Cultural transition is one of the worst experiences a human being can go through. It seems, at times, as if you’ve changed worlds, and adjusting to this massive change drains more than energy; it drains your spirit.
Why does this happen? Is there an explanation for the difficulty in cultural change?
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Christian rap is completely underrated. It has been spit on, downtrodden, and hated for so long, it’s rather pathetic. I have seen this treatment come from all sides, including the Christians.
Why? What’s so bad about some Christian guys rapping?
Nothing, actually.
Continue reading “The Glory of God in Rap”
Today’s teenagers are fed a steady mantra. “You’re just teens, what can you do?” “That’s too ambitious, why don’t you aim a little lower?” Personally, I’m sick of hearing it, whether from those close to me or even people that hardly know me. For some reason, we are classified as children with the bodies of adults.
Actually, that classification isn’t far off.
Continue reading “What Does It Really Mean to be a Teen?”
There’s a massive difference between blogging like a beginner and blogging like a pro. Pros receive traffic, beginners don’t. Being a beginner isn’t bad of course; everybody has to start somewhere. Taking the step and becoming a better blogger, however, is a key part to seeing success.
Granted, I am not the greatest example. I have seen moderate success with my writing, but nowhere near that of excerpts like Neil Patel or Cristian Mihai. However, these ten tips are a compilation of the tips offered by experts such as the aforementioned Neil Patel. Employing them will ensure your step-up to the levels of elite bloggers and will give you an eventual boost in traffic.
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Even in the darkest of times, God is good. It seems cliche, doesn’t it? Yet over the last eight weeks, this has become my mantra. I have repeated it over and over again, and the words still haven’t lost their meaning.
We all suffer. It’s part of being human. Some suffer more than others, leaving us to question life’s equality. Others bear suffering as their cross, convinced that the burden doesn’t exist.
In one way or another, every single one of us is suffering. You, reading this, are suffering. Right now. In some way, you are. I, writing this, am suffering. It’s part of sin’s curse.
Thanks, Adam.
Continue reading “Christ, the God of Fulfillment”
Any person with even the most mediocre understanding of religious statistics will tell you that out of every three people you meet, one will be a Christian. Or, at least, they claim to be Christian.
In every culture, we find watered-down Christianity. In Africa, we find Christianity mixed with semblances of witchcraft. In the East, we find Christianity blended with spiritualism. In the West, we find Christianity blended with self-worship and atheism.
Continue reading “Three Popular Misconceptions About Christianity”
Yesterday, a dearly loved member of my family passed away. She was eighty-three and died from a mixture of old age and internal complications.
Thankfully, my family felt moved to say our goodbyes to this dear relative, and so last week my father and I drove 800 miles to Florida. We managed to spend a good amount of time with her, although she was unconscious or incoherent most of the time. We sang over her, prayed, spoke, laughed, cried. . . and we made memories.
Continue reading “The Christian Response to Death”
Blogging can be tricky, and it doesn’t get any easier. Mistakes in the beginning may not count, but the further along you get, the worse you feel when you actually do mess up.
If you want to avoid the massive dip in traffic that often comes with committing a major blogging mistake, make sure to have these four items checked off your list. If you have already done the work, you will be fine. If not, you should probably get to work right away.
Continue reading “Four Fatal Mistakes That Will Kill Your Blog Traffic”
Yahweh, Yahweh
Always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, Yahweh
Still, I’m waiting for the dawn
“Yahweh”
These words were sung by popular 90’s band U2. At the time, nobody knew what Yahweh even meant. The song seemed rather random, as many of U2’s works were at the time. And, while many of U2’s fans did not understand the song’s meaning, the writers did. They were referencing God, and only the Christians and Jews recognized it.
So, what does Yahweh really mean?
Continue reading “What Does “Yahweh” Really Mean?”
Teenagers struggle with fulfillment. Somehow, as we transition from children to adults, we begin feeling this never-ending thirst for something. We don’t know what it is, but we certainly feel that it can be filled.
Some seek this fulfillment in family or a significant other in the hope that a relationship will fill this gap. Others seek fulfillment in sports, hoping that fame will cure their mysterious problem. Finally, others seek fulfillment in momentary pleasure, assuming that drugs or alcohol can fill a hole in their hearts.
After all, isn’t this what the world teaches us? That we can find fulfillment in pleasure, fame, and money?
Continue reading “What is True Fulfillment?”
Blogging is a difficult job. Countless hours are spent writing, optimizing, marketing, and sharing. We bloggers barely have room to breathe. Thankfully, there are several shortcuts that can, in fact, increase your blog traffic and save you a lot of time in the future.
If you aren’t incorporating these hacks, now would be an excellent time to begin. With the arrival of corona, internet traffic has spiked in ways nobody has ever dreamed of. Possible readers are everywhere- on Google, social media, and other websites. Adding these hacks to your daily blogging routine could allow you to access more readers from more places then before, increasing your traffic and bringing you more readers.
If you aren’t doing this, you need to begin now. It is an easy, automated process, allowing you to set up the ping once, at the beginning, and never have to do it again.
Pinging accomplishes two things- it tells Google you exist, and it also helps tell it when you’ve published new content. When you set up your ping, Ping-O-Matic will automatically ping Google again when you release new content. That way, you don’t have to manually do it every time, and yet you’re still receiving all the benefits.
Click here to begin pinging.
If you haven’t linked your website to the Google Search Console, now is the time to start. Don’t worry, though. I am going to walk you through the process one step at a time.
Begin by clicking here. That link will take you to the Google Search Console home. Towards the bottom-left of your screen, click the blue button that says, “Start Now”.
This will take you to a loading page where you will be asked for a URL to your website. Clicking the right option under “URL Prefix” will allow you to input the link to your website. After you have pasted the URL to your website, you will be asked to verify your ownership. Don’t be scared, WordPress makes this a very easy process. Simply scroll down and select the HTML tag option.
Then copy the HTML code it gives you and go back to your WordPress home (mine is bookmarked under “Stats”). On the left sidebar, click Tools, then Marketing. Then, at the top of the screen, click “Traffic” and scroll down to the very bottom. Pasting that HTML under the Google option and clicking “Save” will give you everything you need. Wait a few seconds and go back to the Google Search Console verification screen. Click verify, and it should allow you to view your site’s Google status in a page something like this.
You are now all set to begin using Google Search Console.
GSC has two fantastic uses when it comes to getting your website indexed. To begin, go to your GSC home and click “Sitemaps”.
Now, go back to the previous WordPress page we you had up before, where you pasted the HTML. Scroll up a little to the section that says “Sitemaps”.
Click the first link to pull up another tab. This will be a random jumble of links and titles, but all you need is the URL to this tag. Copy that and paste it back into the Google Search Console section, then click “Submit”. If it’s your first time doing this, you will see a section underneath that that will look something like this.
If it wasn’t your first time doing this, you will see the number under “discovered URLs” increase. Now, here’s the thing- you need to do this every time you release a new post. Release the post, wait five minutes, then copy and paste the URL to your sitemap page into the section on Google Search Console.
After this, you have one more step to do. Copy the URL to the new post and paste it into the search bar at the top of the Google Search Console.
Click Enter and wait a few minutes. It should bring up a page that will look something like this.
Clicking “Request Indexing” will ask Google to Index your website, speeding up the process of getting your post on Google. This can be especially useful if you are trying to post news within a timeframe.
Now, to cap it all off, once you’ve done all of this, you can go back and ping Google manually. The process of getting your website on Google is now finished.
This isn’t as difficult as it sounds. To optimize your images for the best viewer usage possible, make sure none of your pictures are above 1200×800 pixels and that all of them contain the proper alt text. Although alt text can be a little tricky, it is useful for helping Google understand what the image is. For example, if you had a properly-sized picture of a sunset, your alt text might be “red sunset”.
Interlinking is not something built in a day. It is a habit created over several weeks, involving linking to all of your related, featured, or previous posts (or in my case, all three). This helps Google create a web between your posts and has been confirmed as one of the factors Google uses in its ranking algorithm.
Make sure to leave links to similar content at the bottom of every post you write. This invaluable habit can help you rank higher on Google quickly and with little work.
Some bloggers mistakenly believe that posting five or six posts at once is a healthy thing for your blog. This is wrong. Not only is that considered spam, it will lose you followers.
So, instead of writing all of your weekly posts and publishing them on the same day, stagger them throughout the week. Try to spread them out as evenly as possible, so you have a day or two in between each post (unless you post daily).
Furthermore, attempt to publish in the early morning (you can schedule posts ahead of time by writing them the day previously), so that your readers have the full day to find their ways to your site through the email your new post sent out. Hopefully, you sent it out in the early morning to fully maximise the post’s potential.
Following these hacks should easily increase your traffic, although sometimes traffic increase comes better in the long run (would you rather get 10,000 views in two months or 1,000 this month?). Make them into habits, and you will see changes.
Alright, that’s all for today. Thanks so much for reading! I hope you learned a lot. If you did, make sure to click that Follow button below (or to the side). Then, when I release new posts like this one, you’ll get notified. Thanks again, and I hope you have a fantastic day!
Last post: The Liebster Award 4.0
Featured post: What The Holiness of God Taught Us About Speech
Related post: Four Crucial Tips For Young Bloggers
Alright, and we are back with another award- our fourth Liebster award! Thank you so much to Debby from DebbySEO for this nomination. While I usually don’t participate in awards I’ve already received, I seriously liked the way she’s changed it to make it more special, and so here we go.
The rules are simple:
1) What is in your opinion the best SEO software currently on the market? If you haven’t used SEO software, how informed are you about SEO services and software? Likely Moz.com’s features or Ubersuggest. I have used both and they are fantastic for learning about SEO. The best paid software, however, is the “Yoast SEO” plugin.
2) If you could eat as much food as you wanted without ever getting full or fat, which food would you choose? What is your favorite restaurant? American food, because there’s a lot of variety. My favorite American restaurant is Wendy’s or Cracker Barrel.
3) If your pet could talk, what would it say to you? She’d probably say, “why did you never want to be my friend?” I dislike guinea pigs, so I don’t usually pet them.
4) What is the weirdest thing you have ever seen someone do? I once saw a random girl dancing….innapropriately in front of a crowd of five-year-old children for a fundraiser in Uganda.
5) If you had enough money that you never needed to work again, what would you do with your time? Probably spend most of it playing basketball, although reading is also tempting.
6) Name three of your favorite songs. “Armies” by KB, “Paid My Dues” by NF, and “Set Me Free” by Lecrae.
7) Name three of your favorite books. “Lord of the Rings”, “Ender’s Game”, and “Sherlock Holmes”.
8) Would you lie to your friend or spouse for a large sum of money? How much? Absolutely not. As a Christian, I am called to be honest at all times.
9) If you had $10,000 to spend on whatever you like, what would you do with the money? I’d donate $2,000 to my ministry, New Hope Uganda, and invest the rest to use when I go to college next year.
10) If you would be granted one wish of any kind, what would you wish for? Assuming I couldn’t wish for unlimited wishes, I’d ask for the greatest, most complete guide to women’s minds. With that, I’d teach men and would eventually rule the world.
11) Who has been the biggest example in your life? Why? My dad, without a doubt. He has a massive impact on my life, from the way he has taught me to the example he sets.
1: Who’s your favorite actor/actress?
2: Do you work out? If so, describe what you do.
3: What’s your favorite dessert?
4: If you geeked out about something, what would it be?
5: What are your thoughts on the COVID-19 breakout?
6: Is social media beneficial or harmful to a teenager?
7: What is the most views you’ve had in a day (on your blog)?
8: Do you have a hobby?
9: Recall a childhood memory.
10: What high-school subject would you gladly re-take if given the chance (anad time)?
11: Favorite animal?
Sadly, since I have very little time, I can’t nominate specific people. If you would, however, like to do this EPIC award, I nominate you! You, my reader, are nominated (I know, it’s a lazy thing to do, but I don’t have the time to hunt down 11 people). Go forth and complete the award!
Alright, that’s all for today. Thanks so much for reading, and thanks to Debby for the nomination! Guys, if you enjoyed this post, make sure to click that Follow button below (or to the side). Then, when I release new posts like this on, you’ll get notified. Thanks again, and I hope you have a great day!
Last post: Four Crucial Tips For Young Bloggers
Featured post: What The Holiness of God Taught Us About Speech
Related post: The Real Neat Blogger Award
Being a good blogger means standing out from the rest. Too many young bloggers begin their journey, mimicking their peers, only to give up after two months with no followers.
The reason? They lacked individuality and professionalism.
I have been blogging for almost four years, though the first three shouldn’t count. I had six followers by the end of year three, and I honestly didn’t care. I was in my own little world. If five people read what I wrote, it was a good day. It wasn’t until the beginning of 2019 that I was introduced to WordPress, and there, I found my passion.
From the start, four things set me apart from the rest: I was hungry to learn, I put what I learned into practice, I consistently maintained professional writing, and I posted as often as possible. These four pieces to my blogging identity, coupled with my unique background, thrust me above the crowd and into a different status: trusted. People trusted what I wrote and took my words to heart. Why? Because I took these tips and worked.
With these tips, you should understand a bit more about the goal you are undertaking. Blogging is, after all, more than just a responsibility- it’s a job, and it should be treated as such. If you aren’t willing to put in the time and work, you won’t succeed.
Continue reading “Four Crucial Tips For Young Bloggers”
God’s glory is perhaps the most fascinating and central subject for a Christian. It is a key factor to the death and resurrection of Christ, and actually is one of the reasons for Christ’s death in the first place. Furthermore, God’s glory is the biggest reason for Christians to act as they do. Truly, it is an important piece to the puzzle known as Christianity.
Although we can clearly see God’s glory in normal situations, it is far more difficult to see Him glorified when dealing with the junk of the world. Through many of these situations, it takes an outsider saying, “wow, God was really good then, wasn’t he?” for someone to realize that God had, in fact, been good, and thus was glorified.
Continue reading “God’s Glory Through Sinful Man”
It’s in our nature to work and aspire. Some of us are loud and outspoken, while others are quiet and reserved. Ambition and aspiration are in all of us -adults, teens, Christians, and non-Christians. Many share common goals such as:
1. Desiring a certain job/career.
2. Aiming to be popular.
3. Gaining wealth.
If you asked a random person on the street to define or explain success, chances are you will get something like the three above.
But, if left unchecked against the truth of the Gospel, these simple goals will naturally grow into sinful desires and idols of the heart. As a result of living in a sinful world, we have sinful hearts that glorify objects instead of the One True God.
Continue reading “Success In Christ- Guest Post by Ian Fischer”
Elisha McFarland 