Before you create your first blog, you may want to do some online soul searching first. Consider the following questions:
- How many blogs and web sites have you visited in your lifetime?
- Are they mostly in one subject area, or across different areas of interest?
- Are they about entertainment, education, sports, or news information?
- How many of the sites that you frequently visit are trying to sell you something?
- How do they make money?
- WHY do you keep coming back to them?
- Would you and do you recommend, like or share them with your friends?
Now, here is a series of steps that most bloggers follow when and as they create their new blogs:
- It makes sense that you choose a subject matter that you're passionate about and that you feel you have some expertise in for your blog. How else could you be viewed as an authority figure or guru on a particular subject?
- Once you've decided what your blog is about, try to come up with a catchy title and slogan/tagline. Remember the logo and slogan that you created using MS Publisher? You may considering using these images for your blog as well.
- Choose a layout/structure/design that feels comfortable and won't make things too busy.
Here are a few YouTube Videos that I recommend for learning how to create a free blog using Blogger:
Here are some key elements that you should incorporate into your blog (and for which you will receive bonus points for) are the following:
- Catchy title with a slogan or tagline
- Nice and effective layout (header, content area, sidebar)
- An attractive contrasting background - whether patterned or tiled image that was uploaded
- A Search box, preferably near the upper right part of the home page
- At least 3 posts to your blog
- These posts must have at least one image (pic), one video and one hyperlink to another site, page or file saved on google drive
- Posts must show some value-added content - engaging articles or reviews about items or issues in your subject area and consist of at least 2 paragraphs in length
- At least 3 pages beneath the header with tabs on the navigation menu bar (sample pages include: blog, about, educational, photos, videos, contact, site map, directions, news, policies, events, etc.) You should have no more than 7 page tabs on your navigation bar.
- One of your three pages must be a directions page, where you embed an interactive Google Maps onto the page. (I will show you how to do this in class).
- A sidebar with at least 3 gadgets (blogger's term for widgets)
Extra credit will be given for embedding a sign-up form from Mailchimp within one of the sidebar gadgets, and/or a site map link at the bottom (within the footer area).
Coming soon! Pay attention to instructional videos which I will add to this post over the coming days. You can watch them during the Spring break as you spend time to complete and refine your blogs.
Coming soon! Pay attention to instructional videos which I will add to this post over the coming days. You can watch them during the Spring break as you spend time to complete and refine your blogs.
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