Thursday, October 2, 2014

Blogging for students is not only about blogging

Teaching how to set up and maintain a blog was something plain and simple years ago . Nowadays things have become more complex… much more: HTML5, SEO, personal brand, positioning, ads, affiliation, social media… Those aren’t but a few terms to take in count really seriously. Enrich your lessons!



Blog, Blogging, Deja

A black-hole-mass like concentrated knowledge pill about blogging for students:


  1. Your personal blog:
    1. Blogger: it’s integrated in Google and it gives many useful stats, but you have to promote it (#4) and look for readers.
    2. Online articles sites:out-of-your-blog publishing sites, like ezinearticles, or hubpages. You’ll be likely to have more visits.
  1. Your articles:
    1. Measures: try something like three hundred word articles, redacted in no more than one hour, five to seven articles a week.
    2. Be original, different, specific, unique, constant, fascinating, provocative...
    3. Other: grammar, style… ensure the communicative process takes place, i.e, what you mean is what it’s been understood.
    4. Ease things up: links to other pages (e.g definitions to Wikipedia).
    5. Open up comments to know about your audience’s opinion (and watch out trolls).
  1. Tools:
    1. Google docs: easy to work online, insert things, thesaurus, copy&paste it to blogger… You can even write through your mobile or laptop. Check my other article about this.
    2. Google drive: keep things safe and anywhere.
  1. SEO it: make Google find your articles more easily.
    1. Your blog:
      1. Article structure: title, head, body (inverted pyramid).
      2. Blogger’s options: tags, keywords, search description...
      3. HTML-format it: <title><h1><h2><b><i>,<a href>...
      4. Include your bio, social networks links, contact info, an article index…
      5. Provide enough text.
      6. Decorate it: images, videos, animations, embedded resources (apparently Flash is not welcome).
      7. Include options for subscription, sharing…
      8. Include information for the search engine: meta, title...
    2. Word strategy:
      1. Check trending words (Google Trends) and write about them.
      2. Analyze buzzwords about your blog’s subject and decide how to use them.
    3. Social networks (the relevant ones):
      1. Publish your links in Google+ (it’s indexed by Google), Twitter… Use tools as Everypost to publish in several places at once. Use whole links, with the titles on them.
      2. Register your blog in directories.
      3. Post carefully in sites like Reddit (watch out not to be banned).
      4. Make people identify you easily: subject, knowledge, blog, name, brand, colors, logo, quality...
    4. Multipublish:
      1. For each entry of your blog, republish!: slideshare, issuu, online articles sites… Don’t forget to include your bio on the last page.
      2. Link your blog to those sites and vice versa.
    5. Signature: include your blog’s link in your mail/forum/… signature.
    6. Be just and don’t:
      1. Use farm links.
      2. Publish in dark sites.
      3. Be untrustworthy.
      4. Ask people to click or visit your pages.
      5. Be offensive.
      6. Use proprietary resources.
  1. Analyze everything:
    2. Blogger’s stats:
      1. Audience (countries…): you may write in English but also have visitors from Spain (like me).
      2. Sources: important, as you know what publishing sites are proving more useful to spread your words.
  1. Social impact:
    1. Klout: check your social impact score.
  1. Ads?
    3. Dangers:
      1. Loss of credibility.
      2. People fed up of ads.
      3. Ads not related with your blog’s main subject.
  1. Readapt/rearrange/replan/rethink.




And to finish, a board with some useful tools (evolving unstoppably):

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