Basic Blogging Presentation by Deppe Communications
(NOTE TO READERS: This is from a recent presentation I gave to a small business networking group)
Blog: a type of website updated regularly with new content.
Most blogs are written by a single person and reflect the interests and opinions of that person.
Business blogs educate, inform and engage customers
According to Moo.com, by 2012 62% of all businesses have a blog
| Credit: http://www.gcflearnfree.org/blogbasics |
Blogging for Money
- host advertisements from Google
- sell products
- publish blog posts in the form of a book or article online
CAUTION: Making a large amount of money from blogs is RARE!
Getting Started
- Figure out your goals - what do you want to accomplish with your blog?
- What topic do you want to write about? Keep it as narrow as possible - you can always start a second blog, or a third!
- make a list of 6 - 12 (max) keywords you will include in your posts to help with SEO
- Who is your audience?
- Why are you blogging and what benefit will your audience get from your blog?
- How often do you want to blog (once a week is about minimum)
- What will you name your blog? Make sure it is related to the topic so people will know right away what it is about. Keep it short and easy to remember.
- What kind of design will your blog have?
- How are your writing skills? (Be honest!)
- How much personal information will you share?
-Make a list of blog topics you want to cover and update it regularly. ‘
- Create a posting schedule for your blog if that helps keep you on track. Add it to your calendar.
| Credit: http://www.gcflearnfree.org/blogbasics |
Blogging Services
Wordpress
- can act as both a website and a blog; most popular service
- can take a little while to get familiar with how it works, but there are lots of good tools (widgets)
- gives you the advantage of a website with a blog; the blog constantly feeds fresh content into your site, which search engines like.
- there is a lot of free help on the internet including training classes online
- 43% of all bloggers use Wordpress
Blogger
- 35% of blogs are on Blogger
-owned by Google so it shows up well in search engine results and you can sign in with your Google account
- easy to use, easy to design pages
- Tumblr - a microblog
- use Tumblr to share images, videos, links and short posts
- can customize your blog with themes
- does not offer option for readers to leave comments
- trending very well with young people who are leaving Facebook
- Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest - microblogs
- 140 character max on Twitter
- Can use Vine for brief videos
- can post photos
-Facebook is largely for adult users now - teens have fled
- used to stay connected with friends and family
- can post video, photos, links to websites
- business pages can be useful for sharing updates, events, etc.
Attracting Readers
- Post links to your blog on your social media accounts
- post a new link every time you update your blog
- Make sure to proof read before you post
- Use images in your post
- alt tag your images with the topic of the post for SEO
- Use conversational tone - be who you are
- but use good grammar and spelling!
- Find similar blogs and comment on them
- promote other blogs that you like by referencing them in our posts, and by adding links to their blogs
-Use keywords in your blog
- Guest blog on other blogs
About Copyrights and Fair Use (THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE!!)
- Don’t borrow images or content without permission
- if you do get permission, make sure to give credit to the company or person and “used by permission”
- buy photos from Shuttershock, iStock, Dreamstime or other services - for a few dollars you can avoid problems with copyrights
- Use public domain content
- published before 1923
- if you are not sure, check it first
- Take your own pictures and write your own copy to be sure
- you can copyright your own work for your protection
- use Copyscape.com to check to see if other people are using your content - can also be used to make sure something you are paraphrasing does not violate copyright laws.
Fair Use
- you are reviewing or analyzing another’s work and using a small piece of it as part of your blog
- you must give credit to the copyright holder
- you cannot make money from others’ work
- it is OK to embed videos from YouTube or Vimeo as the legal stuff is already built in
NOTE: If someone requests that you remove their material from your website, you should do it ASAP.
Resources
Much of this information, including 2 of the infographics, came from this website:
Other good sites are:
Need more information or want help with your blogging? Contact Deppe Communications at info@DeppeCommunications.com or 904.524.0170.
