You’ve laid a strong foundation for your blogging journey — now, how do you keep the momentum going?

Here are 12 tips to offer you some inspiration.

1) Do a little bit each day

Imagine what you could accomplish by the end of the year if you did a little bit of work on your blog each day!

This doesn’t mean publishing a post daily but it might mean starting a post, writing a list of post ideas, commenting on other blogs, updating the design of your blog, updating an old post or page, sharing your blog on social media.

This poster also gives you ideas of tasks you could work on to improve your blogging in the months to come.

2) Don’t break the chain

Have you heard of the “don’t break the chain” method for productivity or to get hooked on a habit?

It works like this:

• You set yourself a mini goal (like working on your blog for 10 minutes a day).
• Every day you complete your goal, you mark off that day on a calendar.
• The longer the chain your build, the harder it will feel to break the chain.
• Before you know it, the habit will be in place!

It’s thought that Jerry Seinfeld came up with this method and advised an aspiring comedian to write one joke a day and mark it on a calendar.

Apparently, Jerry has since said that he did not come up with this method. Still, it remains popular and is a key way many social media, game, and app developers get users hooked.

If you want to try creating a chain on your phone, there are a number of apps available like this one.

3) Schedule time for blogging

If blogging is important to you, then don’t put it at the bottom of your list of priorities after you complete all your grading, preparation, and other administrative tasks. We know a teachers’ work is never done so sometimes you need to refocus your priorities.

Many well-known writers have talked about scheduling a daily habit into their calendars. For example, John Grisham is famous for waking up at 5am to write one page of his novel before heading to his day job. Many bloggers enjoy the same sort of approach and find it to be an enlightening way to start the day!

Early morning, lunch break, on the train, late at night — it doesn’t matter. Find the extra hour, go to the same place, shut the door.

No exceptions, no excuses.

~ John Grisham

Not a morning person? No problem! Schedule your blogging session whenever you can but make it happen.

4) Get a blogging buddy

Goals can be so much more enjoyable when tackled with someone else. Why not ask a friend or colleague if they’d like to blog with you, or help keep you accountable by having a weekly check-in?

This could be someone you know in your local community or a member of your global PLN.

You might be able to brainstorm ideas with your buddy, seek advice, or promote each other’s work.

5) Make a public commitment

Publically announcing that you are blogging regularly can be a great motivator to make it happen.

For example, you could send out a monthly email newsletter to readers of your own blog. Explain that this newsletter will share the posts you’ve written during the month. This is motivation to make sure you have content to share each month.

Maybe you’d like to try a similar approach, or simply announce to your X followers or colleagues that they will find a new post on your blog every week/two weeks/month. You pick the time frequency that will work for you.

6) Treat yourself

Well-known author Gretchen Rubin often talks about the strategy of “treats” when trying to form positive habits.

Gretchen explains,

A treat is different from a reward, which must be justified or earned. A treat is a small pleasure or indulgence that we give to ourselves just because we want it.

Treats give us greater vitality, which boosts self-control, which helps us maintain our healthy habits.

Perhaps you can treat yourself after you publish your weekly blog post with a movie, a game, or a catch up with friends. In this post, Gretchen talks about the idea of finding healthy treats that you enjoy.

7) Immerse yourself in the community

Blogging can feel quite lonely at times but it doesn’t have to be that way. There’s a huge community of educational bloggers online. Immersing yourself in the community has many benefits:

• It will keep your goal of “being a blogger” at the front of your mind if you surround yourself with other bloggers.
• You can get new ideas for your blog from others. Just as student bloggers often look to one another in class and ask, “how did you do that?”, you can do the same.
• You’ll begin to develop an authentic audience which can be very motivating as a blogger. Remember the golden rule though, if you want to have an audience, you also need to be an audience.

8) Find inspiration from others

Sometimes it can be hard to think of what to write about. You might be facing a clear case of “blogger’s block” or perhaps you have lots of big ideas that you’re not sure how to transform into posts.

Look to others for blog post ideas. You might read something on someone else’s blog, in a comment, or on X that strikes a chord. Perhaps you feel like you have more to say on the topic. Go for it!

Don’t forget, we have two sets of blog post prompts for educators and students that might also help keep the ideas flowing.

9) Try something new

If you’ve been blogging for a while, you might start to get tired of the same old process. Why not try something new?

Perhaps you could make a video for your post. Meredith Akers has recently shared some great tools here and we also have a guide to using videos in your blog posts.

Alternatively, you might like to make an audio recording with a tool like Spotity for creators. Or, you could explore the range of fun web tools that are out there to edit images, make comics or cartoons, make polls and so on. Check out Step 7 of our Teacher Challenge course for educators to learn more about cool tools to embed.

10) Forget about perfection

During one of our 28 day challenges, a new blogger asked how others go about getting a blog post published. Karen Richardson sent out some great advice in a tweet which she followed up in a post,

I do. I want to be able to think out loud in the midst of community. I draft and edit but give myself permission to publish something unpolished.

— Karen Richardson (@witchyrichy) January 12, 2019

If you get nervous about publishing your work for a public audience, perhaps it’s time to stop hovering over the publish button and just do it. It’s only a blog post, you won’t be getting a grade. And there’s an edit button!

If you allow perfection paralysis to take over, then you won’t end up enjoying all the benefits of blogging. What a powerful message to send to your students to show them that you too put your work out there and no one is perfect.

11) Keep a list going

Are you the sort of person who gets ideas during the night? Or perhaps when you’re doing the dishes or folding the laundry?

Many bloggers find it useful to have an ongoing list where they can jot down ideas for posts and other blogging tasks they’d like to tackle. This can be a simple notebook, a Google Doc, or perhaps an app on your phone. Use whatever suits you best.

Having an ongoing list means you won’t forget great ideas and won’t waste precious time when you sit down at your scheduled time to start work.

12) Don’t lose sight of your why

Why are you blogging?

• To reflect and develop your thinking?
• To be a role model for students as digital citizens and writers?
• To learn through researching and writing authentically for an audience?
• To build a home base for all your work or a digital portfolio to further your career?
• To become comfortable with blogging before introducing it into the classroom?

When you feel like giving blogging a miss, remember why you started in the first place. It’s worth it!

Tips From An Experienced Blogger

As his article was being written, we asked #blogging28 participant, Sheri Edwards for her tips. She began blogging in 2007 and still blogs very regularly.

This will be so helpful for bloggers, Sheri! You obviously have a great routine for blogging so regularly too. I’ve just written a post for The Edublogger with tips on maintaining momentum with blogging. How do you do it? Do you have scheduled time each day?

— Kathleen Morris (@kathleen_morris) January 26, 2019

Instead of replying to the tweet, Sheri blogged about it! And not just with one post, but with a series.

Check out Sheri’s series by using the following links:

• Part One 
• Part Two (topics)
• Part Three (social ideas)
• Part Four (connections)
• Part Five (reflection)
• Part Six (goals calendar)

Conclusion

The challenge is over but the community doesn’t have to unravel. Feel free to keep the conversations going on X with the hashtag #blogging28 and tag @edublogs. You can also subscribe to our X list of participants to keep in touch with what they’re up to.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in 2019 following our Blogging Challenge of that year.

Do you have a professional educator blog?

Many teachers start blogs with good intentions but keeping them active long term can be a struggle.

Sometimes the hardest part of maintaining momentum with your blog is knowing what to write about.

We’re here to help!

Throughout the year, we’ve been including blogging prompts for teachers and students in our email newsletter.

Not signed up to our email newsletter? You can add your details here and make sure you add news@edublogs.org to your contacts to prevent the emails from going to your spam folder!

We’ve compiled these prompts into a resource for you. With 50 new blogging prompts, you should be set for many months to come!

Scroll down to find a printable PDF.

We also published over 100 prompts for students on The Edublogger.

Wait! I Don’t Have A Blog!

If creating your own blog is something that’s been on your to-do list for too long, we can help.

Earlier in the year, we updated our free, self-paced course for educators looking to get started with blogging.

There are ten steps which you can work through in a sequential order. Or you can pick and choose as you wish.

Read more about the Personal Blogging Teacher Challenge here or go straight to the course. 

The 50 Prompts For Educators

1. Write a book review — it could be a book you’ve read for fun or learning.
2. Make a list of 10/50/100 things you’re grateful for. Maybe you could even create a sketchnote or graphic like Dani Dipirro.
3. Compare your first year of teaching to today. How have things changed?
4. Share some of your favorite ways to relax and recharge outside of school hours.
5. Embed an inspiring TED Talk and write your reflections.
6. Share 5 myths about teaching or a topic you’re passionate about.
7. Write about an app or web tool you use regularly or find useful.
8. Publish a photo of when you were a student and describe this time of your life.
9. Try Hubspot’s Blog Ideas Generator. Just enter three words and you’ll be given five ideas that you can tweak.
10. Blog roundup. Create a list of 5 or 10 of your favorite blogs and share the reasons why you recommend them.
11. Interview someone for a blog post. This could be a colleague, a former student, or someone from your professional learning network. Or, you could invite someone to prepare a guest post for your blog.
12. Create an A-Z of yourself, your career, or one of your passions.
13. Where do you connect with other teachers online? Twitter? Facebook groups? Instagram? Share your favorite ways to learn from others in the education community.
14. Explore the website Will Robots Take My Job? Share your findings in a post.
15. Write about the old technology you used to use at work or home that’s now obsolete. Perhaps it’s the VCR, floppy disk, or typewriter.
16. Make a new anchor chart for your classroom and photograph it for your blog. Check out this We Are Teachers post for inspiration.
17. When was the last time you wrote a poem? Why not give it a try in a blog post? For inspiration, Kevin Hodgson has written 3 poems about writing.
18. Consider the popular quote doing the rounds on social media: “Do more things that make you forget to check your phone”. What does this mean to you?
19. What do you do when you have a few minutes left at the end of a class? Share your ideas with other teachers.
20. Flexible seating is a hot topic! Share your thoughts in a blog post or weigh up the pros and cons. Pernille Ripp’s post might provide some inspiration.
21. Suggest some ideas for worthwhile activities at the start or end of the school year. Ten Creative Alternatives to Showing Movies Before the Break by John Spencer might provide some inspiration.
22. Try making a meme that you could share with readers, colleagues, or perhaps your students. Check out ISTE’s post about using memes with students.
23. There has been some online debate about having a “Pinterest perfect” classroom. What are your thoughts on this topic? Maybe you could add a touch of humor to your post like this post on Bored Teachers. 
24. Offer some tips for new teachers. This might be general advice or specific to a certain subject or age group.
25. Write about how you keep your passion for teaching alive. This post on Edutopia might provide some inspiration.
26. Share a tweet, Facebook post, or Instagram post that made you reflect, laugh, or change your way of thinking.
27. Check out the self-care calendar from Action for Happiness. Use one or more of these challenges as inspiration for a blog post.
28. Richard Byrne has explained how to find old newspapers through Google’s Newspaper Archive. Reflect on an interesting article in a blog post.
29. Lumen5 is a cool tool to make a video out of an article or blog post. Give it a try and share your video in a post.
30. If you could choose any book as mandatory reading for all high school students, what would it be and why?
31. What role do you think technology should play in the classroom?
32. What makes you happy at work? Your colleagues? Your leaders? The students? Write a post about happiness in the workplace.
33. Larry Ferlazzo has written about the impact of making positive phone calls home. Blog about your favorite approach to parent communication.
34. Publish a post sharing your own favorite tips to get more out of your day.
35. Read Kevin Hodgson’s post, “How Can We Tell If We Are Biased If We Already Are Biased?” Write your own reflections on this topic.
36. Sue Waters has shared her top 100+ crime and mystery novels of all time. Choose a category of books that you enjoy and share your own top reads.
37. How do you build relationships with students? Reflect on your approaches in a blog post.
38. Rich at 4 O’Clock Faculty has blogged about “do it yourself professional development“. Read the post and write about your own favorite forms of PD.
39. Tell your readers something about your colleagues. “We All Need To Be/Have Kind Colleagues” from The Idealistic Teacher might provide some inspiration.
40. Teachers are also students and students are also teachers. Education isn’t just one way. Write about lessons you have learned from students.
41. Larry Ferlazzo has shared an article about using “cash” as a behavior management strategy. Share your own approaches to behavior management.
42. David Geurin asks 5 Questions For Deeper Reflection. Use one or more of these as inspiration for a blog post.
43. Write about your morning routine at home, work, or in the classroom.
44. How do you find balance in your life? “Rethinking Balance” by George Couros might provide some inspiration for your own post.
45. Write your own reflections about grouping students by age.
46. Have you tried sketchnoting? Why not give Sylvia Duckworth’s #SketchnoteFever mini lessons a try and blog about it?
47. Explain why you blog. What do you get out of it? Does it help refine your thinking or do you just enjoy helping others?
48. Write about your life before teaching. What other jobs did you have? How did these experiences shape you?
49. Try Impact Impact’s Blog Title Generator to spark ideas for blog post titles.
50. Check out last year’s publication with 50 more blogging prompts for teachers and see what you’ve missed!

Get Your PDF

For your convenience, we’ve assembled these prompts into a PDF that you can save to your computer, print, or share with colleagues.

There are two types of bloggers.

One has a never-ending list of blog post ideas but just can’t find the time to write them all. The other wants to write more blog posts but is stuck for ideas.

Which type of blogger are you?

If you’re the latter, you’re in luck. This post offers you 7 ideas to help you find inspiration for your future blog posts.

These ideas apply to both student and teacher bloggers.

Scroll down for a printable worksheet where you can jot down your ideas as you read through the post.

(Tip: If you have the ideas but not the time, check out our Plan For Writing A Weekly Blog Post In 10 Minutes A Day).

1) What are your most popular posts?

Blogging isn’t only about writing for an audience—it’s also a powerful tool for reflection and documenting your own ideas.

That said, many bloggers find real value in connecting with an authentic audience. A smart first step is to look back and see which of your posts have resonated most with readers in the past.

If you use Edublogs Pro or CampusPress, the ideal way to do this is via Google Analytics. 

These instructions explain how to set up Google Analytics and you’ll be able to access your data via the Google Analytics website, or app.

You’ll also be able to check out a snapshot of your most popular posts by going to Dashboard > Statistics.

Once you know what your most popular posts are, ask yourself:

• What else could I write on that same topic?
• Could I break down the topic further? For example, if you wrote an overview of teaching geometry to 8th graders, could you break it down and share a sequence of detailed lesson plans, assessments, or resources?
• Is there a style of post that’s been popular with readers? Have you written some “top 10” posts or “how-to” posts or “comparison” posts that have done well? Could you write more posts in a similar style?
• Could you re-purpose some of your old content into a different format? For example, could you turn one of your popular posts into a video, slideshow, checklist, graphic, etc?

2) Poll your audience

If you’ve been blogging for a while and have built an audience for your blog, consider asking your readers what they’d like you to write about.

Google Forms is a great way to make a simple survey but there are other tools available such as Crowdsignal (formerly called Polldaddy).

Keep the survey as simple as possible so busy readers don’t feel reluctant to submit a response.

Example: Google Forms

A few years ago, one of our authors polled her own readers on her blog to find out what topics they’re most interested in. She included an option to write any other feedback (38% of readers added additional information while 62% of readers just used the checklist).

The responses and trends were insightful.

This is what the poll looked like (the poll is no longer live so this is just an image).

3) Build on someone else’s blog post

If you’re a blogger, you probably read other people’s blog posts as well. This is an important part of the blogging process. Reading other blogs not only helps you develop your thinking but helps you become part of an online community.

Have you ever read a blog post that really got you thinking? You might be left with a lot of unanswered questions or you might simply feel like you have more to add to the conversation.

You could leave a blog comment or you could expand on the topic even further by writing a blog post.

Examples

• A teacher might read a blog post about flexible seating. This teacher might be trying out some flexible seating options in their own classroom. They could write a post to share their approach along with some images.
• A student might read another student’s post about their trick for learning times tables. The student might have their own tricks they use which they could share in their own blog post.

Remember to link back to the inspiration for your blog post and when it’s published reach out and tell the blogger about it. The blogger might like to continue the conversation with you further or share your post with their own network.

4) Write a how-to

As Derek Sivers says,

What’s obvious to you is amazing to others.

It’s true! There’s a lot you know about or have had experience with. It might not seem like anything overly special but it could really help your readers.

How-to posts are often popular as they help your readers overcome their problems. Your helpful post is likely to stick in a reader’s mind and they may become a loyal and regular visitor to your blog.

How can you make a how-to post? 

• Write out the steps and include images.
• Make a video tutorial or a screencast using a tool like Loom or Screencastify.
• Make a checklist.
• Create a diagram or other type of graphic (Canva is a great tool for this).

5) Share something from your life

What’s been happening in your life lately? You don’t have to have been doing anything extraordinary to create an interesting blog post.

Have you read a book? Write a review or share some takeaways.

Have you come across an interesting quote? Share the quote with your readers and explain what it means to you.

Have you watched a thought-provoking movie, tv show, or video? Or perhaps you have listened to an interesting podcast? Tell your audience about it. How did it change your thinking? What has it left you curious about?

Have you had an interesting conversation with someone? Whether or not your conversation was on the web or in real life, is there anything you could share with your audience?

You might even reflect back on a book, quote, video, podcast, or conversation that you engaged with long ago. Why has it stuck in your mind?

6) Interview someone

Interviews with others can make interesting blog posts. You and your audience might learn a lot and gain new insights!

You can interview someone via video or an audio recording, but the simplest way to do it is by writing out the questions and answers.

Tip: Make sure the questions and answers stand out in the body of the text; use bold, dark colors, or headings.

If you’re interested in interviewing someone on your blog, here are a few steps to follow:

1. Research. Consider why you want to interview the person. Decide what sort of questions you’d like to ask them.
2. Request. Ask the person face-to-face or via a polite email and explain what you’d like to interview them about.
3. Conduct the interview. If you can meet with the person face-to-face, you might like to type their responses out as you talk to them. If not, send the questions via email and give the person a guide on how much information you’re after for each question and when you need it by.
4. Add an introduction and conclusion. Your blog post will need context so write an introduction that tells your reader about the interviewee. Don’t forget to link to the interviewee’s site if they have one. Your conclusion might include your own takeaways on what you learned or a call to action (suggesting readers visit the interviewee’s blog or follow them on social media).
5. Revise. After you’ve drafted the interview post, share it with the interviewee and ask them if there is anything they’d like to change. Tip: Public Post Preview plugin can be handy here.
6. Publish the post. Share the post with your network and invite the interviewee to do the same.

7) Use blogging prompts

Many bloggers enjoy coming up with lists of blogging prompts and these can be a great way to get ideas!

We’ve published a number of these lists on The Edublogger. Here are some for teachers and students:

• 50 Blog Post Ideas For Educators (2018)
• 50 Blog Topics And Prompts For Teachers (2017)
• 100+ Ideas And Prompts For Student Blogging (2021)

Students might also be interested in checking out the work of John Spencer. He has recently released a fantastic PowerPoint full of creative writing prompts to his community.

Check out the preview below and access the full collection of prompts here. 

John also has some excellent creative writing prompts on YouTube. Students could embed a video prompt in a post and then write their response.

Here’s an example,

Take Action — Start Brainstorming

Are you now full of ideas for future blog posts? I hope so.

Don’t let those ideas go!

Why not print off our brainstorming sheet now and jot down your thoughts?

>>Download the PDF

When you’re done, you could keep your brainstorming sheet by your desk and use your blog post ideas throughout the coming months. Or you might like to transfer your ideas to a Google Doc, diary, or editorial calendar.

Related Reading

A Plan For Writing A Weekly Blog Post In 10 Minutes A Day

5 Ways To Share And Market Your Teacher Blog

12 Tips For Maintaining Momentum With Blogging

Are you a teacher blogger? Or do your students blog? We’re guessing one of your biggest obstacles to doing as much on your blog as you would like is time.

When we surveyed our Edublogs community about their biggest obstacle to blogging, the results were clear. Time is a barrier for everyone!

This post outlines a simple approach that will see you develop consistency with your blogging and publish one blog post a week.

Whether you’re a teacher or a student, you can use this plan to reach your blogging goals, without sitting at your computer for hours on end.

Sound good? Let’s take a look!

Blog In Your Head

Before we dive into our weekly outline, consider using the time you’re not at your computer to do something productive and ponder blogging ideas.

Blog in your head? Really?

You might think you can only blog when you’re sitting at a device but, you can in fact blog anywhere at any time.

Many regular bloggers note that even when they’re not at their computer, they’re thinking of ideas for posts, or even coming up with phrases or layouts.

To reach your blogging goals, try to make a conscious effort to put some thought into your blog during your downtime: driving, standing in line at the store, folding laundry and so on.

Using your “white space” well can nourish your creativity and imagination!

In the classroom setting, try taking your class for a 10 minute walk around the school grounds to give them time to think. Maybe it can help them with idea generation.

Then write down your ideas…

We know how easy it is for thoughts to come and go, so make sure you have a strategy for getting those great ideas jotted down. This might be on a Google Doc/Sheet, in a notebook, or in a Note on your phone.

Tip: Most professional bloggers have some sort of editorial calendar. Often this is just a calendar in Google Sheets where you plan out your blog titles and dates. This could really help you stay organized and prioritize your blog.

The Weekly Blogging Plan

Here’s our 5 day blogging plan that will see you get a blog post written every week using small blocks of time; ideally 10 minute blocks!

Obviously, feel free to adjust the actual days to what suits you best, or even spread this process out over two weeks if that publishing schedule suits you better.

Monday: Outline Your Post With Headings

Hopefully, on Monday you will already have an idea for a blog post. It might be something that’s been brewing in your head or you might grab it off your running list of ideas/editorial calendar.

Today is all about creating an outline. You should be able to get this done in 10 minutes.

Two Simple Steps To Follow

1) The first step is opening up a new blog post. Write a working title. Don’t worry too much about it as you might think of a better idea later.

2) Next, you’ll use headings to outline your post.

Here are some things to remember about headings:

• Start with Heading 2 as Heading 1 is your title.
• If you put sub-headings under Heading 2, they’ll be Heading 3.
• Any sub-headings under that will be Heading 4.
• You don’t want to skip levels.

To make headings in your classic editor, just highlight your text and look for the ‘Paragraph’ option in the toolbar. Clicking on it will bring up a menu of the heading tags and you click on the level you’re after.

More Headings Tips:

• Use a number of headings to break up your text.
• Often, readers will only scan your page and just look at your headings. So make them informative. For example, in the heading above we wrote “Monday: Outline Your Post With Headings”. If we just wrote “Monday”, skim readers wouldn’t understand what they need to do on that day.
• Professional bloggers rarely use colored headings but some students and teachers like to. If you do choose to use color make sure it’s a dark color that people can read (i.e. avoid yellow/aqua/light green or you’ll leave your readers squinting to make sense of the text).

Example of the structure of Headings

Say you were writing a post about a sports day. Your heading structure could look like this…

H1 (post title): Our Junior Primary School Sports Day

H2: The Sports Day Schedule

H2: Kindergarten Events

H3: Results of the Kindergarten Events

H2: Grade One Events

H3: Results of the Grade One Events

H2: Grade Two Events

H3: Results of the Grade Two Events

H2: Conclusion

Tuesday: Draft Your Post

Today is the day where you’re going to set your timer for 10 minutes and write as much as you can of your post.

Of course, if your typing isn’t overly speedy or you haven’t got your thoughts together, you might need a little more time. However, spending a short block of time on intensive writing can really help you be productive.

Tips for writing your post:

• Just write! Don’t worry about fixing up your spelling or grammar. You can come back to that.
• If you can’t think of the perfect word or phrase to use, just write something and come back to it later.
• You don’t want to do any editing today because giving yourself space to do this with fresh eyes can work wonders!

Wednesday: Add Visuals To Your Post

Remember we mentioned that most readers will just skim your post?

Along with headings, your readers’ eyes will be naturally drawn to images.

Images can help make your blog posts easier to read and understand.

But not all images are created equal.

Firstly, make sure you’re not using copyrighted images:

• Most images you find on a Google or Pinterest search are protected by copyright and cannot be used without permission (even if you attribute them).
• We have a post all about copyright, Creative Commons, and fair use if you’d like to learn more.
• Check out a comparison of sites where you can find images that don’t require attribution.

Also, remember that you can use more than simple pictures:

• You can embed all sorts of media in your blog posts such as comics, quizzes, polls, videos, social media, and more.
• Canva is a fantastic place to make images. You might like to read our guide on using Canva.
• For a quick graph, a handy choice is a free tool call Beam.
• We have a help guide about embedding media if you need more information about this. Alternatively, check out our help guide for adding an image to a blog post.

Now, you could spend a lot longer than 10 minutes on this task. It can be easy to go a little crazy!

Limit yourself to finding one or two great images for your post or making something yourself — e.g. a graph or comparison chart.

Thursday: Edit Your Post

Now the bulk of your post is done, it’s time to come back with fresh eyes to edit.

Tips for editing your post:

• Look at your title. Does it describe your post well? Is it clear? Does it make your visitors want to read your blog post?
• Fix up any spelling or grammar mistakes. Need help with proofreading? Try a free tool like Grammarly. Note: Grammarly is 18+ but users aged between 13-17 can use it with permission.
• Rephrase anything that doesn’t work. If some of your phrases or word choices in your draft weren’t the best, now is the time to fix them up. Use a thesaurus to improve your word choice if necessary. Power Thesaurus is a free crowdsourced online tool.
• Check for readability. Is your post easy to read even if readers are skimming or on a mobile device? Would more paragraph breaks, bullets, or images enhance your post?
• Add and check your links. Including links is an important part of blogging. Your links could either be to other relevant posts on your blog or other websites. Add your links now and ensure those links are working.
• Preview in your browser. Rather than reading through your post in your editor, it can be helpful to press ‘preview’ and look at your post in a new tab. You’ll be able to see what the published post will look like and it might be easier to spot errors.

What else do you need to add to your blog post?

• Add categories and tags. All blog posts need to be in a category and tags can help organize your content. Read more about using categories and tags in this help guide.
• Does your blog post theme have a custom excerpt or a featured image? If so, remember to add this information before you’re done.
• SMO and SEO tips for more advanced bloggers: Remember to fill in the details of your Search Engine Optimization Simple SEO Plugin and Social Media Optimization WP SMO Plugin if you’re using them.

Friday: Publish And Share Your Work!

Yay! You’ve done all the hard work. Now it’s time to publish your post and share it with the world.

Before you do hit publish, it never hurts to preview your blog post and have a final quick read.

When you finally press the publish button, your work is not done. Just because it’s online, doesn’t mean it will be seen.

• Could you share the post on social media?
• Could you comment on another related blog post and leave the URL to your own post in a thoughtful comment?
• Could you email your new post to anyone (especially if you’ve linked to them in your post)?
• Could you pin your post to Pinterest?

5 Ways To Share And Market Your Teacher Blog is a recent post with lots more ideas for what you can do after hitting that publish button.

Summary

We said visuals can enhance your blog posts, right? Here’s a summary of what we discussed. Feel free to share this with fellow bloggers.

Conclusion

Our 5 day plan can be carried out in under one hour a week if you are strict with yourself.

This can be a more productive approach than sitting down in one block of time and trying to get your post started, finished, and published.

Spacing out your post and letting it “marinate” can be an excellent way to ensure your content is top notch!

Finally, remember to figure out what works for you. We’re all different and while it’s interesting to hear about approaches, stay faithful to what you know fits in your schedule and helps you produce the best results.

Further Reading:

Teachers: Finding Time To Blog

12 Tips For Maintaining Momentum With Blogging

So You Want To Start A Teacher Blog?

My Class: Student Blogging Made Easy

When high standards are established for online publishing, students are more likely to achieve impressive results. They can meet academic goals while also developing the skills to be responsible and positive digital citizens.

This post outlines 10 key elements of a great blog post. Feel free to share these tips with students—they could be helpful for adult bloggers as well!

10 Elements Of A Quality Blog Post

Scroll down for summary poster that you’re welcome to use in your classroom or on your blog. You’ll also find some student examples below.

1) Great Title

Does your title explain what your post will be about and encourage visitors to read on?

Take some time to craft your title, and you may find that readers are more likely to click and explore your post.

Tips for writing effective blog post titles:

• Brainstorm a number of titles and then choose the best one. Many bloggers start with a “working title” and then change it before publishing.
• Make your title specific and enticing.
• Think about what will encourage readers to click.
• Avoid clickbait. That is, a title that entices readers to click but is dishonest about the content of the post, or doesn’t explain what your post is about. For example “You Won’t Believe These 100 World’s Best Study Tips”. This sort of title might over promise and under deliver. Do you really have 100 tips? Are they really the best in the world?

This flowchart from Orbit Media shows that when people come across a headline, they decide in about 2 seconds whether to click and read the post or keep scrolling.

2) Short Paragraphs

Do you break up text into short paragraphs to make your posts easier to read?

Most readers tend to skim through posts, and if they come across a large block of text, they may skip it altogether.

It’s also a good idea to break up text with:

• subheadings
• bullet point lists
• numbered lists

You may have been taught in school that a new paragraph only starts when the topic changes, but this doesn’t apply to digital writing.

Short paragraphs are good. Very good!

3) Visuals Or Multimedia As Well As Text

Does your post include at least one visual?

High-quality posts include more than just text, they have visuals as well.

Along with being nice to look at, images serve two purposes:

• They help readers understand what you’re writing about (especially if your image is something like a graph, diagram, or video).
• They break up your text and make it easier to read.

What sort of visuals can you include in posts? Here are a few examples:

• Photos you take yourself.
• Creative Commons images (this guide shows you some good websites for students).
• A graph or chart (try BEAM for an easy web tool).
• Videos (e.g. embedded from YouTube or Vimeo).
• Google Slides presentations.
• Google Drawings (check out this tutorial from Sheri Edwards).
• An image you make in Canva (learn more about Canva here).

4) Internal And External Links

Do you include links in your post, either to other posts you’ve written or inspiration/ideas you’ve come across on the web?

In the past when we only wrote with pen and paper or on word processors, writing was more linear. Writing on the web is different. An important part of digital writing is using hyperlinks.

Hyperlinks are the heart of the web. They bring together various pages from different websites and your own website.

Any article you read on the web probably includes hyperlinks. It’s important for students to learn how to include these in their own writing.

Hyperlinks:

• Help readers learn more about a certain topic.
• Help readers understand where the writer is coming from.
• Cite sources to back up what you’re saying.
• Save you having to define words or ideas. You link the word/phrase to an explanation and readers can choose to explore the definition if they need to.
• Allow you to practice good online etiquette by showing where your ideas or inspiration are from.
• Remind readers of older posts you’ve written that they might like to look at.

This Edublogs help guide shows you how to add links to your blog posts.

5) Fonts And Colors

Are the fonts you use easy to read? If you’re using colors, do they stand out against your background?

Many students love playing around with different fonts, colors, and backgrounds but it’s important to always keep these question in mind:

• Can people easily read the blog post?
• Are you being consistent in your color/font choices?
• Are your fonts big enough and clear enough?
• Is there enough contrast? (e.g. red text on an orange background would be hard to read).
• Is there too much movement? This can be very off-putting for readers.

Overall, less is more!

6) Proofread

Have you proofread your work before publishing?

No one expects bloggers to be perfect but proofread work is much easier to read.

Before you publish, it’s important to check your spelling, grammar, punctuation, and spacing.

If you can, enlist the help of someone else to check your work. It’s harder to spot your own mistakes! Perhaps students could pair up with another student for proofreading.

For older students, Grammarly is a great free online tool to check your writing. Grammarly is 18+ but if you’re aged between 13-17, you can use it with permission.

7) Digital Citizenship

Have you checked that you haven’t revealed your personal information (YAPPY) or copied text/images/work that doesn’t belong to you?

It’s great for readers to learn a bit about you but it’s important to avoid sharing too much information or personal details.

I like to tell my students to never share their YAPPY online as per in the image below. There is some other information that’s more of a “grey area”. These are things that students should discuss with teachers and parents.

Students also need to make sure they’re not using work that doesn’t belong to them. This includes images as well as text and other content.

Further advice on digital citizenship and copyright:

• Read more about blogging and digital citizenship here.
• Learn more about digital footprints in this post. 
• Should you publish students’ photos online? Check out this post for advice. 
• Check out The Educator’s Guide To Copyright, Fair Use, And Creative Commons.

8) Categories And Tags

Do you assign your post to at least one category? Bonus points if you use tags to organize your posts too!

Tags and categories on posts are used to help readers locate information in different ways.

You don’t have to use tags but each post has to be assigned to at least one category. If you don’t do this manually, it will be assigned to a category called “Uncategorized” by default.

Take a look at this chart to learn more about the differences between categories and tags.

Learn more about using categories and tags in this help guide.

9) Questions

Do you include questions at the end of your post to encourage visitors to leave a comment?

Comments bring blog posts alive. They turn your blog from a static space to an interactive space. Some fantastic learning can happen in the comment section.

Readers can leave feedback, offer constructive criticism, or share new perspectives. This can help you grow and learn.

You can’t assume that readers will think to leave a comment. You need to invite them. Try coming up with some open-ended questions that you can include at the bottom of your blog posts.

10) Comments

Do you approve comments quickly and write polite replies?

If you do receive comments on your post, it’s important to approve them in a timely manner and write a reply.

This will encourage readers to keep returning and interacting.

Try to make your comments high-quality.

Here are some elements of a quality blog comment:

• Written like a letter with a greeting, body, and sometimes a closing.
• Includes correct spelling, grammar, punctuation, and spacing.
• The content might include questions, compliments, and/or relevant new information.
• Aim to make connections without revealing personal information like surnames, specific plans, addresses, birthdays, etc.

You won’t always include all of the above in your comments but these are the sorts of things you might aim for.

Summary Poster: What Makes A Quality Blog Post

>>Download a PDF version of the poster

Student Examples Demonstrating Elements Of A Quality Blog Post

Examples are always helpful to show students. Here are some examples of posts from Student Blogging Challenge participants. 

You’ll notice the annotated posts don’t necessarily include all of the 10 elements described above. Blogging is a learning journey and it’s also a personal representation of yourself. So you don’t need to follow a formula although having some tips to refer to is always helpful.

Raise the bar and reap the rewards!

Check out the examples from students in:

• 2nd grade
• 10th grade
• Higher ed/ESL

2nd Grade: Miss Blessings Class

Cherie Blessing is an experienced teacher and longtime blogger from central Vermont in the United States.

Cherie’s class blog is called The Great Adventure. Her student blogs are linked to her class blog using My Class. 

Let’s take a look at examples from two of her young bloggers. The students use pen names. These students have just turned 8 years old proving you’re never too young to blog!

Fluffy: Spring

Bee Buzzer: Colonial Farmer 

10th Grade: Emily

Emily is a grade 10 student in the Performance Learning Performance Learning at Seycove Secondary in Canada. Her school uses a CampusPress network to host their impressive blogging program.

Emily has been blogging for nearly 3 years. You can read about her experiences with the Student Blogging Challenge in this post (she made a video about the challenge with two friends).

The following annotated post is just an example of the high-quality content that Emily regularly publishes on her blog. She’s an exceptional student and role model for other bloggers.

Along with excellent writing, Emily includes creative graphics, charts, and diagrams to make her posts a true delight to read.

Due to the length of Emily’s post, only snippets were included below. Be sure to read the full post here.

Higher Education (ESL): Mrs. Matveyeva’s Class Blog

Nadia Matveyeva is an English instructor from a university in Kazakhstan. She started a class blog this year with her second-year college students.

2019 is the second year her students have been learning English. They were excellent participants of the Student Blogging Challenge.

Here is one of their posts about family celebrations in Kazakhstan for the new year. It was written collaboratively by Nadia K., Lisa T., Christine M. and Farisa S. The poem was by Sasha R. and Ruslan B.

Due to the length of the post, only snippets were included below. You can view the full post here.

Further Reading

My Class: Student Blogs Made Easy

Different Approaches To Using Student Blogs And Digital Portfolios

Check Out These Class Blogs

If you’re active on social media or enjoy reading blogs, you’ve likely noticed how popular quotes have become.

There’s something about them that resonates with people—offering inspiration, motivation, and plenty of shareable moments.

Whether they provide a boost during challenging times or remind us of the deeper significance in our daily lives, quotes often offer a quick dose of insight for those pressed for time.

Whatever the case, quotes can be a powerful thing.

In this post we go through the advantages of adding quotes to your blog posts, where to find quotes, and the etiquette of borrowing words from others. We’ll also show you simple ways to create images to display your quotes.

Why Weave Quotes Into Blog Posts?

Here are six reasons why quotes might become a regular feature in your blog posts:

1. You can back up your thoughts and make your writing more credible.
2. Student voice can be incorporated into a blog post written by a teacher.
3. You can provide alternative viewpoints or encourage readers to reflect.
4. Quotes can help you begin or end your blog post with impact.
5. The research involved in finding quality quotes is a solid learning experience.
6. Quotes can make your posts easier to read as they break up the text.

How To Put A Quote In Your Post

You can just type your quote into a post and put it in quotation marks, but to really make it stand out and break up your text, try a quote block. Your words will display like this:

Learning is not done to you. Learning is something you choose to do.

― Seth Godin, Stop Stealing Dreams

Adding a quote is easy. If you’re using the block editor (Gutenberg) in WordPress, Edublogs, or CampusPress, you use the Add Block button to add a Quote block to your page. If you can’t see the Quote block, just type in quote in the search field.

The quote block comes with the standard editing options: alignment, bold, italicize, hyperlinks, and strikethrough.

If you press the button on the far left of the toolbar, you’ll be able to choose between two block styles. Depending on your theme, you may have additional styles to choose from. Your theme determines how quotes are displayed.

Where Can You Find Quotes?

You might already have some favorite quotes stored away that have never left you. You might do a Google search for articles on your topic and find quotes from others.

Otherwise, you may enjoy browsing an online collection of quotes, such as the following:

• GoodReads Quotes
• LitQuotes
• BrainyQuote

Quote Legalities And Etiquette

We know we can’t just take images that we find online, and we certainly can’t copy others’ writing and publish it as our own. So, many people might wonder about using quotes.

It’s fine to use quotes from others but there are a few things to be aware of:

• Use quotation marks or block quotes to clearly distinguish your own words from those of others.
• Make your quotes brief. There are no universal rules here. Some larger organizations have guidelines around how much of their work you can quote (e.g. Hubspot’s rules are 75 words). If you’re unsure or think you might be using too much of someone’s article, contact them to ask permission. Never copy the whole post.
• Always include the person’s name, and link to their site, article, or book if you can. Obviously, if you’re quoting someone like Aristotle or Mother Teresa, hyperlinking may not be an option!
• When using blockquotes, the attribution can appear before, within, or after the quote.
• If you shorten a quote, use an ellipsis (…) in place of the missing words.
• If you’re adding any words or corrections to the quote, use brackets.

Make Your Quotes More Visual

There are many online tools where you can turn your quote into writing on an image. These can make your blog posts look more visually appealing, and are great to share on social media too.

Here are just a few free online tools that might be useful for students or teachers:

Canva

Canva is a really popular tool to make all sorts of graphic designs and documents. The paid premium version of Canva is free for teachers and students.

Learn more about Canva in our guide for educators on The Edublogger.

Here is an example of a quote I made with Canva.

Adobe Express

Similar to Canva, Adobe Express is an online drag and drop tool that allows you to make social posts and graphics. Adobe Express for Education gives students and teachers premium features for free.

Here is an example of a quote made with Adobe Express:

Quozio

Quozio is a really simple tool that doesn’t require any sign up, so it’s ideal for young students to use. You simply add your text and choose your background before saving your image. Here’s an example:

Note On Accessibility

Vision-impaired visitors to your blog may be using assistive technology like screen readers to read the page out loud.

If you put words on an image, it’s essential that you write the actual words from the quote in the alt text section. You’ll find this in the Block Image settings on the right hand side of your screen.

If you’re interested in learning more about accessibility, check out the complete guide on the CampusPress blog.

Five Ideas For Using Quotes In The Classroom

If you’re an educator, there are many ways you can weave quotes into your blog or website.

1. Quote young students: If you teach very young students, you could put the students’ quotes about their learning in a different color on your blog. This makes it easier for them to go home and proudly share their blue/red/green writing with their parents.
2. Explore a quote in a post: If you have student bloggers, why not have them choose a quote from a fellow student’s blog post as a topic for a post of their own? They can explore the quote in detail and add their own thoughts and opinions.
3. Posts full of quotes: You or your students could create blog posts that are a compilation of quotes. For example:
   • If you were studying World War Two, you could put together a collection of important quotes from this time in history.
   • If your class visited the museum, you could add quotes from all the students about their field trip.
   • If you were studying a divisive topic, like animal testing or closing a local library, you could interview members of the community and include their quotes in the post.
4. Quote library: You or your students could start your own library of interesting quotes as you come across them. You could add them to a Google Doc and then refer to them when writing blog posts in the future, or house them on a page on your blog.
5. Quote of the day blog: Some people have a photo of the day blog. What about a blog where a quote is published each day? This could be a mix of quotes from members of the school community, or well known identities or historical figures.

Bringing in the voices of experts or giving your students a voice through the use of quotations could have a big impact. Why not consider ways that you and your students could integrate quotes into your blog posts?

We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we’re curious…and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.

― Walt Disney Company

About Us

At CampusPress, we’re experts in bringing innovative web solutions to schools, school districts, colleges, and universities through WordPress and our wide range of out-of-the-box and custom plugins and products.

In fact, our services in accessibility, security, hosting, support, along with an extensive suite of other tools, power millions of education websites, blog networks and portfolios. Learn more about our school website services or request info today!

Blogging is an art and a skill that many practice – but only a few master.

Luckily for us, great bloggers often like to write about blogging, so that the rest of us can learn from their success and expertise.

We scoured the web for what professional bloggers have to say that might be applicable to educators and blogging with students. Here are our five favorite pro tips for writing better posts, getting more comments, and helping your students get the most educational value out of their blogs.

If you have any other tips that you think would be helpful for students, please share them in the comments!

1. Turn Your Blog Post Upside Down

This first tip comes from well-known ProBlogger Darren Rowse. What he means by “turn your blog post upside down” is that rather than the focus of a post being on your own thoughts, have the comments and discussion be the real meat or purpose of the post. This can be as simple as asking the reader a question or prompting them to share their thoughts early on in your post

You can even put the question or prompt in your headline. Post titles like “Twitter or Facebook: Which Is Better for Engaging Students Online?” or “How To Flip Your Classroom: Leave Your Tips Here” invite readers to leave feedback for the author.

If you engage readers early on in your post rather than waiting until the end to ask for thoughts, you can increase the number of comments you will get on your posts. For new bloggers, getting feedback in the form of comments is one of the most exciting parts of blogging!

2. Write What You Love

If students are blogging for a class, then chances are the decision to start a blog was not made of their own volition. There’s also a good chance they may not be free to choose the subject of their blog. When possible, it is, however, a great idea to let students write on a subject about which they are truly passionate.

BlogHer author Mariel Sunday Wangsgard accurately states that “[m]aintaining a blog is a lot of work, and if you don’t love [insert topic here] enough to write about them several days a week — until the end of time (or you quit) — don’t start. If you don’t have the passion for your topic, you don’t have much to offer your readers… and, they will soon be gone.”

Students may have a captive audience since their classmates are often required to read what they write, so losing their audience may not be a huge concern. Take me at my word, though, when I tell you blogging will be a much more enjoyable experience for both author and audience if the students are excited about what they are writing!

Leave room for personalization and creativity when assigning students topics to write about. Even if students will be required to write about specific class-related topics, there may still be opportunities to let them insert a bit of what they are passionate about into their blogs.

3. Produce Your Own Media Content

There are four great reasons to have students create their own media – which includes, photos, videos, slideshows, vines, animated gifs, and more.

First, media makes a blog more interesting. Newspaper, magazine, and online publishers understand the value of an intriguing photo. As publishers, your students should also understand how to enhance their writing with well-placed media.

Second, when teaching students about copyright, fair use, and media, what better way to avoid any copyright issues than to have them create their own media instead of using someone else’s?

Third, learning basic photo, video, or audio editing skills is something that students will be able to apply in other classes and other aspects of their careers as they progress.

Finally, as tip author Jim Belosic points out in the original post, using media wisely can help improve the SEO of a blog. This may not be instantly applicable to your students’ class blogs, but it is a good general blogging lesson and can significantly increase the sharing of and engagement on a blog post.

4. Write Catchy Headlines

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen student blog posts with horrible, terrible, no-good headlines. I understand that sometimes it is a necessity that for the sake of organization – and the grading teacher’s sanity – blog posts be named things like “Assignment 21” or “Reflection Essay 12/20/14.” Yet, when possible, it is a wonderful idea to have the students focus on writing good headlines.

Dave Kerpen, CEO of Likeable Local, originally shared this tip with the intent of helping bloggers get more clicks on their posts. For students, though, writing good headlines is better used as a writing exercise than a way to get site traffic.

Asking students to write good headlines not only forces them to focus on the main point of their post, it also challenges them to distil that idea down into a few select words. Writing catchy headlines can be a challenge. In fact, it might be more of a challenge than writing the rest of the post!

5. Make Posts Social

This is a great tip for any classroom that is not restricted by policies requiring class or student blogs to be fully private.

This tip was originally shared by Mike Bal, director of social media and content at Single Grain, who suggests using social content like embedded social posts and prewritten tweets to maximize your post’s shareability. Yet, you don’t have to go that far to make your posts more social.

Simply teaching your students how to add social sharing plugins or social widgets to their blog will help them better understand the process of content distribution and learn the important role that social media plays in sharing their work with a wider audience.

What Else?

Those are our five pro blogging tips to share with students. Now it’s your turn! What is the one tip you think students should know as they begin blogging? Let us know in the comments below.

Happy blogging!

Last week we launched a year-long blogging series where educators blog together weekly around a common topic or theme.

Prompt #1 focused on My Blog story and its aim was to help participants get to know each other better.

This is a summary post of what we’ve learned from everyone’s stories!  You’ll find links to every My Blog Story at the bottom of the post.

Blogging Challenges

There are lots of barriers that keep us from blogging and the ones shared with us include:

• Time challenges….balancing work commitments with family and personal life.
• Blogging and sharing online makes me feel uncomfortable.
• Desire for perfection.
• Fear I have nothing worth saying.
• Unsure of what to write about.
• Struggle to decide the direction I would like to take my blog.  What to share?
• What do I have to offer?  There are so many excellent educator blogs.
• Fear nobody will be interested in what I say.
• My ignorance will be exposed.
• I struggle with writing and worry it won’t have the character, charm, or voice I often see in popular educator’s blogs.

Benefits of Blogging

Yet benefits absolutely outweigh the challenges and the ones shared include:

• Blogging helps reflect — and reflecting on teaching practices is one of the best ways to improve.
• Changes how I learn.
• I developed a personal learning network — connecting with other educators who help and support my learning.
• Helped me become a better writer.
• Gave me a voice and mechanism to share my thoughts and help others.
• Can lead to career opportunities including travel, authoring books, conference presentations, and new job roles.
• Blogging has helped me define myself and has encouraged me to believe my voice matters.
• Sharing what we were learning in class with families made it a more transparent classroom which improved communication, awareness, and overall student success.
• Students benefited from informal writing on their blogs and exchanging comments.  I was able to work through all aspects of digital citizenship as part of the blogging process.

Blogging Goals

Goals for participating in the #EdublogsClub included:

• Get into the habit of blogging consistently.
• Improve my writing skills.
• To become comfortable with putting my thoughts out there.
• Create deeper connections with educators around the World.
• Decide what I want to share and what’s important to me.
• Help me clarify the purpose and audience of my blog.
• Find my voice.
• Engage in more conversations in comments with my readers.
• To do and experience what I am asking my students to do when I ask them to blog.
• Help me develop professionally and allow me to be better organized.
• Find effective ways to keep up with reading other blogger’s posts.

Blogging Tips

And the more experienced bloggers shared their tips!

Below are quotes of our favorite tips or inspirational statements!

We couldn’t include all their tips so have linked their name to their posts so you can check them out.

Justine Hughes

Just jump in and enjoy.  Don’t be afraid to share your ideas. You’ll find that everyone is really supportive and encouraging, particularly if they’ve joined a challenge such as this one.  You’ll be surprised by the feedback conversations and connections that develop.  Don’t feel that it has to be an ‘academic standard’ essay-type exercise.  Think of it more as a conversation with other like minds.

Jo Prestia

I’m proud to say I have a little following and every now and then I get feedback. However, I don’t write to get comments or praise (though it is nice!). I just write because I like it. It helps me think – in writing.

Michelle Pacansky-Brock

I have made mistakes. And I’ve learned from them. But I’m still here. I’m still blogging. And I’m still learning. And that is something I hope all educators strive to model for students.

Robert Schuetz

I started blogging with the hope of initiating some sort of revolutionary change in education. What I’ve learned is blogging is much more satisfying when I just write for myself.

Sue Wyatt

You need to become a connected educator for blogging to succeed. Read other people’s blogs, leave tweets about posts you have written, and connect with other teachers who also blog.

Dan Gallagher

Keep blogging, even if you don’t believe someone is reading, because you never know who is or will be reading. I have on several occasions returned to past posts to recall what I did to set up a workflow or try to remember a tool I recommended a ways back which might help one of my teachers now.

Damianne President

The advice that I would give my younger self would be to blog regularly and to engage with colleagues, the community of bloggers, and Twitter chats for ideas to blog about.

 Lyn Hilt

My advice for new bloggers is to write for YOU. Don’t write for page views. Don’t write for RTs. Write to share your ideas, to reflect, to ponder. Write to unleash your creative spirit. Write to make a difference. Schedule time in your day to write. Write every day, something, somewhere. You don’t always have to click publish. Don’t be discouraged if you hit a lull or encounter writer’s block. I used to blog several times a month, and now I’m lucky if I blog several times a year. Life happens, responsibilities shift…. your blog is a space you can always call home and it will welcome you back with open arms when needed.

Luis

One of the fears of many bloggers: having posts with no comments. Most, if not, all bloggers have had blog posts that have not received a comment. Don’t let this be something that demotivates you. Most of those blog posts are still read by a lot of visitors. I’ve had a lot of blog posts that have not received comments but I know that they have been viewed by many visitors

Sue Waters

Make it a goal to read and comment on as many of the posts as possible.  You learn as much, if not more, by reading/commenting as writing your posts and it helps generate ideas for things to blog about.

And don’t forget — what is obvious to you is amazing to others.  Don’t assume others know what you know.  There is always someone who will be grateful for what you shared — even if they don’t necessarily tell you.

Don’t Forget to Comment

Remember blogging is about connecting with others!

Visit the #EdublogsClub participant’s posts to leave feedback and comments on as many as you can.

We’ve included links to all My Blog Story submitted so far below to make it easier:

Dear blogger,

You have such wonderful ideas to share!

Your content is excellent; it’s just that I find myself skimming your posts, because, to be frank, your posts are … kind of hard to read.

It’s not that your writing isn’t “correct”, it’s just that things have changed since you learned to write.

In fact, it might be time to forget a lot of what you learned about writing at school.

Can we chat about making your blog posts easier to read?

With thanks,
A hopeful reader

Getting a blog post together isn’t easy, is it? You have to put all the distractions on your computer aside and focus on one task: tapping away at the keyboard and organizing all your thoughts until your post takes shape.

So, of course, you want people to actually read your post. Whether your audience is students, parents, or educators, you have an important message to share.

There are many personal benefits to simply writing too. Many bloggers describe how writing helps them organize and develop their thinking. However, if this is the only reason you’re writing, you probably wouldn’t be publishing on a public blog, would you?

So how do you encourage your visitors to not only start reading your blog post but also stick around to the end?

Maybe the solution isn’t changing your words. Maybe it’s simply changing your styling and post layout.

Here are ten tips for making your blog posts easier to read. I hope you’ll share your ideas in a comment too.

1) Paragraphs and Sentences

Is there anything more off-putting than clicking on a blog post and seeing a great big block of text?

You want to read it but there is nothing for your eyes to grab on to. Try as you might, you find yourself skimming and not fully comprehending the content.

The truth is, a digital paragraph is different from an analog paragraph. The way we consume media online is different to the way we consume media offline.

There was a popular post on The Slate a few years back called “You Won’t Finish This Article“. It shares data demonstrating that most people don’t even scroll down after they arrive on your post; they leave your blog almost immediately. The data published in The Slate estimates that most visitors read about 50% of your content. 50% might even be optimistic when looking at similar statistics from other sources.

Short paragraphs make your posts more readable.

Instead of starting a new paragraph when the topic changes, consider keeping your paragraphs only a few sentences long and play around with length and rhythm. Sometimes you’ll have slightly longer paragraphs, and sometimes you might have a paragraph that’s only one sentence long for impact (that’s not what your teacher taught you at school, is it?).

When it comes to writing online, paragraph structure is more of an art than a formulaic science.

The same rhythmic variation works well for sentence structure and length as well.

Gary Provost demonstrates,

2) Fonts

There is a lot of debate and research out there about typography or font choice. Personally, I find a common issue is bloggers using a font that’s too small.

Professional bloggers generally opt to use larger sized fonts now as it enhances the readability of online text. Some bloggers haven’t caught onto this. Combining a small font with long paragraphs is a sure fire way to have readers skim a post and close their tab, no matter how good the content is.

If you’re using Edublogs, there is a handy plugin called Supreme Google Webfonts. It allows you to change the type and size of the fonts in your post. Have fun playing around but obviously look for a font that will be easy to read. Another useful tip is to stay consistent with your font choice.

3) Headings

Sub-headings are an excellent way to break up the text while enhancing the readability and comprehension of your post. This sounds like something we covered at school now, doesn’t it? Or maybe not?

I admit, it wasn’t until last year (after many years of blogging) that I discovered I was using headings all wrong. I thought the idea was to pick a heading based on size and appearance.

It turns out, there is another layer to heading choice on blog posts.

Heading tags not only enhance your blog post visually but help organize the content of your blog. This helps search engines like Google scan and categorize your information.

If you want to follow blogging best practice, you technically aren’t supposed to skip a heading level.

Heading 1 will already be used for your blog post title. When you’re writing posts (or pages) you should use Heading 2 for post sub-headings. Then if you nest other sub-headings under that, you’d use Heading 3 and so on. You probably wouldn’t have a need for Heading 5 onwards.

Structuring your post with this hierarchy can also assist blind readers who rely on screen readers to access your content (find out more about accessibility issues in point ten).

4) Lists and Bullet Points

Most writers know the value of bullet points. Listicles, or posts with numbered lists, are hugely popular too (hey, this whole blog post is a listicle!).

Here are five reasons why numbered lists or bullet points are great:

• They make your content easier to digest
• They break up information and offer more white space on the page
• They offer your eyes something to grab onto
• They keep you moving through the content, rather than skipping over a paragraph
• Readers can easily chunk or categorize information

Need I say more?

5) Links

Hyperlinks are one way that digital writing is very different from traditional writing. In fact, this is a topic that we could really invest a lot of time in exploring with our students. If you’re interested in learning more about hyperlinked writing, check out some of the posts by Silvia Tolisano (Langwitches).

From a visual point of view, hyperlinks or bold words are another good way to make key pieces of information in your post stand out. It draws you in when you’re skimming or scanning the page.

Of course there are other reasons why hyperlinks enhance your post:

• It’s polite and ethically correct to acknowledge your sources
• It can add depth to your topic if readers can go elsewhere to learn more
• Linking to credible sources can back up what you’re saying
• Your readers will hang around your blog longer if you link to other relevant posts you’ve written

Here are two things to remember about using hyperlinks:

• Try to make your links descriptive and weave them into your sentence, rather than saying “…click here, here, and here“. (Yep, I used to be guilty of the latter once upon a time).
• Don’t go overboard with links. Stay relevant and focus on quality over quantity.

6) Images

When you’re scanning posts, no doubt your eyes are naturally drawn to images. Breaking up your text with some visuals can definitely make your blog posts easier to read.

But not all images are created equal.

Firstly, make sure you’re not using copyright images. I’m sure you know, you can’t just use anything you find on Google Images. We have a post all about copyright, Creative Commons, and fair use if you’d like to learn more.

Also, make sure your images are enhancing your post and helping your readers to gain an understanding of what the post is about. Too many decorative or abstract images might be confusing.

Finally, remember that you can use more than simple pictures. You can embed all sorts of media in your blog posts such as comics, quizzes, polls, videos, social media, and more. We have a help guide about embedding media if you need more information about this.

7) Color

Color in blog posts is a contentious topic. Certainly on professional blogs, you’ll generally just see bloggers sticking to the traditional black fonts.

But what school teacher doesn’t like color? I used to use color a lot on my own class blogs.

Some teachers of very young students use different colors to type their students’ responses in a blog post. Then they could tell the student to show their parents the “blue comment” when they get home, for example.

Sometimes color is used for tasks on student blogs. For example, Zehra responded to a news video by using color coding for summary, facts, understandings and questions.

If you do use color, remember:

• Be consistent: For example, I used to always use red for my closing questions on a class blog post. It helped students know what to look out for when responding to the post.
• Choose colors wisely: Clearly darker/contrasting colors are going to be best. Yellow or aqua on a white background is not going to enhance the readability of your post.

8) Alignment

I’ve shared with you a few of my “mistakes” from my early years of blogging. Here is another one: I used to center align all of my text. Oh dear.

When I look at blog posts with center aligned text now I find them very hard to read. The starting point of each line constantly changes, so it’s hard work to keep track of where you’re up to.

Left aligned text is best as demonstrated below.

9) Widgets

In my experience, students love widgets! Many teachers do too.

Some widgets add a lot of value to your blog. They help visitors find relevant content and related blogs. They can offer families the chance to subscribe to the blog or stay up to date via a class calendar.

There are also a plethora of fun widgets out there: jokes of the day, virtual pets, music widgets, weather widgets, random facts … the list goes on.

If you want visitors to be reading your blog posts, you probably don’t want them distracted by too many widgets on your sidebars. Furthermore, excess widgets can slow down the loading time of your blog.

Like many aspects of blogging, it’s worth considering how you can strike a balance. Maybe less is more.

10) Alternative Text And Accessibility

You want to make your blog posts readable for everyone, including visitors who are vision impaired. This is an issue that is overlooked by many bloggers.

You might not realize that vision impaired visitors to your site may be using assistive technology like screen readers or other software which reads the page out loud.

This software will read the alternative text (alt text) instead of the image.

You can see how it would be difficult for a vision impaired visitor to take in your content if it is full of images that they can’t access.

Adding the alt text is easy. When you upload an image, there is a box where you can write your description before pressing ‘Insert Into Post’.

You can describe what you image looks like. Or write a brief description of the content if it’s a graph, chart, or other visual.

Alt text is just one way you can make your blog more accessible. The American Foundation for the Blind offers more tips for making print more readable, including selecting appropriate fonts and colors.

There are also more barriers to consider apart from vision impairment, including language and other physical restraints.

You can read more about making school websites accessible in this CampusPress post by Rachel McCollin.

When it comes to styling, a lot of ideas come down to personal preference. However, it’s always great to be open to trying new things and you might find yourself with a larger or more engaged audience as a result.

Maybe there are a few tips here that you or your students could try on your next blog post?

What can you add to this list? What sorts of things encourage you to read through a whole blog post? What do you find off-putting?

We haven’t talked about language. Do you prefer a conversational tone, or posts that are written in a more formal style? Share your thoughts. 

The aim of this post is to provide an overview of categories and tags; there is so much more that could be covered.

Tags vs Categories

The whole reason why tags, categories, and search widgets are used on blogs is to serve one purpose — help your readers locate the information they want on your blog. Readers want quick and easy solutions; too hard and they look elsewhere.

While the aim of using tags and categories is the same — to help readers locate information — they are used differently.

Categories are like book chapters; they provide a general overview of the topics you blog about. Whereas tags are more like the index at the back of the book and explode the topic into a million bits.

Categories and tags are displayed in your blog sidebar using the categories widget and Tag cloud widget.

Categories Are Used For Categorizing

Let me show you. I’m currently using 17 categories on my Mobile Technology in TAFE blog. Unfortunately, I blog on a wide subject area, so I’ve so many categories. Ideally, I believe it would be better for me to use fewer categories and for the category’s names to be descriptive enough without using two lines.

Categories can have unique names and be wordy; you want them sufficiently descriptive so your reader understands the type of subject matter they will find when they click on the link. For example, my Cool Web 2.0 & Desktop Tools category contains all posts that review, road test, or tell my readers how to use Web 2.0 or desktop tools more effectively.

Posts can be allocated to more than one category; I assign Twitter posts using the categories Cool Web 2.0 & Desktop Tools and Microblogging Tips similarly those on Flickr are distributed using the categories Cool Web 2.0 & Desktop Tools and Photosharing and Editing Tips. Remember I’m doing this to make it easier for my readers to locate the information they need quickly.

Tags and Tag Clouds

Tags are displayed on your blog as a tag cloud; clicking on a tag name will take your readers to all posts tagged with that term. Tags are normally short, one or two words, and are generally keywords (i.e. terms readers would be likely to use if they searched your site); terms that your readers will understand.

The number of categories you allocate to a post is normally limited whereas you will use as many tags on a post as you like.

Tags or Categories: Which One To Use?

If you checked out problogger sites — you will see each has their own preference as to which they use, or if they use both.

However, if you are planning on using categories like I have, you really need to sit down, think carefully about what content you will blog, and allocate categories that reflect this. You may want to use the categories I use on my Mobile Technology in TAFE blog as a guide.

If you’re going to use categories you need to do it properly; your readers expect that when they click on a category they will get ALL posts on the topic. If you add new categories this means you will need to go back through old posts and allocate them to these new categories.

Creating categories can be time-consuming — if you want to promise a “good enough” system, then use tags, where no thoroughness is implied. You will still need to be consistent with tagging e.g. use widget, Widget or widgets not all three. It’s worth checking out popular tags for ideas of what to use — check out Edublogs tag cloud.

Changing my Mobile Technology in the TAFE blog from the old system of just categories to now using categories and tags did take time — I had to sort through 223 posts. If you’ve got lots of old posts it may be better to stick with how you’ve been doing it and add a search widget to the top of your blog.

FINAL THOUGHT

I’m definitely not an expert with categories and tags; thanks to all the people who helped me out in coming to terms with using them.

Recommend you also check out the difference between pages and posts plus how you can use categories to separate different subjects or classes on a blog.

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