing as a background to our writing, the following: the origin
of the prayer; its use and further development in the history of the Church;
how it is expressed and practiced in different schools of spirituality
(Benedictine, Augustinian, Carmelite, Franciscan, Dominican, and Ignatian);
and its relevance to Catholic life today. Presenting a method of prayer this
way is a very good informative writing technique. We can be concise in
this specifice enhancement and technique, so that the focus of our readers'
attention is still learning the prayer itself.
Some suggestions for developing content on prayer
There is a rich tradition of prayers and spiritual exercises in our
Catholic devotions. Developing content about it depends on what
specific value we want our readers to learn, as they search for
a particular method of prayer to use for their spiritual growth. If
we want our readers to value their relationship with God through the
sacrament of reconciliation, then we can teach a specific method of
examining one's conscience. Or, if we want our readers to value
the Word of God in the Scriptures, and apply its message in their
daily living, then we can teach about lectio divina. Another
suggestion is the Lenten spiritual exercise of praying the Stations
of the Cross. This will help our readers value the self-sacrificing
love of Christ, during the liturgical season of Lent. Whatever method
of prayer or spiritual exercise we want to effectively write about,
it would be good to highlight how the prayer can help strengthen
our relationship with God.
Using an SEO Technique in developing web content on prayer
Not all methods of prayer or spiritual exercises are popularly searched
by the internet public. To check if a method of prayer we want to
develop as content in our Catholic web site is popularly searched,
we can research for statistics at Digitalpoint.com. One popular
prayer that is often searched (according to Digitalpoint.com
statistics, as of the writing of this article) is the rosary. The
search query "rosary" is searched by people in the USA, 478.0 times
a day. And the search query "how to pray the rosary" is searched
150.0 times a day. This SEO (search engine optimization) technique
will be very useful in web content development, if we want our web
page to be a landing page that will bring more traffic and visitors
to our Catholic site.
Summary
When developing web content on methods of prayer, we can achieve
optimal results and make our writing more effective, if we practice
the following: give descriptive details of how each step in the
prayer is to be prayed; consult other sources that teach the method
of prayer and edit their presentation styles to make our content
more readable and understandable; write comprehensively also about
the method of prayer by including its origin, history, and expressions in
various schools of spirituality; and use a keyword statistics online
tool to know the popular search query actually used by the internet
public to search for a method of prayer.
Related resources
Dennis Emmanuel Cabrera
Web Developer Methods for Catholics
www.c-web-developer.net
My Main Catholic Blog
www.c-internet-mission.net
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