Blogging for God’s Glory: Technical Questions to Consider

Last week, For The Church was kind to publish an article I wrote called “Blogging for God’s Glory.” In it, I encourage Christians to care about the quality of our art, not simply because it reflects on us, but more importantly, because it reflects our God. I shared 35 questions to consider as we bloggers ply our trade. I discussed things such as:

Purpose & Audience: Why am I blogging, and who am I trying to reach?
Commitment: How much time and effort will I give to blogging?
Networking: How will I connect with readers and other like-minded bloggers?
Money & Growth: How much money will I invest in blogging and what might be the returns?

Near the end of the article I wrote, “There are a dozen technical, behind-the-scenes details that you’ll also want to consider, but let’s leave them for another day.” Well, today felt like a good day to cover some of these technical questions.

I realize this post will not give “warm-fuzzies” to you about the gospel. It doesn’t for me either. I also realize many people who read my blog don’t have their own blog. But for any like me who have floundered for a season not knowing the difference between Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org (and what does URL mean, and a bunch of other techie things), I hope this post helps you as much as it could have helped me three years ago.

Technical: What behind-the-scenes details do I need to know?

Am I capable of handling technical tasks such as setting up the blog, formatting posts, and creating forms to capture email addresses? If not, who can help me?
Which categories will go in my blog header, such as an about page, a publications page, and a contact page?
Will my blog contain only written posts, or will I include video and audio posts? If I include audio and video, do I have the equipment and the technical expertise to pull off these other forms?
Is the name of my blog the same as my website address, commonly called a URL? Have I purchased a URL yet?
Of the many different blogging platforms, will I use Wordpress, Squarespace, Blogger, Medium, or something else?
If I use Wordpress, the most popular blogging platform, do I know the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org, and what might be the pros and cons of using each? (It’s been said that Wordpress.com is like renting a house and WordPress.org is like owning a house.)
If I use Wordpress.org, am I comfortable keeping my “plug-ins” up to date? (Plug-ins are added features you can incorporate into your blog to customize it.)
Will I email readers using the email service included by some blog platforms, or will I use an email service provider, such as MailChimp, Emma, or Constant Contacts?
If necessary, am I able to use HTML, the web coding language, to finetune the look of my blog?
Do I understand the term blog hosting, which describes who stores the content uploaded to the blog? Who will host my blog?
Will I set up my blog to capture email addresses, often called a lead magnet? If so, can I offer to give an ebook, short story, or infographic in exchange for contact information?
How will I store these email addresses, and how will the storage system relate to my blog hosting platform?
Will I check how my blog appears through several different internet browsers, such as Chrome, Explorer, Safari, and Firefox?
Does my blog templet work seamlessly with mobile devices, tablets, and desktop computers?
Will I first write my blog posts with a word processing software like Microsoft Word, or will I write my posts directly on the blog? If I write in Microsoft Word, do I know how to transfer posts onto the blog?