Blogging Courses as a Career; Blogging is an art of publishing information on a website. This information could be in the form of writing, photography and other media.
A blogger is a person who owns or maintains a blog.
To successfully run a blog, one requires a deep knowledge of blogging courses. These courses include;
- Digital marketing(introduction)
- Types of websites
- Domain
- WordPress
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Identifying blog topics
A. INTRODUCTION TO DIGITAL MARKETING
Digital marketing also known as online marketing. It is like every other market. The difference is that digital market exists only online.
examples of digital marketing include;
- Blogging
- Social media marketing
- Email marketing
Blogging
Blogging requires the use of tools such as gadgets( laptop, phone, desktop computer), website(E-commerce, magazine, etc.), branded asset(logo, icon, acronyms, etc.), video content( video ads, product demo, etc. ), image, written content(product description), reviews and social media pages.
Review entails other people’s opinion of your product.
How do you maintain a blog?
Blog maintenance include; posting articles, information, update plugins, theme installation.
B. TYPES OF WEBSITES
There are basically 3 types of websites that yield greater income.
- Tools websites
- Blog websites
- Forum websites
Tools websites;
This is basically for software. It is usually used by developers E.g. SST- Small SEO tools.
SST is used for analyzing contents.
Blog website
This is basically for writing contents E.g. webgigo.com, gingoutweb.com
Forum website
This is a site where people gather to discuss. E.g. Havoctech.com
Other subdivisions of website include;
1. E-commerce
This is an online store where you buy, sell, make payment online. E.g. Amazons, Shopify.
2. Corporate website
Almost same as e-commerce but varies in that payments are made online. It only displays the store but has no option for buying. Corporate websites displays the goods.
3. Brochure
This is a small business website. It only displays the page about the business i.e. the contact. E.g. www,wareface.com
4. Crowdfunding
This is a platform where someone opens it for people to make donations.
5. Magazine/News websites
This is basically where you get news update including music and recent update. E.g. dailyupdate.com
6. Social media
Basically created to meet people from different places E.g. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.
7. Video/Streaming
Used for video downloads
8. Educational website
Used for scholarships, quizzes E.g. who wants to be a millionaire.
9. Portal websites
Provides information in other to provide emails and alerts. Basically used by institutions. E.g. ebsu.edu.ng
C. DOMAIN
Involves the name of he website, what the website is all about.
This is the first thing you think about in creating a site.
Choose a domain name based on what you are going to be writing about.
There are websites where you can choose a domain name E.g. whois.com
After choosing a domain name, host the site. After site selection, install in a WordPress transforming it into a WordPress site.
Things to consider before choosing a domain;
- Does it align with your brand?
- How lengthy is it? the shorter the better.
- Is it SEO friendly
- Avoid the use of characters
- What is the structure of the write up
- The URL should be understandable,
- How popular is your domain extension (.com, .org, .NET, .org.ng)? .com has the advantage of versatility although it is more expensive than others.
- The domain should give insight of the website
D. WORDPRESS
WordPress is a content management system(CMS). It is a platform used to build and maintain websites without coding language.
WordPress was developed in the year 2003 by an American developer Matt Mullenweg and an English developer Mike Little.
It is an open source software. This means that is not protected under copyright or trademark. It is under general public license.
With WordPress, you can create any type of website.
WORDPRESS DASHBOARD
The WordPress dashboard is a private admin area where you can login to your WordPress from. You have the opportunity to customize the login details through your dashboard.
Customizing the WordPress dashboard
This involves;
- Understanding WordPress plugin
Basic WordPress plugins include; Jetpack, SEO tools( SEO title, slug, meta-description), W.P contact form, editors( blog editor and classic editor).
Other WordPress plugins include; Broken link checkers, Insert header and footer.
E. SEO
Types of search engines include; google, Bing, yahoo, Yandex, baidu, duckduckgo.
Search engines consist of 3 parts;
Crawlers, index and an algorithm.
Readability and SEO:
a readable task is a well structured task. The structural elements include; Introduction, Body and Conclusion.
Readability is important for the audience and their reading experience. It entice readers to go to your website. It also entice readers to stay on your websites.
Use scannable texts (incorporate paragraphs, subheadings and topic sentences).
F. IDENTIFYING BLOG TOPICS
Identifying a blog topic is simply how to get an information for your blog post.
Ways of identifying blog topics:
Get relevant data:
Getting only relevant data will help you not to get lost in a vast of information or data that will be available through many sources. Identify your audience and put up with only the most important to them and your goal.
Competitor’s most popular post:
Your competitor is your source of information. Identify his most shared post online or on social media and write about it. You can identify your competitor’s most popular post through tools like ” Socialcrawlytees “.
Hottest relevant content on social media:
Checkout the most trending topics on social media and write about them. Always dig into your social community and keep your blog post updated.
Google searches:
Search the topic you are writing about on google, get the most relevant information on your topic and elaborate on it to avoid copyright infringement.
Keyword Search:
Keyword is a word tat describe the content on a page best. it is a word you’d like your post to be known fir. You can do your keyword search in many ways: Research with keyword tools E.g. ubersuggest, simrush etc. In keyword tools, you just have to paste your keyword on the tool and ut spins and brings up many suggestions on the keyword. Also, keyword research can be done using google search.
- Ask relevant questions: Ask your audience questions and get information from them.
- Rinse and Repeat: Go to your most relevant post, identify the most shared and elaborate more of them as your audience want to hear more about it.
- Find out those things that are missing on your competitor’s blogpost. This is a source of relevant information for you as people want to hear the missing information.
- Search blog topics/ideas online: Any topic you get through blog ideas, make sure you elaborate on it to avoid copyright infringement.
- Share your opinion about other people’s work as people need to hear different ideas on their work.
Blogging As A Career
Blogging Courses and What you should Note: As a blogger, you’ll get to express yourself and share your knowledge, refine your writing skills, make money online, and build your professional network. The same career can also become your ticket to earn more exposure, become an authority in the industry, market your business, and build an online portfolio.
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