Blogging: Building Your Blog

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Brief and Catchy Title
Quickly and effectively communicate the purpose and content of your post. 

Add in Images
Attract your audience's attention and visually communicate the central idea of your post.

Short and Meaningful Paragraphs
Dense test is difficult to read, so break up your thoughts to add in flow.

Use Bold Subheadings 
Adding in Subheading (in bold) will help the reader's eyes flow down the post.

Add in Supporting Links
Provide a trail for readers to follow back to original sources and supporting information. But don't overlink.

The sources listed here have images and photos that can be downloaded for free with no or limited restrictions.

Creative Commons Image Search
CC Search is a tool that allows openly licensed and public domain works searches across more than 300 million images from open APIs and the Common Crawl dataset. Aggregates results across multiple public repositories into a single catalog, facilitates reuse through features like machine-generated tags and one-click attribution.

Flickr
Images provided are listed under "no known copyright restrictions" and can be shared and used with appropriate attributions. 

Pexels
Provides high quality and completely free stock photos. No attribution required.

Pixabay
Provides royalty free photos and videos. Pictures are shared as part of the public domain with people all over the world.

Unsplash
Unsplash grants you an irrevocable, nonexclusive, worldwide copyright license to download, copy, modify, distribute, perform, and use photos from Unsplash for free, including for commercial purposes, without permission from or attributing the photographer or Unsplash.

Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons is a media file repository making available public domain and freely licensed educational media content (images, sound and video clips) to everyone.

Before you start creating your first blog post, consider the following:

 
Create a Plan

Make sure you have a strong idea about what you want to share within your blog. It is important to know roughly where you want to take your blog before you begin writing your first post. 

 
Select Your Topic

Think about what topic you will be writing about. Also, think about the angle and direction in which you would like to approach your topic from. 

 
Research, Research, Research

Before writing your first post research your topic and collect information and references from reliable and credible sources. And don't forget to include citations and references back to the original sources within your post.

 
Create an Engaging Title

Connect the title of your blog and the title of your post with the content within the entire blog. Catchy and engaging titles will draw your audience into the content you are sharing. 

 
Write Your Blog

When you start writing, consider your desired word count and work from there. Set a timer (20 or 30 minutes at a time) and just write. Remember that it is easier to cut your word count down than it is to add in fluff.

 
Play with the Length

Paragraphs, and even sentences, will often be shorter than in standard academic writing. (And this is a good thing!) Shorter sentences and paragraphs makes your blog post easier to read and creates a more engaging experience for your audience.

 
Add in Images

Images draw the eye, but too many images add in clutter. Find your happy medium when it comes to images in your blog. Remember: If you are using images, cite them correctly within your work and check out the library's guide for links to Open Access Photos.

 
Edit, and Edit Some More

Plan enough time to edit your blog post. Look carefully at your spelling, grammar, and the overall content and flow of your post. Try to avoid repeating word choices throughout your blog (because we all have favorite words and phrases we like to use). Also, consider if your points come across well, if you have stated your position clearly, and if you have provided enough detail and information.