Eric Berger, the SciGuy, has a thriving community on his blog, with regular users, but he is always looking for ways to build a stronger community.

Berger, a beat reporter for the Houston Chronicle, often asks for users’ input and uses his blog to build a community around his beat. I wrote a week ago that not every blog post needs to be about news. Some are about starting conversations, and that’s what building a community is all about.

"It makes them feel apart of the community," Berger said about interacting with readers by using his blog to drive discussion and by responding to users’ comments. "It’s a sort of give
and take as a conversation as opposed to a one-way street, which was
the old model for news."

Berger found another way to take the discussion on his blog to a new level by using an online survey. When Pew released the results of its survey on religious beliefs in America, Berger saw an opportunity to compare the results of that national survey with what his readers believed. Not only are Berger’s readers fans of science, but they are also Texans, which, according to Pew, are more devout than average Americans.

So, Berger made his own online survey for his readers to take using Survey Monkey. Hundreds did and the results are fascinating. Eric set out to answer this question:

If you’re here, chances are you’re interested in science. That would predispose most to accept evolution, I think. But what about the controversial notion that science leads one away from God?

The answer from his (non-scientific) survey is yes, science tends to lead people away from God. According to Pew, 71 percent of Americans are "absolutely certain" of their belief in God or a universal spirit, while 77 percent of Texans are absolutely certain. But just 47.8 percent of Berger’s readers are absolutely certain.

Just five percent of people nationally "don’t believe in God," while 24.4 percent of Berger’s readers don’t. The thing is, the results might not be quite what they seem to outsiders.

Berger says that many science blogs are outwardly anti-religion. What Berger sees from these results are that many of readers are religious — probably more so than the typical science blog.

"It’s a little bit different from a lot of national science blogs, which often take a pretty strong anti-religious approach," Berger said about the results from the survey. "I certainly wouldn’t want to do that because I’d alienate a lot of readers."

Both posts (the original announcing the Pew results and the second announcing Berger’s results) generated a lot of comments from readers. Berger used this opportunity to build a strong community and to introduce more interactivity into his blog.

What Berger did is the kind of thing a beat reporter couldn’t do in print. With online tools like Survey Monkey, Berger can try new ways of communicating with readers. Most of these tools are pretty easy to use and often free (Survey Monkey is free for the first 100 responses).

Building a strong community of regular users is a great way to hone in on two important Web metrics: Time spent on a Web site and repeat traffic. Repeat visitors will drive up both page views and visits, which your business staff will love. Creating a survey doesn’t take a lot of time, but it can have a monster effect on your traffic, especially repeat traffic as people discuss the survey results.

"The idea was basically another way to bring people in to feel connected, apart of the community, because the idea is that you want to build a base of regular readers — people who come to your site every day," Berger said. "This was just another way for them to feel apart of the community."