Who Said You Can Blog!

In the upper right corner of this page, please see links to student blogs under Student Blogs.

List of their titles in alphabetical order:

An Exploration of the Benefits of Music

Bread Therapy

Hobby Madness

K-pop review

Progressive School Problems: A Look at Race and Gender Issues at a Progressive Place

Staccato

TalChum

The Cultic Mindset

The Jazz Noob



Follow the links, read and comment!

When Traffic is a Good Thing!

Driving Traffic To Your Blog aka Getting People to Read Your Blog


Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22006588@N08/4370333194/

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1. People can sign up through an RSS reader to receive your blog in their email inbox. Since people check their email at least once a day, an RSS reader will send your post to their inbox.

2. Connect to your other social media: facebook, twitter.

3. Use social bookmarking, such as StumbleUpon and delicious, which are aggregators of content.

4. Use your URL in all materials, like the signature line in email.

5. Reach out to bloggers who write about the same or similar topics. Bloggers are generous and exchanging links with them and guest blogging are great ways to increase traffic.

6. Comment on other blogs to engage more readers.

Now that you have traffic, don't fall asleep...


Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/swatchonphotos/3106820815/


Check Out Your Analytics!

Pay attention to:

* Where your readers come from
* What time of day you get the most traffic
* What browsers they are using
* Track the performance of your key words

How To Get Readers to Love Your Content

Photo courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/newharmonicartz/89142574/


Do you have visions of crowds of people rushing to read your post?



Photo courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2369111942/

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Tips for Writing Great Content and Engaging Headlines

1. Write stop and stay to read this blog headlines. How creative should your headlines be? Creative enough to engage readers but not so creative that your blog or post won't be picked up in a googled key word search of the topic.

2. Remember KISS? Keep It Short Smartypants!

3. Oh, and there is another S: simple. Simple language in post and headlines makes reading easier!
 
4. Link, link, link! Add links to relevant websites and blogs because people tend to click and bounce around the internet; they do not usually stay very long on any one page. Try to link to blogs or websites on the same or similar topics. 

5. Think about rankings and use key words when writing content

6. Format text: use bold, italics, bullets. This helps to break up the content and makes reading easier



Photo courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/coolmel/128137848/


7. Include photos and other media. Blogs with big, in-your-face photos get read more!

8. Break up paragraphs with lots of images and lists

9. Create a schedule for writing posts and set it up on your calendar

10. Link to facebook to drive traffic to your blog

11. Use the keywords in headlines and content with which you want your blog, post or website to be found

12. Make sure your content is useful and unique. Originality is key for a successful blog.

13. Target your readers by researching your actual or potential readers by asking for feedback and posting surveys

14. Use tags and labels!


Intrepid commenters, in what order, from most important to not as important, do you think these items should be ranked?

Writing 2.0: Why Aren't You Blogging?

In today's media and information saturation age, readers tend to skim as well as abandon websites and blogs before finishing reading the current page.

How do you set up and maintain a blog that can not only catch a reader's initial attention but also turn this person into a loyal reader who consistently returns and shares your content?

(drum roll please... )

Blogging Best Practices

* First, consider why you want to set up a blog. This consideration should influence the theme that you choose as well as what kind of navigation your blog should include.

* Second, you must blog frequently and on a regular schedule. At least once a week, but two to three times a week is best. Even better to post at the same time on the same day. Readers love consistency!


* Third, keep your posts between 200 to 300 words. Think KISS: Keep It Short Smartypants! No one wants to read your magnus opus online.

* Use lots of images to help your reader move quickly through the content. Quickly comprehending your content motivates reading and brings them back!

* Interact with your commenters. How? Send a thank you or add a thank you for commenting plugin and visit commenters' websites (if they link to it). When you engage your commenters, you build loyalty!


Homework: In 100 words, can you think of any other best practices for creating the kind of blog that will win a weblog award? Comment away!

Writing Best Practices 1.0 (Ye Olde Essay)

Essay Writing Best Practices

* What Am I Interested In?

Essay writing is best served, especially in the pre-writing or thinking (if you don't pre-write) stage, by thinking broadly about the topic then refining the topic to a concise and focused thesis before writing the essay.

Students should always begin writing from a place of interest from within the assigned topic, whether it is about a novel, play, poem, or general interest.

* When To Begin the Magnus Opus (Great Work)? 

Students should not begin writing until they know what they want to say. Trust me; it's a good idea! 

But...what if I don't know what I want to write about? Students can free write until they figure out what they want to say.

Tip: Free writing is writing whatever comes to mind when you think of the topic. Don't censor thoughts during free writing!

Just don't begin writing the essay until you know what you want to write.

* I Have Something to Say aka the Thesis

A thesis is the main argument of your paper otherwise known as what you are writing about.

Tip: It should be one sentence, takes a stance, and is something with which someone (the reader) can agree or disagree.

* Audience, Readership & Missed Opportunities

Students typically think about the teacher when writing essays for class.

Oh no, will this get an A?

This question is a missed opportunity by students to think about what they want to say and why.

In essay writing, students have to figure out what kind of person would read the topic of their essay and how informed this person is.

Tips: typically, in English literature papers, for canonical and well-read books, the standard is to assume a reader who has read the novel. If the novel is little known, then the essay should include a brief summary paragraph immediately after the introduction.

Questions to Ask from Owl at Purdue (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/587/1/):

• Who is the audience for your writing?
• Do you think your audience is interested in the topic? Why or why not?
• Why should your audience be interested in this topic?
• What does your audience already know about this topic?
• What does your audience need to know about this topic?
• What experiences has your audience had that would influence them on this topic?
• What do you hope the audience will gain from your text?

* To Be Informal or Not…

Is this even a question? Formal for essay writing.

* Hexes & Curses: That Infernal Grammar!

I know, you never learned grammar or you don’t retain the rules of grammar.

However, think in terms of clarity. Think of writing sentences that develop no more than one or two complete ideas.

Tip: A sentence is a complete idea.

Comments: Class, what other Best Practices for Essay Writing can you think of? Post a 100 word comment below in response. Stay tuned for tomorrow's post, which is on Best Practices for Writing 2.0 (Blogging).

Getting Started on Writing for a Blog

Getting Started

What is a blog?

A blog is a shortened form of the word weblog. It is either a stand-alone website or part of a larger website where new content is posted frequently by an individual or group of individuals. These entries can be opinion pieces, tutorials, affiliated with a company and the selling of its product(s) or service(s), commentaries, online diaries, and more. Entries are typically posted in reverse chronological order, with the most recent post being first. Blogs typically focus on a particular topic and combine different kinds of content, i.e. text, music, video, audio, and photo, that relate to this topic. They also include links to other blogs and websites that focus on similar if not the same topic. Blogs, therefore, have a focus, which is developed over entries posted. They also do not require much technical skill.

Blogs allow the author, otherwise known as the blogger, to communicate his or her ideas with a wide audience via the internet. The blogger is able to build an online community of those with similar or shared interests by writing about what matters to him or her. Physical location, consequently, becomes unimportant in the creation of a virtual community through shared interests.

Blogs typically have a comment feature that allows readers to post feedback on the post.


Why blogging is different from academic writing

With blogging the blogger has to think about audience even before he or she starts the blog. Unlike writing for class where only the teacher or a couple other students will read his or her writing, blogs are public writing and usually written in a conversational tone. This means that once the blogger hits the publish button, the content of the blog post is available to any one on the internet to read and its tone is far more informal than in-class writing.


Questions to consider in responding to this post for homework:

What is the value of blogs? Why are blogs so popular? Have they changed writing? How have they changed writing? What kind of writing practices are best for blogging? Have blogs changed reading practices? How do you read a blog similarly or differently from a novel, article in a newspaper or journal?

Comments should be 150 words.