All of my research says that blogging can help drive traffic to my TpT store, provide content for teachers, and give me a landing page for everything including an email list.
I started this goal in mid-December because I knew nothing about blogging. I am not a blogger nor do I read blogs.
I Started by Reading and Researching.
So now I do read blogs. I have read so many blogs on how to blog and so many teacher blogs about teaching.
I told my husband that he would get to set up my website. He’s in IT and does read a lot of blogs so it simply made sense for him to create the site.
Our Process
In my research, I heard about Blueprint and Siteground as possible hosts. My husband took a look at both and since I knew he was going to be tackling this part of the process he chose. He wanted to use Siteground.
WordPress is a common website builder used by many people and works with many web hosting services. It’s basically dragging and dropping to create your website until you like how it looks.
Here is a list of the plugins we use:
SEO
SEO is search engine optimization. I’ve listened to many podcasts and read articles all about it and trying to learn to do it better. Basically, SEO is when you write with words that people search a lot. This helps more people find you online.
There are some free places that can help you identify key terms used by people searching online. Google Keywords is one.
There are paid services out there too, but as I am new to all of this I am not ready to invest in them yet.
The Hardest Part
I didn’t know what on earth I could write about that other people might want to read. I didn’t know what I could possibly speak to.
To get over this writer’s block I wrote.
I opened Google Docs every day for a week or two and wrote for at least 10 minutes. The funny thing was that once I started writing it got so much easier.
Writing Productively
Now that I was writing I wanted to make sure I was using my time well. I had read that 1 blog post could take anywhere from 3-10 hours to write. If I am honest I just do not have that much time to spend on a blog post. I have a toddler and so I have to make it happen faster or it won’t happen at all.
The hardest part of writing was coming up with topics. To ensure this was not an issue I simply started a doc with ideas. Whenever I came up with an idea I opened up my phone and added it to the doc. It has provided me with a good list to work from.
Now when I sit down to write I can simply start.
Blog Formating
To write a blog had to learn how to format it. There is too much information out there about this. Here are some key points.
- Headings – Lots of different levels of headings. They remind me of what you might see in a textbook back in school, but not so heavy.
- White space – Let’s face it people are lazy. Lots of room on your page without text is a good thing. It’s not cheating.
- Short Sentences – The sentences should be interesting and informative. However, keep it short. Again people are lazy and don’t want to read long sentences.
- Short paragraphs – If your readers are overwhelmed because there is too much text on their screen they will hit the back button. To prevent this you need to hit the enter button.
- Lists – People like to read articles online with lists. They are short, concise, and easy to skim.
- Pictures – Pictures are like white space. They break up the page so your readers don’t leave the page.
The Best Blogging Lesson
The best lesson I learned from starting a blog was that I need to value my experience.
Over my years of teaching, I learned a lot of things that I took for granted. I learned a lot of things from the other teachers I worked with. I had trouble realizing that my experience could help others. By writing about my experience I can impact others’ lives.