Now I’m no writing expert. But I have learned a few things about online writing, especially in apologetics.

Writing is a deeply human past time that can vent you soul, connect two strangers, and weave beauty out of chaos. When it’s  apologetics writing, you can do all that and serve divine purposes too. 

Do you want to start an apologetics blog? If so, then with only a few precautions in mind, I encourage you to go for it. If you are a terrorist, a heretic, an imbecile, or a flat Earther, then you should probably reconsider. But for everyone else I’d say go for it! The interweb is spacious enough for successful and failed projects alike. And both of those types are leaning experiences for you. So you’ve got nothing to lose. 

Here are some tips to help you get started in the rollercoaster world of blogging:

1) Always keep posting–people stop coming if it’s looks like a “dead site.” and they’ll jump to that conclusion if it’s been left fallow for a while. 

2) Aim it at your target audience–homeschool moms? College kids? Churchgoers? Bible teachers? Science crowd? Prolife ministries? When I was a Bible teacher I loved sites that had lots of instructional charts, well designed student projects, and “tough question” posts that answer a difficulty in 1-2 pages. And from homeschool parents I hear all kinds of requests for materials suited to homeschool classrooms. Most of them have no budget, but a lot of ingenuity. They could use your help. 

3) promote your stuff on Buffer (an app that posts scheduled messages for you on multiple sites at once; it’s sort of like a mini marketing secretary). 

4) schedule time each day to write (whatever you can manage, try to have at least one decent/substantial blog a week with as many mini blogs/tweets as you can manage). If you can’t write each day, then use buffer to release min posts no less than 2xs weekly so your site stays active and you maintain an online presence. You could do all your writing on Saturday mornings with a 2-hr written post, and 3 mini posts scheduled to release every other day on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. 

5) time your posting for high viewership times. 

6) be relevant–the most viral posts will strike some nerve, often some trending topic that you get onto early. 

7) meet a need–there is a lot of junk out there, it’s “junk” status doesn’t mean “low quality”, it may be high quality, but its useless/redundant so no one will read it. Find topics, issues or themes that deserve more attention than they are getting, or where you have an insightful/helpful voice on the issue. People who feel that need will more likely search for and appreciate your voice when you are meeting that need. Some key needs are apologetics material for kids, gender studies, homeschool resources, free speech issues, faith and politics, faith and ecology, and any “breaking news” review/comment pieces. 

8) share and circulate–you’re more likely to get comments, reposts, and retweets when you are sharing some one else’s quote, story, video, or article. You can still add your own comments and critiques. But this is part of the shareconomy. It integrates your voice into the conversations already happening so you become relevant to these people whose content you are sharing

9) favor clickable and searchable phrasing–this will make your posts easier for Google to find (if your title or a subheading is identical to a common search query) 

10) practice journalistic integrity/academic integrity – – we have enough fake news already, we don’t need more. 

11) curate your comment threads–when folks comment/interact with your posts, interact with them. Delete the troll posts. Answer questions. Receive correction. People hang around and click into conversations they’re having but not as much when it’s just a lecture (one sided), with no chance of conversing. And if you don’t weed that garden, people will abandon it. 

12) Be funny and clever–people enjoy light and fun elements most readily, it’s more of a long-term earned privilege to have them enjoy your serious/darker writing. People need to see hope in the darkness, inspiration, and encouragement and that doesn’t come across well in the serious preachy posts where some pastor or professor is ranting at all the worldliness around him. 

13) And of course, be intentional at improving as a writer. 

Those tips should help you get started. Now I need to go practice what I preach. My last post was 2 months ago! Yikes!