http://achls.org A step by step intro to blogging or students at The American College of History and Legal Studies, in Salem, New Hampshire

1. Intro To Blogging

2. What is a blog?
blog/blôg/Noun: A Web site on which an
individual or group of users record
opinions, information, etc. on a regular basis.
(wikipedia)

3. Why Blog?
•Low cost or free
•Easy to update
•Make connections and network
•Develop a relationship with your readers
–Readers who come to the ACHLS site from the blog spend more
time there and visit more pages than users who find us thru search.
•Become a thought leader
•Great SEO value (we’ll get to that later)
•Bring more people to your website – websites with blogs get
55% more traffic
•Credibility – people trust sources where they find the most
credible answers

4. Howto Access Your Blog
• Logging in:
– http://kevinm.americanhistorynewsnetwork.org/
wp-admin/

5. Your Blog Dashboard

6. Step One: Create a New Post

7. Blog Away!

8. Blog Tool Bar
•The tool bar works just like a Word •If you prefer you can write your blog
toolbar – allowing you to posts in another editing program like
bold, center, spell check, underline etc. word and then cut and paste it into your
blog, but in order to preserve your
•Unless you know HTML- make sure you formatting
are using the “Visual” panel. •click on the appropriate icon – t for
text file, w for word file
•If you are using the visual panel, as you •copy your text into the panel
type the input box will show you exactly provided
what your blog will look like when it is
published (almost!) •If you do not see the T and W options in
your toolbar, click on the “show/hide
kitchen sink” icon on the top right hand
side of the top row

9. Publish!

10. What Does Your Blog Look Like?
Note the opportunity for
readers to subscribe to your
blog via RSS or email –
every ACHLS student blog
has its own RSS feed.
Readers can share your post
to Facebook, Twitter, Linked
and more, and can print or
email it directly from the
post.

11. Combined Student Blog

12. RSSfeed
• An Rss feed lets you syndicate content
• …often dubbed Really Simple
Syndication) RSS is a family of web feed
formats used to publish frequently
updated works—such as blog
entries, news headlines, audio, and
video—in a standardized format.[2] An
RSS document (which is called a
"feed", "web feed",[3] or "channel")
includes full or summarized text, plus
metadata such as publishing dates and
authorship. (wikipedia)

13. Google Reader is a very popular rss
feed

14. Blogging Basics
Adding Links and Images

15. Adding Links
• Why add links?
– a great way to add value to your reader
– A great way to build better SEO (get your blog found by
search engines)
– At it’s essence the internet is made up of linked data
• When do you add a link?
– When you are referring to another source of information
like an article or another blog
– To provide context
– To further illustrate your point or story
– To link back to a previous post that you wrote

16. How To Add A Link
1. Highlight the text you want to link
2. Click on the icon that looks like a chain link

17. How To Add A Link Cont.
1. Fill in the url
2. Give the link a title, the
words you are linking is
usually perfect
3. Check “open link in a
new window”
Or
1. To link to your own
blog post use the
search box or choose
from the list provided.

18. Completed Link

19. Add Images
Why use images?
• Makesyour content more visually appealing to
readers.
• Breaks up blocks of text
• Blog posts that include pictures typically see
more traffic and more engagement than blog
posts that are pure text

20. Where Do I find images
• Images should be either owned by you, Creative
Commons Images or images in the Public Domain
“Creative Commons licenses provide a flexible range of
protections and freedoms for authors, artists, and
educators.” – CreativeCommons.org
• Twogreat places to find Creative Commons
pictures and public domain images
– Flickr.com
– Wikimedia.com

21. How To Find Creative Commons On
Flickr.Com

22. How To Find Creative Commons On
Flickr.Com –Step 2
Scroll to the
bottom of the
page….

23. Download Your Great Picture
Remember to note the name of the
author

24. Upload Your Picture To Your Blog
Post

25. Select The Picture From Your
Hard-drive

26. Add Image Information And Insert It
Into Your Blog
1. Give the Picture an appropriate title
2. Fill in the alternate text (this describes
the picture)
3. Add the authors name and source in the
caption (you can add other appropriate
text here as well
4. Fill in the description if you like (similar
to alt text)
5. Link to the images source
6. Choose where you want your image to
appear
7. Choose the size you want
8. Click Insert

27. And There It Is!

28. Wikimedia Commons Works Much
The Same Way…
http://commons.wikimedia.org/

29. Share Your Blog!
• Let everyone know – post it on
facebook,and/or Twitter

30. How Do I Increase My SEO?
• What is SEO?
– SEO stands for search engine optimization. It is a
way to organically increase the traffic to your site
by speaking to search engines in the language that
they understand (meta, tag, category, title tag)

31. Basic Important SEO elements
• Categories and Tags help your blog get found
by readers and search engines alike.
– Categories are broader than tags. A category is a
general topic ie. George Washington
– Tags are terms that are specific to a particular post
ie. portraits, Gilbert Stuart,

32. Categories and Tags

33. Your Blog Has A Number Of SEO
Elements Built Into It
Scroll down below your
edit pane to find SEO
options:
•Custom Title Tag
•Meta Description
•Meta Keywords

34. What It Looks Like
Code view….
Browser View…

35. One Last SEO Tip
• Change the permalink
– Every blog post has its own personal address or url. In
blogging this is called a permalink. It will pre-populate
with the title of your post. By editing the permalink
using slightly different language than the post’s title
you are giving yourself one more opportunity to tell
search engines about the content of your post.

36. SEO Review
• Assign a category to every blog post
• Add tags to every blog post
• Create a custom title tag
• Write a meta description
• Insert meta-tags
• Edit your permalink

37. Best Practices
• Blog often – people who blog 20 or more
times a month see the most traffic
• Blog posts should be at least 300 words.
• Concentrate on providing value to your reader
• Use links and images
• Be authentic.
• Be controversial (authentically)

38. What should I blog about
•Have a differing opinion with someone in class?
Blog about it?
•Loved a book? Blog about it!
•Did something fun over the weekend? Blog
about it!
•Political issue that is really getting your goat?
Blog about it!

39. What happens to my blog when I
leave ACHLS?
•Easily export all of your posts to your new blog
•Forward your personal feed address, so you
don’t lose any subscribers