Accompanies a workshop delivered at the University of York. Workshop includes a full text guide and individual guidance through a practical session.

1. Matt Cornock
University of York
http://www.flickr.com/photos/elston/41311696
Introducing blogs

2. What is a blog?
Type of website
Specific
audience
Way of
disseminating
content
Formed of
‘posts’
Clearly defined
purpose
Way of
provoking
discussion

3. What types of blog are there?
Personal
Local
Global
Professional
Educate
Entertain

4. Why blog?
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•
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•
•
Establishing your online presence
Discussion with niche interests
Self-promotion
Process of re-thinking an issue
Ownership and individual voice

5. Blog aims
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•
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•
Must be interesting and/or useful
Not a journal article
Must be digestible
Engage and encourage discussion

6. Features of a blog
Title / logo
Navigation / pages
Post title
Previous posts
Post content
Twitter / social
media
Tags
Commenting

7. Features of a blog
• Clear title / branding
• Tag line
• Posts
–
–
–
–
Title
Date
Author
Tags
• About page
• Contact / contributor
details
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•
Recent posts block
Twitter block
Commenting
Blog roll

8. Task
• Plan your blog [Task A]
• Sign up to Wordpress [Task B]
• Create your blog site [Tasks C and D]
– Think carefully about your web address
(Handout provided)

9. Writing style
Considerations
• Write for a specific
audience
• Titles are crucial
• First lines of the first
paragraph are crucial
• Structure the post with
headings
• Beginning, middle, end
• Reflection, not description
Writing for an audience
Official vs unofficial capacity
International vs local
Prior knowledge and academic level
Acronyms, abbreviations, technical terms
Academic reference vs casual
references/linking

10. Search engine friendliness
Good practice
• Precise use of keywords
• Well-structured with
headings
• Getting to the point in the
first few lines
• Selected linking out
Bad practice
• Keyword stuffing
• Headlines that are long
• Sub-headlines that are
abstract
• Paying for links to your site

11. Blog post workflow
Write
Post
Preview
Draft
Publish

12. Tags and categories
Tags
Categories
• Search-friendly
• Collect together similar
posts
• Summarises post
content
• Search-friendly
• Collect together similar
posts
• Summarises blog
content
Essential for search
Good for
larger sites

13. Task
•
•
•
•
•
Plan your first posts [Task E]
Write your About page [Task F]
Remove the ‘Hello World’ post *Task I+
Write your first blog post(s) [Task H]
Tweet about it!
(Handout provided)

14. Beyond text
• Include images that represent your topic
– Creative Commons
– Public Domain
– NOT Google Images
• Infographics and charts
– infogr.am
– visual.ly

15. Matt Cornock
University of York
http://www.flickr.com/photos/elston/41311696
Measuring impact

16. Twitter
•
•
•
•
Retweets
Mentions
Favorites
Bit.ly + stats

17. Blogs
• Hits
• Commenting
• Linking
• Allow time

18. Tweets and citations
‘Highly tweeted articles were 11 times more
likely to be highly cited than less-tweeted
articles’
Eysenbach, G. (2011) ‘Can Tweets Predict Citations?’, Journal of Medical
Internet Research, 13(4). http://www.jmir.org/2011/4/e123/

19. High impact blogs
• Make authors aware of your work
• Guest post
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2011/11/15/world-bank-dissemination/

20. Tools
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•
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Impactstory.org
http://technorati.com/
http://www.bing.com/toolbox/submit-site-url
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/s
ubmit-url?continue=/addurl
• Academia.edu

21. General promotion
• Email signatures
• Department profiles
• Cross-linking between services

22. References
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Ashton, M. (2011) The benefits of academic blogging, Dr Matthew Ashton’s Politics blog.
http://drmatthewashton.com/2011/05/08/the-benefits-of-academic-blogging/ (Accessed on 10 July 2012).
Evans, J. and Day, A. (2014) Twitter for Researchers [Prezi]. http://prezi.com/f9ivxz4pkloj/twitter-for-researchers/ (Accessed on 11
February 2014).
Golash-Boza, T. (2011) So, You Want to Start an Academic Blog? Four Tips to Know Before You Start, Get A Life, PhD.
http://getalifephd.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/so-you-want-to-start-academic-blog-four.html (Accessed on 10 July 2012).
Heathfield, S. M. (N.D.) Blogging and Social Media Policy Sample, Human Resources, About.com.
http://humanresources.about.com/od/policysamplesb/a/blogging_policy.htm (Accessed on 16 February 2012).
Johnson, K. A. (2011) ‘The effect of Twitter posts on students' perceptions of instructor credibility’, Learning, Media and Technology,
36(1), 21-38.
Might, M. (N.D.) 6 blog tips for busy academics. http://matt.might.net/articles/how-to-blog-as-an-academic/ (Accessed 18 February
2014).
Mollet, A., Moran, D. and Dunleavy, P. (2011) Using Twitter in university research, teaching and impact activities: a guide for academics
and researchers. LSE Public Policy Group. http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/files/2011/11/PublishedTwitter_Guide_Sept_2011.pdf (Accessed on 11 February 2014).
Patel, N. (2011) Neil Patel’s Guide to Blogging, Quicksprout. http://www.quicksprout.com/2011/11/14/neil-patels-guide-to-blogging/
(Accessed on 16 February 2012).
Patel, S. (2011) 10 Ways Researchers Can Use Twitter. Networked Researcher.
http://www.networkedresearcher.co.uk/2011/08/03/10-ways-researchers-can-use-twitter/ (Accessed on 11 February 2014).
Potter, N. (2013) Blogging in academia [Prezi]. http://prezi.com/56puh4lelpgw/blogging-in-academia/ (accessed on 18 February 2014).
Potter, N. (2013) Twitter for Researchers [SlideShare]. http://www.slideshare.net/thewikiman/twitter-for-researchers-22968557
(Accessed on 11 February 2014).
Rowse, D. (2005) Ten Tips for writing a blog post, Problogger. http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/12/30/tens-tips-for-writing-ablog-post/ (Accessed on 16 February 2012).